Jessica Mar’s ‘The Light’ Gets Real About Making Peace with Your Messy Parts

I was in my therapist’s office last month complaining about how I keep fucking things up right when they’re going well and she cut me off to say “You’re not fucking things up you’re just more comfortable with the chaos you know than the peace you don’t.” I wanted to argue but she kept going.”You can’t run from the parts of yourself you don’t like. You have to integrate them or they’ll keep running the show.” I left that session annoyed as hell because she was right. Two days later ‘The Light’ showed up on my Discover Weekly and I had to pull over because Jessica Mar just turned that entire therapy session into a groovy pop-funk track I could actually dance to. Sometimes the universe has timing that’s a little too perfect—or Spotify is listening to my therapy sessions, which honestly wouldn’t shock me at this point.

I’ve been absolutely abusing the repeat button ever since this track dropped. It’s doing this wild thing where it manages to be a full confession and a dance party at the same time, which shouldn’t work but somehow does? Mar’s over here processing her entire emotional journey through groovy pop-funk and I’m just trying to figure out how she made existential crisis music something I want to play at pregame. The production from Mert Özcan and Beto Vargas has this rolling funkiness that hits in your hips first, and by the time it gets to your feelings you’re already moving so you can’t even be mad about it.

I wanna try to find the light / But the dark keeps calling me opens this whole thing and honestly, drag me. Because we’ve all been that person scrolling self-help Instagram at 2am while simultaneously texting someone we know is bad for us. She’s singing I’m imagining a time / When you and me are set free and I felt that—this future version where you’ve actually got your shit together and the chaos doesn’t run you anymore. But then reality check: I try to think about the day / But I know that it’s still night. Mar’s capturing that exact split where you want to do better but the familiar mess just feels safer and her voice has this weight to it that keeps the whole vibe grounded even when the production is begging you to dance.

Then she hits you with Time and time again I find / I can’t escape myself / I run but I can’t hide because / I know me too damn well and look, that’s just rude. You can run from your ex, your hometown, your responsibilities—but yourself? She follows you everywhere, knows all your patterns, and will absolutely call you out at the worst possible moment. And then comes I try but I can’t fight it / I run but I can’t hide it which is just twisting the knife because yeah, we already established you can’t escape yourself, and now you’re admitting you can’t even pretend anymore. Mar delivers this with the energy of someone who’s already had this revelation and is just waiting for the rest of us to catch up.

In my head I can’t shake it / Afraid to just let go / A tug of war between the life I want / And what I know. Okay so this is the part where I had to pause it and stare at my ceiling for a minute because yes exactly this. That paralysis when you can see the better version of your life right there but you’re still tangled up in all your old shit. And instead of making this a sad girl ballad—which would’ve been valid—the production keeps this buoyant groove underneath like “yeah you’re going through it but you’re gonna dance about it.”

Mar wrote this during what she calls one of the most uncertain times in her life, caught between who she was and who she wanted to become. She says looking back now things really were darkest before the dawn and you can hear that whole journey baked into this track. The way the groove builds, the way her vocals get more confident—it’s all part of the same story. Also can we talk about how she managed to make “integration and acceptance” sound this sexy? Because that’s a skill.

When I think I’ve got this and / Skies are finally blue / All signs point to “go” but I / Am stumblin’ right on cue. God, this line gets me. You finally think you’ve got your shit together and everything’s lining up and then you trip over absolutely nothing and end up back at square one. Classic. Then she hits you with Try to keep my head up but / I keep sinking down / Reaching for a helping hand / There’s not a soul around and okay, now we’re in the real deep end. That moment when you’re drowning and you look around for someone to throw you a lifeline and it’s just… crickets. Mar’s not trying to sell us some clean transformation story where everything works out perfectly. We see the messy middle where you’re still fucking up and figuring it out as you go along.

Mar’s doing something here that actually works. She’s not telling you to fix yourself or get over it or any of that bullshit. She’s just saying the messy parts exist. The stuff you don’t post about, the thoughts you don’t say out loud, the version of yourself that shows up when you’re tired and bitchy and done pretending. That’s still you. And you can either spend your whole life running from it or you can just acknowledge it’s there. Ooo I wanna find the light / I gotta find the light becomes this urgent mantra by the end, and you can hear the determination in her voice. She’s claiming it. Period.

Releasing this right before Halloween? Chef’s kiss for timing. The whole track mirrors those natural cycles of transformation—fall season, things dying to make room for new growth, the thinning of veils. There’s something perfect about dropping a song about integrating your shadow when everyone’s literally dressing up as their dark side for a night. It makes the personal stuff feel cosmic.

Jessica pulls from Dua Lipa, The Black Keys, Janis Joplin, and you can absolutely hear it. The funky soulful grit and pop sensibility that somehow makes difficult emotions feel like something you’d queue up at pregame. She’s bridging her Midwestern roots with this sound that feels both grounded and expansive, basically inviting us to dance through our healing instead of just sitting in it crying. Revolutionary concept, honestly.

Jessica gets it—that brutal honesty my therapist was trying to drill into me about integration instead of escape. Ooo I wanna find the light / I gotta find the light hits different when you realize she’s not singing about running away from the dark parts, she’s singing about bringing all of it into the light. The whole messy, complicated, shadow-filled package. She’s recording more music that continues this journey toward alignment and self-liberation and I’m here for wherever she takes this. Because maybe the real breakthrough isn’t leaving the chaos behind it’s finally making peace with it.