(January 14, 2024) — Depression and mental health issues can be heavy topics to discuss. But with more awareness comes more empathy and ways to address these issues head on. Folksy singer-songwriter Sara Kae, an Ojibwe and Cree member of Ontario’s Lake Helen First Nation near Thunder Bay, has tackled the subject with the warm, almost criminally melodic single “One Good Reason.” The song should strike a chord with listeners as much as it did Kae.
“‘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 a counterbalance to 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.
“One Good Reason” is another fine release from Kae who also writes and performs. 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.
A honors graduate and Founders Award recipient from Mississauga’s Metalworks Institute, Kae received a Canadian Journalism Foundation-CBC Indigenous Journalism Fellowship in 2023 while based in Winnipeg. She’s appeared at Thunder Bay’s Wake the Giant Music Festival, headlined her own radio program with Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, and partnered with Susan Aglukark’s Arctic Rose Foundation as a guest artist. Previous singles include 2022’s “Rise,” 2023’s “Constellations,” and “25” which was one of four songs from her Maadaadizi EP released in October. Plus, she made fun and insightful “Mini Car Series” video clips on Instagram regarding the material on Maadaadizi while seated in a passenger seat.
With its tasteful, tactful approach and sensitivity to a difficult topic, fans, and newcomers to Sara Kae’s music and story have several good reasons to listen to “One Good Reason.”