Goodridge, Minnesota-duo The Jensen Sisters (Kendra and Kansas Jensen) praise good times and bad decisions on "Beat of a Bad Habit," the debut single from their forthcoming album Yellow Frames (out October 2).
Kansas Jensen says the song is so perfect for the duo that the title came to them in a dream.
"The story behind 'Beat of a Bad Habit' is so cosmic that if it didn't happen to us, we're not even sure we'd believe it," Kansas Jensen tells Wide Open Country. "One night we were in our hotel room after a show and Kendra had this crazy dream."
Kendra Jensen says the hook of the song came to her while dreaming about playing a show.
"The dream started off with us performing on stage, but not the kind we were used to. At this point in our careers we hadn't set foot on a stage bigger than six feet wide, but the one we were playing on in this dream was huge. Halfway through the dream I froze, realizing I had forgotten the entire setlist, so I turn to Kansas and frantically ask 'What's next??' To which she replies, 'Beat of a Bad Habit' — a song that didn't exist! As the band started to pick up I realized I was dreaming and consciously started telling myself 'wake up, wake up! Don't forget that hook!' — At that moment, I abruptly jumped out of bed and wrote "Beat of a Bad Habit" on a napkin lying on the hotel nightstand," Kendra Jensen says. "Over the next year and a half, we tried several times to write the song, but nothing ever felt natural. Eventually the hook fell off our radar. It wasn't until we started writing for Yellow Frames, two years later, that it finally clicked. I was sitting on the front porch of our home in northern Minnesota, as I usually do in the morning. Out of nowhere I hear these stacks of harmonies in my head singing 'I was born to the beat of a bad habit'. It honestly kind of startled me. That night we took the hook and the new melody to our co-write with Jason Hamor, and we finished the song in 40 minutes."
Listen to "Beat of a Bad Habit" below.
The Jensen Sisters, 2020 winners of the Midwest CMA's New Artist of the Year award, made their onstage debut in 2015 singing Waylon Jennings' "Good Hearted Woman." Since releasing their debut album Highway Hippie in 2019, the sisters have started hosting their own radio show "Gypsy Outlaw Radio" on KSRQ Pioneer 90.1, launched a successful clothing collection with a local boutique and toured across the upper Midwest.
