She's All I Wanna Be

Album: I Used To Think I Could Fly (2022)
Charted: 14 44
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Songfacts®:

  • This fiery track finds Tate McRae speaking to her boyfriend about another girl she can't compete with. She's feeling insecure because her love rival has a tiny waist, a perfect smile, and a wealthy father. Her sweetheart tries to assure her there's no need to get stressed, but the Canadian singer is convinced he's attracted to the other girl. She's got everything McRae hasn't got and is all she wants to be.
  • "She's All I Wanna Be" pairs McRae for the first time with songwriter/producer Greg Kurstin. The American hitmaker has also worked with Kelly Clarkson ("What Doesn't Kill You (Stronger)"), Sia ("Cheap Thrills") and Adele ("Hello," "Easy On Me").
  • Kurstin played all the instruments on the track: guitar, bass, drums, piano, synthesizer and keyboards.
  • "She's All I Wanna Be" originated on a bad day when Tate McRae was beating herself up as she scrolled through her social media feed. "I was hating everything about myself," she told Genius. "I was comparing myself to every single girl, and it literally left me the most bitter taste in my mouth."

    That disagreeable experience led to this song.
  • Tate McRae originally wrote "She's All I Wanna Be" as a ballad. After feeling like she wanted to create something edgier, she and Kurstin reworked the track, giving it some punk energy.

    "I wrote this song in like an hour - and then four days later, I emailed Greg, and I was like, 'Hey, is there any way you could turn this into an upbeat, poppier song?'" McRae told Apple Music. "He came back with this kick-ass guitar part and totally made it into this really cool punk song. It totally shifted the energy and brought a whole new life to it."
  • The video features McRae and dancer Bailey Sok competing for a role at an audition. The singer and her mother came up with visual's concept, inspired by the choreography for the 1995 movie musical A Chorus Line. "I wanted to recreate it and put it into this theme, 'she's all I wanna be,'" because dance auditions are all about being competitive and toxicity and comparison," McRae told Audacy's Julia.

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