Words by Erandhi Mendis // Photography by Bảo Ngô
A few years ago Jensen McRae asked her mother a loaded question – “is it frivolous to pursue music at a time when the world is burning?”
The creation of art in times of crisis is not a new moral dilemma. From wartime poetry to civil-rights anthems, artists have long worked in the shadow of upheaval, translating collective fear and resistance into something shareable. So while it is not new, it is a question that a fresh generation must navigate at a time where political, economic and ecological burdens overlap with unique instability.
It feels unsurprising then, the way I discovered Jensen: during the pandemic, in my childhood bedroom listening to a song she wrote about getting vaccinated at Dodger stadium. McRae had already been making music for a few years when she recorded the now viral song Immune (shared on what was then known as twitter) first conceived as a playful Phoebe Bridgers pastiche, though the lyrical dexterity quickly outshone the joke. The song was an early shorthand for listeners like me into McRae’s artistic identity: intimate, diaristic and deeply unafraid to bring the real world in.
So where is the balance? The Los Angeles born singer-songwriter has arrived at an answer of sorts – though not without discussion. “I was talking to [my mom] asking should I be doing something that’s more tactile, more obviously and conspicuously in service of revolution or whatever? She basically said, well what do you think you would do?” McRae went on to recount a series of jobs, that while all noble and altruistic – she admits she felt ill-suited to. Her mother counters with the disarmingly wise: “Well, aren’t you very good at what you do?”
The premise borders on obvious: usefulness takes different forms, and that art, so often dismissed as indulgence – can function instead as a quiet necessity for those in roles of service. McRae recalls meeting Florida congressman Maxwell Frost, the first member of Gen Z to be elected to Congress and learning that he listened to her music. “All those people doing the work of revolution still come home at the end of a long day and need music to listen to,” she says. “That is my job.”
This doesn’t mean McRae shies away from difficult subjects with her music or platform. She learned a softer power early; in high school, where observation felt more natural than participation. “I’ve always felt most comfortable watching things unfold from a distance and retreating somewhere to record them for myself, whether that’s in a journal or in the form of a song or a poem or any other means,” she admits. “I didn’t really fit in at my private school, which was predominantly white. I felt like wanting to be a musician from a very young age was something that was isolating. People didn’t understand why I wanted to do it.”
College was different. McRae received a full ride to attend the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music, graduating with a degree in popular music performance. “Every person there had the same dream that I had – and the social currency was being yourself, being as uniquely you as possible – all these things I didn’t feel like I had permission to do when I was younger. I was able to channel all of the things about myself that I had felt ashamed of or I felt made me strange and put them to good use.”
That permission has hardened into a cornerstone of McRae’s creative process – one she’s still refining, even as she prepares to step onto Australian soil for the first time this summer at Laneway Festival. “Whenever people ask me for writing advice, I’m like, you have to write a bunch of bad stuff. You have to stop being ashamed of creating bad art because it’s the only way to get to good art. You have to get the bad art out of your system – I literally call it emotional constipation,” she laughs.
Being okay with doing things imperfectly has been a lifelong project for McRae. She carries the familiar outline of a gifted overachiever, something she pulls apart on Track 5 of her sophomore record Let Me Be Wrong. “I wanted to write a song with that title forever. I just loved the idea of being like, yeah, I’m a failure sometimes and I make a lot of mistakes, I’m not well adjusted and I am embarrassing and that’s fine! I still have value and I can always, no matter what, I can always be improving. I can always be on the trajectory to improve.”
There is a sweet irony in writing a song about the permission to be wrong and hitting it out of the park to critical acclaim but I don’t mention it. McRae doesn’t limit herself to music. An avid journaler from an early age (heavily inspired by 90s cartoon As Told By Ginger – a personal favourite) she now writes in all forms: poetry, fiction, opinion for her substack or when she wants to flex a different muscle, screenplays. “There’s always some form that feels fruitful,” she says, “I can’t really think of a time where I couldn’t make anything. I definitely can think of times where I’m like, every song I’m writing sucks. But I can always pivot to something else. And that always gets the gears turning again.”
So what happens when the engine stalls? McRae resists the idea of creative blockage, but admits that when she feels completely stuck inside her own mind, the only solution is intake. “I have to consume more,” she says. “I have to feed and water my brain with other people’s words.”
“Corinne Bailey Rae’s first album and early Alicia Keys albums, those were so special to me when I was a child. So much Stevie Wonder, especially Songs in the Key of Life. Those albums remind me of when music was really pure to me – my love of it was not complicated by my understanding of it.”
She goes on to talk about Elif Batuman’s novel The Idiot, whose searching, observant narrator moves through youth with a mixture of distance, confusion, and dawning self-awareness that feels uncannily familiar to McRae’s own interior landscape. “It’s my favorite book of all time. I reference it in every interview I do. I’ve read it like eight times. Of course it is a tent pole in my fiction writing, but in my songwriting [too], I feel so connected to that character. Reading it not only drops me into the mindset of that character, but also drops me back into the mindset of my younger self.”
This loyalty to story and craft is most obvious in McRae’s songwriting. You’d be hard pressed to find another lyricist with the deft ability to pull contemporary, biblical and diaristic references together in lines that don’t waste breath. There are no filler words in McRae’s discography, it is one of the skills that sets her apart in a saturated landscape of acoustic pop (find another young talent that compares her ex boyfriend’s failings to losing manna – the miraculous, edible substance provided by God to the Israelites in the Bible).
Most critics linger on McRae’s pen. I understand the awe and interest, but I’ve always been fixated on her topline melodies. When I picked up a guitar and taught myself how to play during the pandemic, her 30 second tiktok vignettes were ones I’d often write to – in this way, speaking to her is dumbfounding.
She smiles at the suggestion, saying melody has always been her challenge. “I’ve always felt melody was my secondary skill set [whereas] I had confidence in lyrics. I don’t have a crazy ego, but when it comes to lyrics, if someone’s like, can I give you notes on [a finished song]? I’m like, no. Melodies, though, I’ve always been much more receptive to feedback and criticism because I know I’m doing a good job, but I’m curious as to how I can improve it.”
Lyrics, she says, can fall out of her as a fully formed song. Melody is a different story. “Some days it’s effortless. And sometimes I can literally feel my brain grinding, trying to figure out where exactly to place my voice – to make it evoke a specific emotion or just to make the song sound less repetitive. Because I have certain places in my voice that feel really good to sing in. And unfortunately, that can get really repetitive if you stay in the same places so I’m always thinking how am I going to make this sound ear catching or unique to not only from the other parts of the song, but from other songs in my discography? There’s a lot of moving parts.”
What emerges is somewhere between mystique and discipline. McRae’s is a mindset shaped by years of close listening: music is more than a vehicle, it is something to study. “Even outside of a formal academic environment, just being a student of music and listening to songs like, why do I like this? Why does this work? What are the tools and tricks this person is using that I can apply in my own work if I ever get stuck?” She’s a student at heart. Once a gifted kid, ever the academic. Herein lies the curiosity of The Idiot that McRae so deeply understands – a hunger for aptitude can carry you far, but living remains a skill no one can study in advance.
Her sophomore record remains a triumph in marrying lived experience with expertly trained craft. The title I Don’t Know How, But They Found Me gleans its name from a line of dialogue from one of her favourite films, ‘Back to the Future.’ Turns out, the same way her childhood music left an imprint, so too did the films she consumed.
“I think the things that you love when you’re a kid stick with you – and you can’t ever form an attachment that strong after a certain age ever again,” she pauses. “Plus I absolutely had a crush on Michael J. Fox.”
It turns out McRae doesn’t even quite know where the fascination with this one lies – “I’m figuring it out while I’m speaking with you,” she says. “I think I’m very enchanted by the idea [of time travel], even though I know if time machines did exist, I would not step foot in one. It’s very romantic just to have more control over a chaotic universe. I think that must be what it is.”
She shares that she’s dating a filmmaker who has robust taste in cinema; she jokes while he shows her the good stuff, she is educating him on the bad stuff. The LA native seldom comments on her relationships, but this is an unprompted organic share which suggests calmness. In the time we have spoken I have complete faith that McRae is being brutally honest with her answers, there is no media trained veneer – instead a thoughtfulness that harkens to the way she writes.
If honesty is the goalpost, art’s value continues to reveal itself in the intimate moments McRae builds. Here, the question of whether art is frivolous begins to dissolve – nothing is trivial about intense vulnerability. It’s obvious McRae is less interested in neutrality than fidelity to what she believes. Beyond her values, she knows that writers and musicians have been a part of revolutions for centuries – her path is no different and she references this as part of her purpose. “Even when I’m writing not directly about politics, Even when I’m just writing about my own life, the idea that I can either provide a mirror or an escape for anyone who’s doing that work is so, so special to me – it’s all I want to do.”
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You can catch Jensen McRae in Australia and New Zealand at Laneway – for ticketing information see here.
Or below at one of her sideshows:
Sydney – Thu 12 Feb 2026 – Metro Theatre – Tickets
Melbourne – Sat 14 Feb 2026 – 170 Russell – Tickets
