“You” introduced Tate McRae the art of collaboration. The superstar was only 16 years old when she was presented with the opportunity to work with Troye Sivan, an Australian pop singer who at the time was starting to make a name for himself in the U.S. with his 2015 hit, “Youth.” Fast forward to 2021, the two budding stars teamed up with Kosovo-Albanian DJ Regard to craft the song alongside fellow writers Frederik Castenschiold, Eichen, Koda, Sakima, and Tom Mann.
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It marked the first time McRae was sent partial lyrics to a song and was asked to write the verses. The team created an EDM-infused bop about someone who can’t move on from a former flame. “You” topped the Billboard Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart, and reached the Top 10 in McRae’s native Canada and Sivan’s home country of Australia. Below, McRae provides insight to into the writing process to American Songwriter and why she approached it as a “songwriting challenge.”
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The Story Behind “You”
“This is actually really new to me because I got sent this chorus of ‘You’ and I have never taken songs before—I usually write them from scratch,” McRae relates. “This was the first chorus that got sent to me and they were like, ‘Here you go, write verses and a pre-chorus to this and see what you do with it.’ I think I was 16 and it was interesting because I’d never done a collaboration before. Also, I’ve never done a dance record like this before, so I feel like I took it more of a songwriting challenge to be like, ‘OK, if I were to write this from another person’s perspective and try and challenge my songwriting skills, what would I say?’ That was a really fun experiment for me. Obviously, Troye Sivan is unbelievable as well, so it was really cool to see how the whole thing came together at the end and seeing how our voices meshed together. I was very excited to work with him.”
Photo by Derek White/Getty Images for iHeartRadio
