00:00We want to get vulnerable and feel heartbroken, and then we heard this and we're like, we want to get nasty.
00:08I don't think they've ever heard me over a beat like this.
00:10They've never really heard me talk about sex.
00:14Hey, I'm Tate McRae.
00:15And I'm Grant Boutan.
00:16And we're going to take you behind the song of Sportscar.
00:19I've been kind of writing this album throughout being on tour, literally all of last year.
00:33So it was really interesting.
00:34Any chance I got to be in a studio or bring a microphone onto the bus or into hotel rooms,
00:40I would try to record anything.
00:41A lot of it was just an inner look at turning 21 and stepping into my body as a woman for
00:46the first time.
00:48And sometimes the repercussions of that, my relationship with the media, going through
00:52heartbreak and then falling in love again.
00:54I felt like the whole palette was pretty inspired by early 2000s pop music and anything I can
01:01dance and move to on tour.
01:03Tate and I randomly met through Ryan Tedder on the last album.
01:06I helped do a lot of the finishing production on Greedy.
01:09It was really cool with this project, Tate and I started working a lot more just kind
01:12of like one-on-one.
01:13It was really cool because I feel like when Grant and I, usually we would have these planned
01:18out sessions because obviously you have your days planned out to be like, okay, let's write
01:21the album, let's get the bulk of it.
01:23And then every time that Grant and I would go off, it would just be like, let's just
01:26experiment and do whatever we want to do.
01:29This whole song started because Julia Michaels had this wish, this desire for a pop girl
01:36to recreate the Whisper song by the Ying Yang Twins.
01:41She was dying to do it.
01:43I was terrified because I'm such a sucker for melodies.
01:46The day that we started doing this, we started just writing this really flirty song.
01:51Grant started playing this beat, this like nasty pop girl beat.
01:56And we honestly just started like writing this story from start to finish.
01:59And as we progressed to the chorus, we found this really cool metaphor, the feeling of
02:03sex and the feeling of love in a relationship can directly correlate to a sports car.
02:13I think what I really wanted to do was take back control in this video.
02:19Sometimes when you obviously are in this position and you become a singer, you're perceived
02:22by so many eyes.
02:25You sometimes forget what you think and how you feel about things.
02:28So in this video, it was really important for me to take back control and be like, no,
02:31I get to watch this first and I get to watch all these different versions of myself before
02:36anybody else.
02:37So I'm sitting in this chair watching me go through 12 different characters and looks
02:41and fashion statements.
02:42We also thought it was really cool because we're like, this song is talking about a sports
02:45car and I could kind of be the sports car in these rooms.
02:48I could be the girl who's on display and showing off.
02:52And so that was a funny connection.
02:54I know a lot of people hated that I didn't have a sports car in the video, but I thought
02:57it was sick.
03:02This was like the day one balance of the song.
03:04I think I just played this intro and everyone got really excited about it.
03:13Well, when you hear a beat like that, you're like, oh my, like me and Julia were like,
03:20just like the girls in the room were just like, oh my God, we want to go dance in a
03:23club.
03:24We want to feel hot.
03:25I love writing with females because there's no other person that can grasp the feeling
03:30that like this energy that like, you don't have to say anything.
03:33The girls just know.
03:34You know how you feel when you, when you want to go out, you know how you feel when you
03:38like feel hot for the first time and you're out with your girls.
03:41Like there's no other comparable feeling.
03:44And so when Julia and I like hear things, we're like, we want to get vulnerable and
03:47feel heartbroken.
03:48And then we heard this and we're like, we want to get nasty.
03:57This was the original guitar that originally it was like part of the verse production.
04:05And just kind of layered on top now to give chorus to a little more additional punch.
04:12I think it was Ryan who actually came in, I think he can sometimes like do a really
04:20good girl impression.
04:21I think you know what this is.
04:24I'm like, okay, Ryan.
04:25I think we're just going back and forth for lyrics.
04:27I actually have a voice some of when I first wrote it.
04:29This might be really bad.
04:30I think you know what this is.
04:31I think you want to.
04:32No, you ain't got no sis.
04:33You got a sports car.
04:35No, you ain't got no sis.
04:38You got a sports car.
04:40I was scrolling as we were like writing this because I was still like figuring out what
04:44felt right.
04:45I was scrolling on Pinterest and my Pinterest is just like heartbreak quotes and then just
04:49like vision stuff.
04:51So there's like random sports cars that sometimes like pop up or like nice houses.
04:55I just started singing.
04:56I'm like, but you got a sports car.
04:58And then I was like, oh, this.
04:59And then we like actually started to figure out the meaning of the song and the metaphor
05:03of the song.
05:04I think you want to.
05:05No, you ain't got no missus.
05:08I'll bet you got a sports car.
05:11It was really difficult for me to make this whisper sound like sexy.
05:15The tone of the whisper was like the hardest thing to track.
05:19So I was like, oh, I sound too aggressive or I sound like I'm like angry.
05:22So it was like trying to find the perfect like soft tone of the song.
05:26And then we decided to add harmonies on the second chorus to have it build up.
05:31I remember Ryan was just like, we need to get some like really princey harmonies coming
05:35on there that just feel like that tension building up aren't like bright, happy harmonies.
05:40No, you ain't got no missus.
05:42I'll bet you got a sports car.
05:45We can uh-uh in it.
05:47I love the pre-chorus.
05:48I think like in order to have a down chorus like this, you need a super melodic pre to
05:54make it feel like it's building up to something and then the payoff is right.
06:01We were like very specific on these notes and making sure it felt right going into the pre.
06:10Someone on TikTok described this song as like a kitchen sink level of percussion.
06:15And there's like so many little, little bits and pieces in here that I've just layered
06:19throughout like these toms, you know, a couple of layers.
06:25There's this interesting kind of loop here.
06:28There's the bass thing going bah, bah.
06:31And I also have some of my, I like layered myself humming like mm, mm, mm.
06:39We tried to mess around with the bass of this song so much because I at one point was wanting
06:47like just 808s because I was like something's too aggressive.
06:51It was honestly balancing out the feminine and aggressive and like what's like the meanest
06:55mix of that.
06:56It was a lot of going back and forth of like what just like felt the best.
07:00A lot of people have been asking about this intro thinking that there's like a vocal just
07:03saying illegal or something in it.
07:05Oh yeah, what is that?
07:08I don't know what they're saying.
07:12You live with these songs for so long that by the end you just like are doing anything
07:17to make, to recreate that euphoric feeling that you first felt when you first heard the
07:22song.
07:23So we were just going through a million different versions of like whether we repeat the intro
07:27at the end.
07:28We thought the song was done and then I came into the studio with Grant and I was like
07:32I have the oh my god, you don't wanna waste my time.
07:36I was like I need something to pick up the dance.
07:46Play it, just the vocal, because we added in the harmony on the second half.
07:50It kind of like built it up, made it feel bigger.
07:53You don't wanna waste my time, let's go rad, let's go rad.
08:01So the original outro was literally just the intro, beep beep beep beep beep beep beep
08:04beep, and you didn't feel like that was giving you that kind of like emotional release that
08:08you were looking for in a lot of your songs.
08:10So I just started layering a ton of stuff on top of each other and trying to do these
08:13like little breaks and things.
08:14Oh, you don't know how my obsession with sirens is disgusting.
08:24I need a siren in every single one of my songs.
08:30I'm always preparing myself to get asked for the siren, can we just sneak a little siren
08:34in there, you know?
08:35You'll notice I'm like cutting out little bits of audio for these like cool fills, like
08:39this beat reverse.
08:41I think I just balanced the entire song to audio and just reversed like this part of
08:47it and like pitched it up an octave.
08:50I think it's still kind of an ode to the early 2000s aesthetic of the song.
08:54We've created so much music over the past couple years.
08:58I've written a whole bunch of songs with lyrics like this, and I've experienced like trying
09:04this song 10 times before this song.
09:07It's funny when the fans hear me like speak about something for the first time.
09:12I don't think they've ever heard me over a beat like this.
09:13They've never really heard me talk about like sex or like love like this.
09:20If they've been following me since I was 15, I've been writing heartbreak songs in my bedroom.
09:24And I think it's been interesting to see how my music has evolved since then and how I've
09:27come into my own as a woman and as a dancer.
09:30Sometimes the media is such an interesting thing to have because even like the good and
09:37the bad, it fucks you up either way.
09:39It makes you feel like you're not a real person.
09:41I'm just trying to put my best art out and make performances that make me feel happy
09:46and inspired.
09:47And when everyone is sitting in the room feeling like we're creating some type of magic and
09:53feeling like every person can do their best and strive for like the best piece of art,
09:58that's when this whole process becomes so fun and inspiring.
10:03The second I think about other people watching me or trying to figure me out or trying to
10:09figure out what I'm trying to do, that's when I lose it because I don't know what I'm trying
10:12to do.
10:13I'm just trying to dance and sing and create as much as I can and figure it out along the
10:18way.
10:19It is cool to do pop and be a pop girl.
Comments