In honor of the announcement of Jensen McRae’s newest studio album “I Don’t Know How But They Found Me!” coming out April 25, I wanted to go over some of the most iconic, devastating and relatable lyrics from her past releases.
McRae is a 27-year-old singer-songwriter from Los Angeles, Calif. who has steadily gained popularity on TikTok since her song “Immune” blew up in 2020. She has opened for artists such as MUNA and Noah Kahan and has her own tour coming up in May.
McRae is a poet who can effortlessly and completely capture the feelings of infatuation, heartbreak and womanhood.
Her most accurate depiction of womanhood has got to be her song “Wolves” where she relays the horror and disgusting normalcy of being sexually harassed and assaulted as a young woman.
She compares the perpetrators to wolves, and details her experiences with them in each verse of the song.
“And though I got away
I never walked the same
Now I bury my smile and show no interest
Now I carry myself a little different
Now I avoid the woods
Now I know the wolves”
She perfectly captures the female rage that brews at these all too familiar situations.
Similarly, McRae captures the rage that comes with being a Black woman pursuing a relationship with a white man in her song “White Boy”. This song reconciles the constant push and pull of wanting to be yourself in a relationship while also wanting to fit a mold that makes you more desirable.
“Trance state, you’re hypnotic
Twirl my hair, watch my voice jump the octave
I don’t like who I am for you
White boy”
“Make you proud” is a song that contains some of the most personally life changing lyrics.
Much of the song is spent believing that McRae is talking to some close loved one, asking them to stick around. As the song unfolds, you realize that McRae is actually talking to her younger self.
She pleads with herself for forgiveness and asks her to stick around to watch it get better.
“If you stick around, I’ll make you proud
At nineteen you still won’t be skinny and you’ll still be loud
And darling, the world’s not against you, someday you’ll climb out, out, out
Don’t hurt yourself, give me a chance to make you proud”
“Adam’s ribs” strikes harder for all the listeners who have loved religion or have made a religion of a lover.
The second I heard the lyrics: “loving you is in my bones” in a song referencing the Biblical creation story of Eve from Adam’s ribs, I knew McRae had found herself a new loyal listener.
Not all of McRae’s love songs are laden with such a sad twist. “Good Legs” is a song about all the relationships that haven’t worked out but have left you better than they found you.
It’s a letter to the lost lovers that you still wish well and a recognition that leaving isn’t always a bad thing.
The whole song contains important and cathartic lyrics, but the most telling verse is the first.
“I think I learned from you
I think I love the girl you made me
Bled out what hurt from you
It’s worthy work but now I’m dizzy”
McRae’s song “Massachusetts” has recently blown up on TikTok, and shares the same sentiment. It is a song about holding onto the things that people leave in your life, for better or worse.
“As long as I live, I’ll remember the names
Of your favorite beers and your video games
The look on your face when you turned twenty-six
And your dad got too stoned, yeah, that one’s gonna stick
You broke me to pieces, but I root for you even though everything went up in flames
I’ll never forget how I bloomed for your gaze or your wall of guitars or your video games”
Finally, it seems only right that we end with McRae’s newest single off of her “I Don’t Know How But They Found Me!” album coming out this April.
“Praying on Your Downfall” has McRae’s iconic tongue-in-cheek writing style and hypnotic melodies.
The goodbye to this lover is less tearful and more like a burning. She makes it very clear that the opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference, and she could not care less.
“I can’t keep begging for what I lost
And cursing tough love from a good God
Keep whistling, boy, I was never your dog
But I’m done praying for your downfall”