Tate McRae and music producer, Grant Boutin, sat down with Variety to break down the making of the hit single 'Sports car.' Tate expresses how her fans have never heard her "talk about sex" like she does in this record and how it'll make you "wanna get nasty."
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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.