Canadian pop star Tate McRae has been booked and busy: Between headlining her world tour and choreographing her elaborate dance moves, she found the time to craft her latest album, “So Close To What,” and one of its standout tracks, “Sports car,” is quickly becoming a fan favorite. In an episode of Variety’s Behind the Song, McRae opened up about her creative process, the meaning behind the song’s sultry lyrics, and explained why there wasn’t an actual sports car in the music video.
“I’ve been writing this album throughout being on tour literally all of last year,” McRae told Variety. “Any chance I got to be in a studio or bring a microphone onto the bus or into hotel rooms, I would try to record anything. It was really an inner look at turning 21 and stepping into my body as a woman for the first time — feeling the repercussions of that, my relationship with the media, going through heartbreak, and falling in love again.”
When it came to “Sports car,” McRae revealed that Julia Michaels played a key role in its inception. “This whole song started because Julia Michaels had this wish for a pop girl to recreate the ‘Whisper Song’ by the Ying Yang Twins. She was dying to do it. I was terrified because I’m such a sucker for melodies. But we started writing this really flirty song, and Grant [Boutin] started playing this beat — this, like, nasty pop girl beat. And as we progressed to the chorus, we found this really cool metaphor — how the feeling of sex and love in a relationship can directly correlate to a sports car.”
McRae acknowledged that this song marked new territory for her — “I’ve never spoken about sex in a song before,” she said. “I think my fans have never really heard me talk about it. I wanted to do it in a way that still felt like me, that still had the metaphors and the storytelling I love.”
She also addressed her fans’ reactions to the track’s music video, and in particular, the absence of an actual sports car. “I know a lot of people hated that I didn’t have a sports car in the video, but I thought it was sick,” she said. Instead, the video took a more symbolic approach: “I could kind of be the sports car in these rooms. I could be the girl who’s on display.”
The video features McRae seated in a chair as she observes herself transform into 12 different characters — a nod to reclaiming her own narrative. Beyond the visuals, she emphasized the deeper meaning behind the concept and her experience with fame.
“Sometimes, when you become a singer, you’re perceived by so many eyes, and you forget what you think and how you feel about things,” she explained. “In this video, it was really important for me to take back control and be like, ‘No, I get to watch this first.’”
It’s apparent that McRae’s “Sports car” is a metaphor for several aspects of her life. “If you actually look at the lyrics, you could literally just be thinking about a sports car the whole time and the speed of it down a road and the adrenaline of it,” she explained. “Then you can also think of it like a relationship or sex.”
However, McRae’s experience in the music industry can also be compared to a high-performance sports car. She uses words like “adrenaline,” “speed,” and “on display” to reference the characteristics of these flashy vehicles — words we could also use to describe McRae’s rapid rise in the music industry and the enormous attention she’s garnered from the public.
McRae also spoke about her passion for writing songs with women songwriters. She explained that when she collaborates with women, they don’t need to say much to grasp the emotions behind the music.
“The girls just know,” she said. “When you hear a beat like that, you’re like, ‘We wanna go dance in a club. We want to feel hot.’” For McRae, sometimes you want to “get vulnerable and feel heartbroken,” but other times, you’re ready to “get nasty.”
With “So Close To What,” Tate McRae has tapped into new creative depths and embraced the complexities of growing up, love and self-perception. “Sports car” is just one thrilling ride in an album full of them.
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