Photo Credit: Alyssa Yung (@_alyssayung_)
By Alissa Arunarsirakul // January 28, 2021
Jensen McRae is back at it again, folks. One of the most brilliant songwriters we’ve come to know, the 23-year-old pens soul stirring ballads that’ll leave you feeling empty–yet fulfilled. As COVID-19 continues to affect our everyday lives, McRae took it upon herself to write the vaccination anthem of the year: “Immune.”
On “Immune,” Jensen McRae explained,
“A couple of weeks ago, I had this idea about the vaccination anthem. This pandemic has colored pop culture permanently, whether we like it or not. On the way to us, almost inevitably, are pandemic rom-coms and pandemic novels and, in my case, pandemic songs. This song came about partly as a joke, a parody of one of my favorite songwriters of all time, Phoebe Bridgers, who specializes in dark, spare, precise lyrics about Our Unprecedented Times.”
After one listen of “Immune,” you’ll fully understand why McRae deserves to be on the top charts. Inspired by Phoebe Bridgers and the coronavirus pandemic, “Immune” has McRae imagining what it’d be like to actually get the vaccination and the events that’d unfold afterwards. Needless to say, “Immune” would be a fantastic song to hear McRae belting at a drive-in concert–which we’re definitely manifesting.
“As the song took shape, it became less about parody and more about doing what I always do in my writing, which is fusing a cluster of influences to create something beyond imitation. It was also sort of escapist for me — this vaccine rollout is going pretty poorly in California, so it’s nice to fantasize about the day I finally get the shot, even if it’s a fictionalized version of it.”
The Hidden Hits 