Tate McRae Aims for Self-Made Independence in “Housewife”

Tate McRae returns with “Housewife”, her first single in what many anticipate to be a new era for the Canadian pop singer. In the song, McRae laments the pressures of stardom and how she longs for domestic bliss. But this is a very different kind of homemaker.

A Life Lived Right

Tired of the endless chaos of fame, McRae says her utopia is financial freedom and someone to share it with.

Think my paradise is tabloids and flashing lights,
Truth is, it’s more like loads of cash,
And a nice guy and a life lived right.

The dream of stardom often comes with a cost. And the financial freedom from chart-topping hits also includes the captivity of the person becoming a cultural commodity.

There’s just some things that they don’t tell you, tell you,
And all the dreams they try to sell you, sell you.
The price of fame can take you to your knees,
And when it does, wanna run away with me?

McRae wishes to escape to the tranquil ideal of a housewife. But this housewife is an independent one. She has the cash and won’t be tethered to some dude with old-fashioned ideas.

I just wanna make a lot of money, be my own housewife.
You could be the one I’m calling honey,
Be my sex on the side.
Acres of open stars, headlights of precious cars, life imitating art.
I just wanna make a lot of money, be my own housewife.
Be my, be my.

Pick the Money off the Tree

There’s more escaping and more running away from the vultures in the music business.

This industry will try to kill you, kill you,
But not before they try to bill you, bill you.
They try to take away your wild and free,
And when they do, wanna run away with me?

In the bridge, McRae tells her man to go pluck money from the tree. Then she mixes metaphors and states, “And you right beside me’s just the icing on the dream.”

The song is co-written by McRae and a squad of writers that’s two-thirds of a baseball team’s starting lineup. Still, “Housewife” and its glossy production echo the dream state of McRae’s ambition to be her own self-made missus.

Photo by Edward Berthelot/Getty Images