The Portland musician Jessica Boudreaux used to lead the band Summer Cannibals, which broke up last year, as Boudreaux was recovering from breast cancer. These days, Boudreaux is making music for movies like Nimona and TV shows like City On Fire, and she recently opened the Portland recording studio Pet Club. Now, Boudreaux has an intense new solo song called “Be Somebody Else.”

“Be Somebody Else” is a catchy, fuzzy rocker with serious ’90s alt-rock overtones. It’s all about finding peace with yourself. Boudreaux co-wrote the song with fellow Portland musician Cass Blum, and she produced it at Pet Club. Here’s what Boudreaux says about the song:

Each verse in “Be Somebody Else” was a personal epiphany. This song started with the first line, “I wanna be somebody else” and in real time, as I wrote the song, I was learning what exactly I meant by that. A lot of my songs I tend to write in one sitting, but the lyrics of this one came in pieces over time as I parsed through the last few years of my life. After finishing cancer treatment in 2021, I kept waiting to feel “normal”; I didn’t totally grasp that I was never going to be able to unsee any of that experience. I wasn’t going to ever move through life without a big question mark hanging over my future. When I got to the third and final verse of this song, I started to really understand how unkind I had been to myself for so long. Throughout my 20s, I constantly extended grace and understanding to people who were completely undeserving, all while hurting myself in the process. Wanting to be somebody else isn’t about envy; it’s about learning to give myself the same kind of love I so willingly gave to others.

Check out “Be Somebody Else” below.