If you’re a young person striving to find yourself, chances are you’ve experienced love and heartbreak. So has 19-year-old singer-songwriter Jenna Raine, who uses her storytelling and singing abilities to share her perspective on both experiences. “My goal is to provide lyrics and music that will be such a safe space for people that they feel they can heal from the situation that’s going on in their life, whatever it is,” Raine shares in an exclusive interview with Her Campus.
Raine is a rising superstar who has already achieved success on TikTok with her trending song “see you later (ten years).” On May 5, Raine released her highly anticipated EP Big Dumb Heart, Chapter 1, which consists of five tracks that delve into vulnerable moments from her past — particularly her awkward years in high school. “We’re going back in time and [into] how I felt in high school. It’s kind of the start of my story,” she says. Below, Raine takes Her Campus through Big Dumb Heart, Chapter 1 track by track and discusses the story behind each song.
- Crickets
-
The first track, “Crickets,” is a soft pop song about a close relationship that is slowly failing. The lyrics are open to interpretation. Still, Raine says her inspiration came not from her own experience, but rather from the perspective of a close friend. “I wrote ‘Crickets’ based off a time in high school where my guy best friend told me he was in love with me, and I did not feel the same way,” Raine admits. “I felt really bad and I understood where he may have gotten the idea of it. I don’t think I led him on at all, but … we were best friends for two years. So I wrote a song from his perspective and how he felt about it.”
The song embraces the emotions that come after experiencing a loss, whether that’s a friendship split, a breakup, or simply grieving what you once had. “It’s a really sad thing to feel them just be stripped from your life instantly. And I think that this song really captures that moment.”
- Stupid Cupid
-
Fans of Raine were able to hear the first single and second track from Big Dumb Heart, Chapter 1, “Stupid Cupid,” as early as March, but what they may not be aware of is the story behind it: Raine and her boyfriend entering a long-distance relationship. “I [talked] to the writer about it and I was like, ‘I’m just so terrified,’” she shares. “We wrote ‘Stupid Cupid’ and applied the idea of fear in a long-distance relationship. So it’s all hypothetical — the breakup isn’t what I went through, but it was my overthinking brain in a song.”
The song centers on a person who doesn’t want a relationship to end even after it has failed. Towards the last chorus, the instrumental shifts to a pop-rock sound, portraying the sorrow and intensity of a broken heart. “Stupid Cupid, why’d you do me like that?” says the song’s chorus. “Why’d you send me someone I can’t have?”
“I met my boyfriend before we started dating. We were a thing, and then we weren’t,” Raine says. “And that was really hard because I was like, ‘This is the guy that I could see myself with.’ But the timing wasn’t lining up. I know a lot of people don’t stand by that saying, but I [have] experienced that in my own life.”
- Fade AWAY
-
On“Fade Away,” Raine sings about a person leaving or not being mentally present in a relationship, causing the relationship to deteriorate. She correlates the lyrics to a moment she experienced with her current boyfriend when they separated briefly. “[The song] is how I felt when my boyfriend and I weren’t a thing anymore. It was really hard,” she admits. “And this is kind of the same thing that I went [through] with my guy best friend. When they were stripped [from] my life, it was like, ‘How did you just let go of me so easily?’”
- She’s There
-
“She’s There” provides insight into the mind of a people pleaser. Plenty of Gen Zers struggle with putting others ahead of themselves, and Raine understands this all too well. “It’s what I felt all throughout high school. I was the most joyful and happy out of my friend group, and I was the one who would give the advice that people took,” she says. “I think I put a lot of people in my life who emotionally drained me and I didn’t understand how draining it was until I graduated.”
Raine acknowledges that she still struggles with a people-pleasing mentality. However, she’s gained valuable experience in overcoming it. “One thing that I just learned was, sadly, to love people from a distance.”
- Bad Hearts
-
The EP concludes with “Bad Hearts,” a poignant track about the hardships of a breakup when the other person is easily able to move on. “We actually wrote this song originally as a ballad and it’s about [my] friend when she was [in an] on-and-off [again] relationship. I wrote it as a testament to her and who she is because she was a phenomenal person, a phenomenal girlfriend,” Raine shares. “It [made] me so sad to see that she was in such a terrible relationship and so I wanted to write a song encouraging her to move on.”
Raine’s major objective with Big Dumb Heart, Chapter 1 is for listeners to relate to and learn from her music. “It’s [the end of a] chapter, but also the start of a new chapter, which is just telling my whole entire story,” she says. “So, at the moment, I’m writing songs that represent what I’m going through right now [and] what I think I’m going to be in the future.”