Sara Kae fights to keep her head above water in her darkly confessional and disarmingly beautiful single One Good Reason — showcasing today on Tinnitist.
Depression and mental health can be heavy topics to discuss. But folksy singer-songwriter Kae, an Ojibwe and Cree member of Ontario’s Lake Helen First Nation near Thunder Bay, has tackled the subjects head-on with this warm, almost criminally melodic single.
“One Good Reason is a song of perseverance,” Kae says. “I had been struggling with mental health and the idea that it can be exhausting to keep yourself afloat through the confusion and heartache that can come with life. The song is about the temptation of falling deeper into spaces of sadness and hurt. That it sometimes feels as if situations in life and your mind are guiding you there.
“I wrote the line ‘One good reason’ as a challenge to the things in life that might try and knock me down and keep me there. I was trying to challenge my own thoughts of giving up and living in my own despair instead of trying my best to work towards happiness, which is easier said than done at times. I wrote this song knowing that many struggle with these same thoughts, and music is what allows us out of isolation a bit.”
Kae wrote One Good Reason at home and wanted to counterbalance the song’s weightier issues “with optimism.” “I wanted both worlds to co-exist which is the reality of life,” she says. “We have to juggle the good with the bad and try and find our way through it.” As a result, the song’s music and melody are warm, engaging, and teeming with brighter sonic hues. With some sweet mandolin and guitar work in the song’s homestretch, combined with her excellent vocal delivery, Kae has crafted a song that recalls Kacey Musgraves, Alison Krauss and Union Station, and The Be Good Tanyas.
Kae’s career commenced at age 12, touring local schools and performing at community gatherings in Northern Ontario with her father, who was a counselor. Kae also performed in Rise with Sara Kae, a 2023 concert series in collaboration with the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra and co-created Trading Places, a musical theatre production.
Kae has appeared at Thunder Bay’s Wake the Giant Music Festival, headlined her own radio program on APTN, and partnered with Susan Aglukark’s Arctic Rose Foundation as a guest artist. Her previous singles include 2022’s Rise, 2023’s Constellations and 25, which was one of four songs from her Maadaadizi EP in October.
Check out One Good Reason above, hear more from Sara Kae below, and spend some time on her website, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
