Best of Month: AotY #21: Jensen McRae's "Are You Happy Now?" via Human Re Sources
Are You Happy Now? is a record that I really wanted to cover this year but didn’t think I quite had the words for. While it occupied so much of time, I found it disingenuous to say that I found Jensen McRae’s music on an article comparing her to Phoebe Bridgers, that she reminded me of music my family listened to when I was a child and that she’s good despite “just being acoustic” which I normally struggle with stand outs of. All of that felt wrong because she’s just so much more than all of it.
McRae’s voice is beautiful, yes, she also has a sense of writing songs where she makes every note on every song sound so haunting. She also contends with her own self-image issues in a way that doesn’t feel like she’s trying to convince the listener to have body positivity, it sounds like she’s trying to convince herself too and you can say the same thing about her mental state as well. Outside of being a strong songwriter, McRae is also an incredible poet and I catch new impressions of her words on every single spin.
As someone who's been transitioning for two years and is finally feeling the horrors that men show women every single day on a personal level, McRae’s tired, almost bored observations of the men that walk the streets hit me harder and harder as the months go on and the changes take place. I think of “Wolves” every time a man follows me around in a bar or starts a scene with me at my workplace when they realize I’m trans. She also contends with her familial relationships and her ties to spirituality in a way that takes me right to where she’s feeling. Being white I can’t relate to everything she goes through of course, but I can take my own lessons away from the ones her parents taught her in preparation for walking a cruel world.
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