Pop artist Tate McRae released her 16-track album So Close to What on Feb. 21. McRae has also added 23 new tour dates for her Miss Possessive Tour, which will now feature 48 shows in the US and Canada and 33 shows in other countries, spanning over nine months. Along with announcing the new tour dates, she also announced new special guests for her opening acts for the upcoming dates. This includes emerging artist Alessi Rose, who will be performing at her new U.S. tour dates.
The new album is packed with stories that listeners can connect with and relate to their daily lives and past experiences in various ways. And McRae’s explanations of the songs, as well as fans’ interpretations, have made the songs more exciting for me to listen to.
In an interview on Jake Shane’s podcast, Therapuss with Jake Shane, McRae explained that she came up with the title of the album, So Close to What, after she felt like she was “driving towards nothing.” The album’s name is based on the feeling of the “never-ending loop” of the strive toward perfection that she felt during her career and especially on her most recent tour. McRae explained this further by stating that “you make music, you feel proud of something, then you don’t feel satisfied enough with yourself, and then you keep going and going and going, and it’s like, ‘When’s the finish line? When’s the point when you feel like you are fully satisfied?’”
While McRae has felt this way about her music career, I can imagine that many listeners may feel the same way about their jobs, schoolwork, or activities. Through this recurring theme, listeners can relate to McRae’s stories within the album’s songs.
Similarly to how her album is inspired by the feeling of being in a “never-ending loop,” her song “Revolving Door” also communicates this feeling. McRae described to Billboard that this was a “reoccurring theme” in her life where she was “thinking the same thoughts, making the same choices, going back to the same people.” She said her life felt like a “never-ending revolving door.”
The lyrics behind the song “Nostalgia” came to be because of a conversation McRae had with her father. She explained to Billboard that the first few lyrics of the song (“Daddy went to law school and became an architect. Now he’s turning sixty and wonders where the big dream went”) came from the fact that her dad told her that his one regret in life was never becoming an architect, which was his dream. She was surprised that he went through his whole life wishing to do something and never doing it. Her dad told her, “You can’t miss out on things in life. You gotta do what you’re passionate about and do what feels authentic. Otherwise, you’ll feel like life kinda passes you by sometimes.”
Her song emulates this message that you should take chances and not be afraid to go toward the dreams that you have. My favorite lyric from “Nostalgia,” “I bite my tongue ten times a day,” supports this. It shares that there are so many things she didn’t say because she was too scared to, and it spreads the message that we should go for our ambitions instead of going through each day being too afraid to try.
During her breakdown of the song “Greenlight,” McRae described that the song is about the healing process of a relationship where it feels difficult to move on after a breakup. She said, “sometimes when you’re getting into new relationships or new situations and every signal or sign is telling you that it’s okay to move forward, it still can feel like one of the most impossible tasks.” Waiting at a green light and still not being able to go is how she wanted to describe what getting into a new relationship after her breakup felt like.
I think this is a unique way to view this type of situation, and I like that throughout this song, there are ups and downs that are both happy and sad — she reflects on happy memories too, and not just the negative parts of her past relationship. I also believe that this is another universal feeling that people may have. Even if some may not have been in a relationship before, the experience of not feeling ready to move on to something new from a past situation can still hit home for listeners.
All the songs on her album carry deep meanings, but the music video for her lead single, “Revolving Door,” especially does. The music video involves Tate McRae dancing alongside four other dancers in a white room that has 15 doors. According to a post from McRae, the 15 doors represent each track on her album (the 16th track, “Siren Sounds,” was released after the rest of the album as a bonus track).
The part of the music video that stood out to me the most was the moment when she broke down crying from the timestamp 2:42 to 3:42 after singing, “I need a minute” before getting back up to begin dancing again from the top. In this instance, she only needed exactly a minute to get herself together. I found that scene to be very compelling, and it made me think about the cycle of having to do things again and again (such as practicing a dance, in this case) until you get it down perfectly. I think this is a great metaphor for the feeling of going about life working toward your passion over and over and wondering when it will be just right and finally meet others’ expectations.
These are just some of the backstories and meanings behind Tate McRae’s latest album, So Close to What. Overall, the album has left a strong impact on me, as the songs serve as motivation to reflect on life and realize that we are not alone in many of the challenges that are thrown our way.