Q&A: Glenna Jane Brings All the Glitter and Heartache with “Juno”
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY JOY VILLANUEVA ☆
Listening to Glenna Jane feels like stepping into the sleepover scene of a Disney Channel original movie—if it were reimagined through a queer, indie-pop lens. Her newest single "Juno" is a tender, sapphic ode to the blurred lines between friendship and romance: nostalgic, sweet, and just a little heart-wrenching in the way only coming-of-age moments can be.
Written as part of their upcoming debut EP Kid, "Juno" introduces Glenna Jane’s world with open arms and glittery vulnerability. The track captures the messy beauty of falling in love with your best friend, tracing the quiet tension of affection that slips between platonic and romantic. "Juno" is a heartfelt first glimpse, complete with a music video inspired by the sweet awkwardness of baby gay crushes and unforgettable firsts.
Read below for Luna’s interview with Glenna Jane about writing through the in-betweens, capturing intimacy in pop music, and why her debut is just as much about friendship as it is about love.
Photo By Cierra Collier
LUNA: What’s a moment from your own life that inspired a lyric in "Juno"? Can you tell us the story behind it?
GLENNA JANE: Growing up, I didn’t really feel empowered to own my emotions. I’m the eldest daughter in a Filipino immigrant family, and I think I carried a lot as a kid—and I still do. That positionality, alongside already having music as an escape—as a listener, as a choir kid—allowed me to heal in this sort of inexplicable, cosmic way. It naturally led me to write songs, because I could really infuse myself and my feelings into this medium that was already so healing for me.
To talk about “Juno” specifically: I wrote it two years ago. My first voice memo of it is from March 2023. I just wanted to make something sweet, something happy. That might sound a little silly now, but at the time, I was constantly tiptoeing in and out of the closet—just experiencing literal deep comphet. Every song I was writing back then was rooted in sadness or pain from the relationships I was falling into.
The desire to write something joyous coincided with my need to live authentically. In 2023, I was really flipping back and forth between passion and realism—both with my career and within myself. I was starting to recognize this growing disparity between who I thought I was or who I thought I needed to be, and who I knew I wanted to be. And not just that, but also my need to love authentically.
The first lyric I wrote was: “I’m a beginner, I’ll confuse a moment for forever.” That came about as I was thinking about the innocence of my first queer love. The rest of the pre-chorus and chorus came right after that. From there, the verses were kind of a brain dump—you know when you’re in English class and your teacher says, “Take ten minutes to write about anything”? That’s kind of how the verses came out: really specific, really immediate.
The first verse is me reflecting on loving Vampire Weekend with my best friend—the person who inspired “Juno.” She was the one who made me realize I liked girls in a gay way. That verse is about listening to “Hannah Hunt” on the late bus after school, sharing the same pair of earbuds, trying to start a literary magazine together. The way our knees touched, the lack of space between us—such a small moment, but it felt like such a deep bond.
Looking back on it now, it feels so small, even silly or trivial—but because she was my first queer crush, it just felt so big, and it still feels like such a big memory.
LUNA: You describe "Juno" as a “saccharine sapphic anthem.” What makes a song sapphic to you, sonically or lyrically?
GLENNA JANE: I think for me, being sapphic is less about who I love and more about how I love.
I think “sapphic” can include lesbians, bisexual people, pansexual people—it can encompass trans femmes, mascs, nonbinary folks, cis women, and beyond. For me personally, being sapphic is about knowing someone. Knowing where my girlfriend’s back surgery scars are. Knowing that the one and only gift she’s ever really wanted is Frank Ocean’s Endless on vinyl. Knowing exactly what she puts in her iced matcha latte, what her pre-show ritual is—it’s about seeing her completely.
Being sapphic, to me, is about being queer and truly seeing who you love for who they are, fully. There’s an intention behind it—like really loving someone for their whole self. That’s what it means to me.
As for what makes a song sapphic, sonically or lyrically … lyrically, it’s about depicting that kind of deep, knowing intimacy. I don’t want to say “all-knowing,” and I don’t want to say “romanticizing” either, but it’s somewhere in between. It’s tender and true. It’s being queer as f*ck and not just saying it—but feeling it, through the song.
With “Juno,” that’s why I called it a “sweet, saccharine, sapphic anthem.” Lyrically, it just felt overtly sapphic to me—reflections on falling in love with my best friend, those shared experiences, the quiet knowledge we had about each other. And sonically, it just sounds sweet. That’s what I feel like “sapphic” is. Sapphic is just sweet.
LUNA: “Friends turned first crushes” is such a tender theme; did writing about that blur help you understand it better in real life?
GLENNA JANE: Throughout the process of recording, producing, and creating the visuals for “Juno,” my girlfriend and I fell in love, but we were friends at the time. So I guess, in realizing we loved each other beyond just the queer platonic sense, we actually ended up mirroring the themes of “Juno”—which are all about blurring the lines between platonic and romantic love, loving your friends, and falling in love with them.
I actually asked them to star in the “Juno” music video last year, way before I had a demo I was ready for anyone to even listen to. I think in asking her to be my co-star, I sort of manifested our relationship. That was such a tangible, material example of how writing about that blur—writing “Juno”—helped me understand it better in real life.
The tenderness, the sweetness, the innocence of a friend becoming a first crush—those are things I learned even more about through writing “Juno.” Of course, I felt those things when I was fifteen and crushing on my best friend, but being so far removed from that time, writing this song gave me space to really reflect on those experiences.
I think crushes, especially queer ones, are often colored with so much fear and anxiety. They’re usually depicted as all-consuming or even soul-crushing. But with “Juno,” I realized I didn’t want to emphasize the darker side of coming into queerness.
I know why I was in and out of the closet since I was fifteen—there’s a reason for that. I understand how hard it can be to reconcile who you love when the world tells you that you can’t love them the way you want to. But in writing “Juno,” I think sonically and lyrically, it just came out so sweet. And that’s what I wanted—to shift expectations and make the reality of queer becoming, queer worlding, queer joy, feel soft. And sweet. And full of love.
LUNA: You’re capturing such specific queer experiences with your work. What do you hope other baby gays feel when they hear "Juno"?
GLENNA JANE: ”Juno” is a retrospective song. It reflects on experiences I had years ago—when I was 15, specifically. I know some people might wonder, like, why even write about those feelings now, when I’m a decade past them?
But for me, it felt so important to sit with those memories and create something from them. Because when I was 15, I didn’t really feel like there was anyone I could fully see myself in. I never felt like that uniquely queer experience of falling in love with a friend, that mix of anxiety and excitement, not knowing if they liked you back or if they were even queer … I didn’t feel like that had any kind of framework back then.
That’s why I wrote “Juno.” I hope other baby gays can see themselves in it. I hope they feel represented. I hope they can use it to process their own emotions, their own memories, their own first loves. Because I know how scary it can be to realize you’re queer at a young age—but also how freeing, how confusing, how tender it can feel to fall in love with a friend. It’s such a complex experience, and I just wanted this song to be a soft place to land.
LUNA: Did you always know “Juno” would be the lead single, or did it claim that spot on its own during the writing process?
GLENNA JANE: I honestly didn’t think “Juno” was going to be the lead single. I thought another song—which is actually coming out next—would be the one. But “Juno” felt different. Writing it felt safe. It was still deeply emotional—basically just me journaling through music—but I was scared to release it first. I wrote “Juno” when I was still haunted by the “Am I a Lesbian?” masterdoc, still a quarter in the closet, still dating men.
It took a full year—through recording and production—for me to start thinking, actually, this needs to be the first single. I don’t know how I let go of all those reservations, but I really think it came down to falling in love. Realizing I wanted to spend my life with my partner. That was the shift. That was the moment I knew: this is the song I want to lead with. Not just because it says something about who I love, but because it says everything about who I am.
Queerness, for me, is more than a sexuality or an identity—it’s a way of living. My whole life has changed since writing “Juno,” and it just felt right that it would be the first thing I share with the world.
LUNA: What’s a visual or aesthetic that lived in your head while making the music video for "Juno"?
GLENNA JANE: Visual storytelling is such a huge part of how I process and present my music. The sonic and visual landscapes always work in tandem for me.
Writing “Juno” felt cinematic. It’s detailed, specific, visual. The verses paint pictures of my friendship at 15. The pre chorus and chorus are about the feelings that friendship brought up. The bridge is the dreamworld—where you go when those feelings become too big to ignore, even if you’re scared to go there.
So even before I had a proper demo of “Juno,” I knew it was going to have a music video. I knew the world I wanted to build. I wanted it to feel like a 2000s rom-com. I wanted it to feel like a queer, sapphic coming-of-age film. I was thinking about 10 Things I Hate About You, Juno, Cruel Intentions, and also that very specific 2014 Tumblr era—photos of messy rooms with string lights, crying in bathtubs, diary entries in Sharpie on your thigh. It’s nostalgic, but also current. It lives in that liminal space between the things I wished I experienced and the things I’m finally letting myself feel now.
I even remember walking into the studio with my producer, Ben Coleman, and saying, “I want to make a song that sounds like a 2000s rom-com,” and it turned out to be a crazy, chaotic meal of all the movies, music, and shows I lived vicariously through as a late bloomer—now set to the soundtrack of my own life.
LUNA: Who would star in your ideal sapphic teen movie, and what song would play during the kiss?
GLENNA JANE: “Juno” would obviously play during the big first-kiss scene. Like, the scene in every 2000s rom-com where the girl next door kisses her best friend—who’s the jock, or the punk, or just the girl who’s not the girl next door. It’s dramatic, it’s emotional, it’s everything. I always say “Juno” is a 2000s rom-com in song form, but specifically that moment: the one where everything shifts and nothing’s the same after.
If I could cast my dream sapphic teen movie around that, I mean … It’s easy to say Ayo Edebiri or Havana Rose Liu or Ruby Cruz, but that would basically be Bottoms 2.0. Not that I’d be mad at that, I love that movie!
But honestly? For my dream version, I’d want to cast newcomers. People just starting out. I was a child actor, and I know how hard that grind is. It can be really discouraging to see the same faces getting every role, every opportunity. I’d want to give that space to someone new.
That said, my friend Tara Raani would be perfect for a role like that. She was on Grown-ish, and played a character who was in the first Indian lesbian relationship on American television. I’d love to see her in another sapphic lead—she’s so talented and deserves way more visibility.
LUNA: The EP is titled Kid. Why did that word feel like the right title to hold all these stories, and what does it mean to you now?
GLENNA JANE: When I was a kid, I didn’t feel like I could sit with my feelings. It was honestly really confusing because adults would always tell me I was mature for my age, but then at the same time, they would always tell me I was just a kid. It was like all these firsts I was experiencing and these feelings attached to these firsts were always diminished.
Kid came out of me wanting to honor my younger self and all of her big feelings. When I wrote the EP, I was on the precipice of adulthood, and all I wanted to do was turn back. But I think reflecting on who I was in my childhood and adolescence helped me deeply understand who I am now.
LUNA: You wrote Kid over the course of a year. How did your relationship with queerness, love, or even your inner child shift during that time?
GLENNA JANE: I wrote Kid in 2023, and then I co-produced it in 2024, so I’ve been nurturing this EP for over two years—that’s a long time! I feel like I’ve changed and grown so much since the start of it.
In 2023, this schism between expectation and desire just kept expanding, and suddenly all my measurements of happiness and fulfillment and success shifted. One of the biggest changes was finally choosing music after years of feeling like I couldn’t, and that was really the catalyst for my relationship with myself and my queerness and my love and my inner child changing for the better.
Writing this EP helped me live my most authentic queer life, close the chapter on a relationship, accept my childhood and adolescence. It helped me with forgiveness and vulnerability and tenderness, and I’m just so grateful for how I was able to connect with my younger self through this project.
LUNA: Is there anything else you’d like to share with Luna?
GLENNA JANE: Queer love and queer joy are literally forms of resistance and liberation. Our community endures ceaseless attacks, and as we continue to fight for our right to exist, queer worldmaking can sustain and affirm us.
Please just keep making art and building community. Music and the connection that it fosters can be a solace in such a scary world, so create because art can help us make sense of who we are and how we move through life.
And kiss your friends!
