Glenna Jane’s “Juno” Is a Love Song for the Queer Community

MoveOnUp Music caught up with rising artist Glenna Jane to discuss how music has played a major role in her life and how she’s now creating songs for the queer community, ahead of the release of her new single “Juno,” dropping on streaming platforms April 15.

Credit: Matt Meyer

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Glenna Jane has been surrounded by music her whole life. In fact, her mother claims that she was humming before she learned how to speak. 

I spoke to Glenna Jane via FaceTime in an afternoon in late March while she was in their partner’s home studio in the Upper West Side neighborhood of Manhattan. We talked about everything about growing up in a Filipino household, our love for music and the inspirations and story behind “Juno” in a span of an hour and a half. 

While recently cleaning and fixing up her social media, Glenna Jane stumbled upon their first attempt in serious songwriting, which was an EP found on Bandcamp made for a high school class project. 

“I really fell in love with writing music then, but I just never felt good at it,” she tells me. “I got a lot of validation for being smart and picking things up quickly on the academic side, So when I found it difficult to produce, mix and master music, it was really easy for me to give up. So, I didn’t take songwriting seriously again until my sophomore year of college.” 

Though born in Japan, the singer grew up mostly in Las Vegas, Nevada in a Filipino household. In elementary school, she joined choir, marking her first experience with ensemble singing, which she instantly fell in love with. That passion for performing led them to attend a performing arts high school, where they sang in national choirs and won state ensemble competitions. But after graduation, she reached a fork in the road. They could either pursue music full-time at a conservatory or enroll in an Ivy League school. In the end, encouraged by her mom, Glenna Jane chose the latter and went on to study anthropology at Princeton University.

After graduating, the musician moved to New York City and got their first corporate job in the radio industry. After a year, she eventually transitioned into their current job, where she now works on an advertising team at a record label. While she achieved her dream of working in the music industry, it wasn’t enough for her. She realized she needed to make her own music and perform.

Credit: Marian Fragoso Basauri

In 2022, Glenna Jane and her best friend from college, George Cohalan, wrote and recorded a song called “i see god in you” during Thanksgiving and that was the moment where she felt confident in her skills in producing music. 

Though collaboration is very beautiful to her, she felt that they needed to make something herself. It took her about a year to write something that truly resonated with her. In March 2023, she wrote “Juno”, which came at a time where she realized that she needed to learn how to write something happy. The first thought that came to mind was the first girl she had a crush on back in high school. 

“I had so many homoerotic friendships with my girlfriends and I remember in tenth grade, I was really close to this girl. And it was close in a way that I’d never been close to anybody before,” Glenna Jane shared. “She had revealed to me years later that she had a crush on me that entire time.” 

The track, originally teased on TikTok last year, is an upbeat queer love anthem that delves into the complexities of unspoken feelings and the "what could have been" when you're crushing on your best friend — a theme that deeply resonates with the queer community. Although her and “Juno” never officially dated, they admitted their feelings for each other during their freshman year of college. But now, they no longer keep in touch. 

“You don’t know if this person that you’re crushing on is queer,” says Glenna Jane. “There’s that anxiety of not knowing whether they like you too, but the added element of like ‘Are they even into women?’”

Credit: Cierra Collier

Now that Glenna Jane is releasing the song two years after it was written, the song is less about this fear and apprehension of wondering if you could be together with someone, but is now more of a queer-becoming story and the beauty of queer relationships and friendships. Co-produced by herself and Ben Coleman, mixed by Daniel Chae and mastered by Theo Quayle, the production elements of “Juno” draws inspiration from the soundtracks of popular 90s and early 2000s rom coms such as 10 Things I Hate About You or Cruel Intentions. 

“When writing Juno, I wanted it to feel very queer and nostalgic, but also feel very new,” Glenna Jane says. “It is very indie and DIY and that is what I wanted for ‘Juno’ and this EP.” 

Glenna Jane is an independent artist, and is planning to release everything herself. When I asked about an approximate date for the whole EP, she told me that nothing is set in stone, but she is planning to release another single and then the rest of the EP sometime in September or October. 

For now, listeners can stream “Juno” on all streaming platforms right now.