2004: Tegan & Sara, So Jealous

Or, How Tegan and Sara Snitched on Me 

By Michelle Imari 

So tell me why a couple of white girls with mullets told my mom I was queer before I did. 

Their names? Tegan and Sara. They’d had a couple of albums to their name already by the time they’d dropped their 2004 record, So Jealous⸺the catalyst to their career takeoff and to me figuring out the right questions about myself, if not yet the answers. By then, I’d been playing guitar for a few months, and any girl in a band could steal my heart. It was a bonus that theirs, in all their red felted glory, were proudly displayed on their sleeves. (If we’re going with this metaphor, then “lesbians” was embroidered in cursive right in the middle.) 

At fourteen-years-old, I’d only just wrapped my head around what a lesbian was. I’d faced the accusations, fielded my friends’ cloying concerns, and I’d already decided I wouldn’t be anything until after high school. That was the goal—or the deadline, depending on how you looked at it. 

Case in point, my mom laughingly telling me she’d dreamt I’d come back from college, hair dyed purple, brand new girlfriend on my arm. This was just a week after she’d taken me to my very first concert⸺Tegan and Sara at Newport Music Hall back in ’05, of course. She’d watched her young, Black daughter damn near get swallowed by a sea of white queers with alternative haircuts and tattoos, and she’d had a vision so scary, so absurd, she just knew I’d laugh right along with her when she relayed this nightmare to me. 

I don’t remember if I laughed. I do know I holed up in my bedroom for a while afterward. I won’t tell one soul / I won’t tell one soul (Tegan and Sara, “Downtown”) 

To be fair, it was mind-blowing that my mom took me to that concert to begin with. My love of music was steadily growing and increasingly veering toward genres that would raise some manicured eyebrows. (Not every mom would switch off NPR and let their kid blast Taking Back Sunday on the drive home from school. That was some pure maternal devotion right there.) Then again, considering the music she favored (The Beatles; Joni Mitchell; Cat Stevens before he became Yusuf Islam), her taste in music was atypical for Black women her age. While she also loved her some Mary J. Blige and TLC, and Motown was basically in her blood, whose merch did she rock? Hall & Oates. 

While the emo scene was a far cry from anything she gravitated toward, I was her mirror, albeit a funhouse one; another Black weirdo, I’d inherited her artistic sensibilities and walking-talking-jukebox tendencies (a byproduct of growing up on musicals). Mom wasn’t shy about voicing her concerns if needed, but she let me be when it came to my hobbies and interests. She never banned any music from me, and she’d chauffeur me to guitar lessons, listening to me point out my favorite riffs by whatever band I was into at the time. If she didn’t like it, she didn’t tell me I couldn’t. 

Tegan and Sara, though? They were our first “shared” band. I’d put on So Jealous and soon enough I’d catch her humming along. When we’d watch Grey’s Anatomy, she could recognize their songs on the soundtrack almost as well as I could. She never complained when I’d play So Jealous for the umpteenth time, and why would she? 

So Jealous was by no means Tegan and Sara’s debut, but it may as well have been their thesis statement for the artists they were then and would become. While their previous work was more than decent, with this album, they took a step away from the DIY folk-rock sound and became contenders in the broader indie rock scene. Although So Jealous wasn’t their first album, it holds a couple of first titles at least in my life: “You Wouldn’t Like Me” was one of the first songs I’d learned to play open chords to, and I maintain that “Walking with a Ghost” is the best song to get comfortable with barre chords⸺a perfectly rhythmic riff switching between major and minor chords on the fifth and sixth strings, and it repeats for days. If it’s not a staple in your warm-up sessions, it should be. 

Aside from catchy choruses and their interplay between acoustic and electric guitars (a signature sound that Tegan describes as “plastic” in their behind-the-scenes documentary, It’s Not Fun. Don’t Do It!), what stands out most to me about the album is the lyrical content. While true that most of the songs navigate the turmoils of romantic love, there are phrases that cut to the quick and speak to a core emotional truth more self-reflective. “I Bet It Stung,” though sparse, packs a walloping punch; the title track penned by Sara echoes Tegan’s “You Wouldn’t Like Me” with themes of self-hatred; but my favorite lyric comes from the track, “Wake Up Exhausted,” which opens with the lines, “I wake up exhausted / it’s not morning / it’s back to sleep / to re-dream me.”

As early as elementary school, I spent a lot of time agonizing over what was wrong with me. When I started to learn the language for it, some of it derogatory, I began wishing I was anything, or anyone, else. Pages of my journals held the same sentiments as the songs mentioned above, and a good lot of the time, I escaped into sleep, attempting to “re-dream me” into who I was supposed to be upon waking (AKA someone who wouldn’t make my parents’ heads bow in shame). My family was mostly made up of Democrats, but this was the mid-2000s⸺whether you voted blue or red, a lot of folks at the time were conservative when it came to politics of LGBT+ life. Not to mention, my Blackness and inhabiting this female-presenting body already put a target on my back; did I need to make it even bigger? Navigating this world is hard enough before you factor in a myriad of marginalizations. How anyone wakes up anything but exhausted is unfathomable to me. 

The thing is, despite internalizing well-meaning but ultimately damaging advice like, “It’s nobody’s business,” and vowing to keep everything locked away until college, the secret I was living with was an open one. I’ve been told more than once that I don’t have much of a poker face, and my parents must have found me easy to read. As the years progressed, I became bolder in my defense of queer and trans celebrities, and my friend group began to look more and more like the pierced and dyed audience at Newport Music Hall (although, thankfully, not as devastatingly white). Donning a Tegan and Sara shirt at the time was akin to sapphics pinning violets to their lapels decades ago. It was a shorthand to other queer people: “We have something in common!” IYKYK. 

There were more start-stop moments of nearly coming out, too. Like when my mom switched her car’s sound system back to NPR and the topic of the day was the latest trend of kids, most of them straight, coming out as gay to test their parents’ love, and many of them facing dangerous consequences. My heart took up residence in my head, pulse beating so loudly I could barely make out whatever they were saying. I felt more than heard myself blurt out, “Why would they do that?” 

I can’t remember exactly what Mom said in response, but I remember the silence between us, heavy yet delicate, like if I breathed too hard, something⸺the wall that sometimes rose between us or my nerve, it was hard to say⸺would break. 

Then I asked, “What would you do if I told you that?” I couldn’t name it, but let her fill in the blank. 

And she said, “I would tell you I still love you.”

What I wanted most / what I wanted most / what I wanted most / was to get myself all figured out (Tegan and Sara, “Fix You Up”) 

It turned out that Mom's dream wasn’t a premonition. When I went to college, I didn’t dye my hair purple or bring a woman home for Thanksgiving. I ended up staying home throughout college, and staying in the closet, as my mom waged a war with cancer. She had enough on her plate, I figured, and I didn’t need to add to it. The goalpost to come out moved to after college or after cancer, whichever came first. 

Unfortunately, she passed away before I could say anything. 

In the years that have since passed, I’ve admittedly been a twinge resentful of the next generation, the Zoomers. They’ve been able to speak their truths at such young ages; they have a growing list of out LGBT+ musicians to turn to; they have enough options that their favorite singer being gay or bi is an asterisk, so normal it’s almost mundane. That normalcy is as miraculous as when, decades prior, I happened upon a songwriting duo from Canada and clinging to them to make it through high school. To be clear, I’m under no false impression that everything is hunky-dory now because queer representation in the media and public figures has risen, given the attacks on civil rights ramping up across the country. That said, seeing so many kids and teens confidently stand in their queer identity, bolstered by both elders and peers be they celebrities or neighbors, inspires me…even if a part of me is so jealous. 

Relegating myself to the fact that I’d missed my window, I settled into the idea that my queerness was nobody’s business, so I didn’t need to tell. At least not everybody. I operated on a need-to-know basis. And while I have complicated feelings around “come out culture” and still firmly believe there is no wrong choice when it comes to being out, selectively out, or not at all (especially when safety is in question), it can’t be denied that repressing parts of your identity only compounds the exhaustion of simply existing as a queer person. 

Proud / just like my mother planned it (Tegan and Sara, “Take Me Anywhere”) 

So Jealous is an album that remains in my rotation to this day. It’s a rare album that passes the no-skipped-tracks test, and I could have it on repeat for an entire evening and continue to find nuances in the vocal inflection of a particular refrain or notice a

percussive element I’d previously ignored in favor of a guitar lick. Returning to So Jealous is like visiting old friends. When I need advice or feel stuck, the last track, “I Can’t Take It,” comes to mind; while the title track reflects on being overwhelmed with envy to the point of paralysis, this coda reminds me to move⸺to keep going. 

Even if I didn’t confirm my mom’s suspicions while she was alive, she made space for me. She didn’t know the exact words I’d choose, but she knew enough. And holding her truth, that she loved me and would still, I’ve come to realize that she would want me to be confident in who I am. 

So, Mom, I know those twins from the north gave me away, but I’ll say it officially now: you were on the right track. I’m queer⸺bisexual, to be exact. Maybe this isn’t what you’d planned, but I hope you’d be proud; I know I am. And for that, we have Tegan and Sara to thank. 

Michelle Imari is a writer, musician, and organizer from Columbus, OH, who has been a feature at The Columbus Queer Open Mic and 934 Fest. When not organizing with TEMPO Music & Arts Camp or playing Marco Polo with her cat, she’s usually sharing her passionate opinions on media on her podcast, Taking TV Too Seriously. She can be found on IG @michelle_imari.