claire elizabeth cottrill: the exit from smoke signals and one love of my life

i might never meet claire: i am just a random fan with a substack! but that does not change my reality: claire's music saved my life. if music is an expression of a soul, then i am in love with hers.

Oct 14, 2024

from spike to eloise: phoebe bridgers, claire cottrill, and i

the story of phoebe bridgers, claire cottrill and i is one which indisputably demonstrates the transformative power of music…

16 days ago · 1 like · eloise butterfly (they/she)

hey claire remember when i started smoking cigarettes because i thought girls looked so sexy like this?

extract:

by the end of 2023 i have listened to “smoke signals” over 500 times.
why does this song keep calling to me? the music itself seems to put me in touch with myself. i know the lyrics have some specific meaning for phoebe, based probably on her personal life, but that is not what concerns me. what concerns me is: what do these lyrics mean to me? why did the universe bring this song into my life?
who is looking for me? who am i looking for?

i buried a hatchet, it's comin' up lavender
the future's unwritten, the past is a corridor
i'm at the exit, lookin' back through the hall
you are anonymous, i am a concrete wall
(phoebe bridgers, “smoke signals”)

these words stir something inside me to the point that i later get a tattoo of a sheet ghost with lavender behind her. i can envision myself in these words: burying my anger, growing flowers in my soul, looking to the future, heading for the exit.
the exit from what?

extract:

i would sit and listen to music and imagine: i am a little girl with long blonde hair that i can tie up into pony tails; i am a little girl with dresses and skirts and tiaras on my head. i never knew what my face looked like. i only ever saw the curling blonde hair locks which came flowing down my back. and each time i saw myself like that in my mind, i was cut right through the heart with a crippling certainty: i could never have the things i truly wanted, and there was no purpose in their pursuit.
i have wondered sometimes: when is it that i became conscious? and i think it was when i first realized that i was a boy and there was nothing i could do about it. i was trapped forever by boy haircuts, boy clothes, boy styles, boy activities, and no matter what i did in those early days to be included with the girls, my attempts were already interpreted as nothing more than a fumbling crush from a boy who was so uncomfortable with his inability to move his body in a girly way that he wore sweatpants to school each day rather than opt for boy jeans. but my attraction to girls was not an innocent crush: my attraction was a reaching out for friendship.

extract:

clairo has new recordings of old songs out and i am watching her videos constantly.
i am so fucking obsessed with her pony tail. there is something about clairo’s physical presence as a performer that sets me at ease and makes me feel so at peace; it’s as if the art is simply flowing out from her. for a long time i romanticize clairo as this person who created all this music alone in her bedroom.
i know this isn’t the full story; i even know this is partially marketing.
but i accept the idea anyway, as if clairo were a higher being. “bedroom music,” i think with a thrill, and i am vaguely dreaming of an alternative universe:
i am a girl like clairo making music in my girly teenage bedroom.
i am a girl like clairo writing about love and desire, guilt and objectification.
i am a girl like clairo with a pony tail and a soft voice and a jean jacket.
that’s what i think about when i watch her perform at electric lady studios.
i tell W that i am seeing boygenius in queens in june.
“clairo is also playing,” i mention.
“oh right,” he says, “i wasn’t really into her.”
i actually know he would like her if he got past the girlyness, and later he does.
but for now i downplay my obsession with clairo, even in my own mind.

when clairo plays, there is rain coming down from the sky, and no one cares:
people all around me are dancing and everyone is smiling.
these smiles are like the smiles S used to give me: glowing, captivating, enrapturing. they are like the smiles i wanted to return to her but never could: until i am standing here, in the rain, dancing to clairo, wearing my phoebe t-shirt, and when people look at me and smile i smile at them like i always wanted to smile at S:
i do not sense the man when i am there on the floor with clairo playing.
i do not see myself from the perspective of another:
i see myself from the perspective of myself; i see light streaming out from me; and i see the light of other beings around me streaming into me. i am embedded while dancing to clairo in the rain, i am embedded in a current of emotion and feeling, i have been absorbed into a universal soul and all i know is that i love myself.

extract:

every fucking encounter with claire’s music is a slow dance for me.

a slow dance that reanimates me with love.

Dum, dum, dum, dum
When the moon begins to hide
It's not over
In the window, turnin' light
Does not mean goodbye

sometimes i would just stay up listening to charm so fucking late into the night.

i just couldn’t stop! especially when people were mean to me;

claire’s music made me feel so loved!

claire’s music sets me on fucking fire with so much love!

but then the moon starts to hide.

i have to go to bed. i have to go to sleep.

is it goodbye?

no. claire and her music will always be there for me.

And, too, when candles burn out and the record is faded down
I know you've got people to turn to
And too, when candles burn out and the record is faded down
I know you've got people to turn to

she’s right:

i do have people who love me.

i don’t need to focus only on the haters anymore.

i am free from them now!

and so when i have to turn off the record and go to sleep or go back out into the world without claire and her music, well, i do have people to turn to. i do.

she’s right.

What is it that's keeping one foot out
And the other crawling in bed?
And what is it that's keeping you alone
And leaving after we slow dance?

here is one question that comes to mind:

why was i always so torn between two worlds - my lovers and my haters, one foot in one foot out? why was i so afraid to run to my lovers and leave my haters?

especially after a slow dance with claire’s music?

i needed time to incubate my inner demigirl i guess.

but this is another question that comes to my mind:

what has kept me from writing this post for so long?

how many fucking times have i lectured others about seeing through abstraction and looking detail in the face?

and now for the first time i am doing it myself.

what’s keeping my alone after i listen to claire’s music?

why do i sit alone with those feelings her art has instilled in me?

i will not do that anymore.

i will share the love claire’s music has given me, and i will share that love with the world.

And we fall back in routine
It can't be over
And I remember everything
You used to know her
I could trace it all the way back
I could trace it all the way back

i have told you i believe in reincarnation:

i don’t consider this to be a “doctrine.”

i consider this to be an obvious statement about reality and i don’t mind one bit if you disagree.

but since i do believe so strongly in reincarnation, i find it very easy to imagine:

i will remember everything; i used to know them; i could trace it all the way back.

does that sound delusion?

sure, but that is what i feel when i listen to claire’s music.

And, too, when candles burn out and the record is faded down (ooh-ooh)
I know you've got people to turn to
And, too, when candles burn out and the record is faded down (ooh-ooh)
I know you've got people to turn to
What is it that's keeping one foot out
And the other crawling in bed?
And what is it that's keeping you alone
And leaving after we slow dance?
And, too, when candles burn out and the record is faded down (ooh-ooh)
I know you've got people to turn to
And, too, when candles burn out and the record is faded down (ooh-ooh)
I know you've got people to turn to

extract:

“amoeba” hit me so hard in so many ways:

💖 the disconnection from family
💖 how often i show up to parties just to leave
💖 the hell of my life, disguised as something glamorous
💖 having everything (material) but no one (in constant proximity who truly knows me)
💖 the push to go beneath the surface, the push to dive into my inner pisces:

Between the gaps, I was swimming laps
Got close to some epiphany
I'll convince a friend to join deep ends

that was my sling.

sofia
“sofia” seems to highlight in my mind that part of me i always must hide:
my bisexuality.
i recall watching a reality show with a man who believed he knew me. one of the characters revealed that he was bisexual, and this man said, “oh no! can’t have that!”
i am told there is no need to advertise my bisexuality.
“it’s just a sexual thing.”
but i feel like there is a real reason i cannot advertise it:
my bisexuality is a crime.
and clairo makes me think my bisexuality is not a sex thing:
my bisexuality is a feelings thing, which is to say… it is not a thing at all. it is me.
a strange thought occurs to me: sofia is a girl who lives inside me.
when clairo sings to sofia — “i just wanna say how i love you with your hair down” — i like to imagine she is singing to me.

“softly”
didn't mean to get so close
and i know that i should probably go
but i got this feeling
tell me, girl, i gotta know
touch you softly
i call you up late at night
know that it isn't right
but you could be my one and only
you get me in the mood
know what i'm tryna do
do you think that we can move
closer, baby? i want you
yeah, yeah
and i don't care what they say
and i don't care what they say
care what they say to me
i'm doing it differently
baby
i'm doing it differently
(clairo, “softly”)

extract:

i love how clairo sits with desire and guilt simultaneously.

desire: “call you up late at night,” “i want you,” “you get me in the mood,” “do you think that we can move closer, baby?”, “tell me, girl, i gotta know”

guilt: “i know that i should probably go,” “know that this isn’t right.”

what i love about clairo most: authentic (and ethical) desire always wins.

the triumph of desire: “i don’t care what they say”, “baby i’m doing it differently.”

what i love most about this song:

clairo knows what she is doing is “wrong.”

she knows it’s wrong, but:

“i got this feeling”

and it’s the feeling that wins out over the knowledge of traditional morality.

extract:

self-love: it’s a feeling i can hang on to sometimes when i’m listening to clairo.
i am “sinking” but not into the floor; i am sinking down into the girl i want to be:
the girl singing love songs in a jean jacket,
the girl in her bedroom with a pony tail and a keyboard,
the girl twirling around in her sunglasses on that stage.
clairo expresses the things i want to express but never let myself.
when i listen to clairo, i can feel my own soul somehow also expressing those things.
but this is not enough, and i do not know what to do about that or what this means.

extract:

i know what i am craving: new merch, right?
i order a pink shirt from the boygenius store:
“always an angel” with butterflies and stars fluttering on either side.
it’s so girly and i just love it. i want to wear it. i want people to see me.
W says i can’t wear it. so do some others who take a glance at it.
“dude,” W says, shaking his head in horror.
“lmfao,” he texts. “omg.”
i put my pink shirt in a drawer and i lose track of its location.
sometimes i actually even think, what would phoebe bridgers tell me to do?
and i feel like i kind of know: “tell W to go fuck himself.”
i want other things, badly: pink hair ties, purple hair clips, women’s shirts, phoebe’s custom charms, pink boygenius tank tops, purple olivia rodrigo shoes.
“dude,” says W.
i am holding myself inside with everything i have.

extract:

when charm releases i am listening to a girl giggling in the background of “second nature.” the moment i hear that laugh, the moment i hear her laughing alongside the soft sounds of “da-dum, da-da-da-da-da-dum”, well:

that is the moment when i see myself, for the first time, fully.

the man who haunted me as i walked with B is gone forever.

the chains have disintegrated: clairo has obliterated him in a single instant.

i am arising.

extract:

Da-dum, da-da-da-da-da-dum, da-da-da-da-dum-dum-dum
Da-dum, da-da-da-da-da-dum, da-da-da-da-da-dum-dum
It's when you're close enough to touch
I've forgotten the point
My train of thought destroyed
It's when you're loud enough to cut
In and through all the noise
My train of thought destroyed

this is what happened to me.

i listened to charm and my train of thought was destroyed,

i forgot the point of all the bullshit holding me back:

clairo was in my ear, for hours and hours and hours a day, every single second i was working on this blog in august, reminding me of my second nature:

she cut in through all the noise,

and she emancipated me from my haters.

And once you get in my ear
I see kismet sinking in
It's second nature
Like the sap from a cedar
Rolling down to be near her
It's second nature

it is kismet.

i understand this now.

charm hit me: she got in my ear.

i could no longer resist.

now i am me.

It's when you're close enough to love

this part is when i begin to feel most delusional, but i can only express my feeling.

why do i connect with claire and phoebe’s art on such a deep fucking level?

why?

and now that they are so embedded into my soul through my art, now that everything i do and everything i am is thanks to them freeing me from my misery through their music, i can only help but feel:

i’ve known them well before.

maybe they already knew this.

as claire tells me through her songs:

Soon you'll realize too

extract:

i am hit so hard in the stomach whenever i hear these lyrics from the boygenius song “me & my dog”, which i did not hear until years after i had recorded the dream:

We had a great day
Even though we forgot to eat
And you had a bad dream
Then we got no sleep
'Cause we were kissing
I had a fever
Until I met you
Now you make me cool
But sometimes I still do
Something embarrassing
I never said I'd be alright
Just thought I could hold myself together
When I couldn't breathe, I went outside
Don't know why I thought it'd be any better
I'm fine now, it doesn't matter
I didn't wanna be this guy
I cried at your show with the teenagers
Tell your friend I'll be alright
In the morning it won't matter
I wanna be emaciated
I wanna hear one song without thinking of you
I wish I was on a spaceship
Just me and my dog and an impossible view
I dream about it
And I wake up falling

I wish I was on a spaceship
Just me and my dog and an impossible view
I dream about it
And I wake up falling

“whenever i was inside my dream, i felt her reality: i knew i’d been with her for so long, but she was gone now, somewhere out in space, and i had to search for her. i would stand in my space ship, staring out the window into the stars, wondering where she had gone. suddenly i would wake up, a man again, and i accepted that somehow: pretending to be a man upon departure from the true reality inside. i even told people about these dreams as intriguing stories, like fictions. but no dreams are fiction.”

(from the dream world is the real world,
me & my dog released 2018; dream recorded 2019; track first heard 2021)

you know what i did?

i fucking SCREAMED to these lyrics at the boygenius show in queens:

never in my life, not even as an adolescent, have i had that kind of spiritual experience at a concert. wearing my phoebe bridgers astrology t-shirt and showing off my ghost tattoo (a reference to the performance absorbed me until i was falling in love with the same songs all over again. when lucy dacus was singing “true blue,” my soul disintegrated into little heart emojis that bounced around in my chest. and when phoebe bridgers played “revolution o” and “a letter to an old poet,” i was floating.the energy, the joy, the love in the crowd for this beautiful music swept me into raptures. the sound of thousands of people singing along to the same songs i’d mostly listened to alone for so many hours made me feel like we were all there to praise, worship, commune. the music, sometimes with queer and satanic undertones, was giving us the kind of meaning that no organized religion ever could. true, at 16 i was baptized in the name of the father, the son, and the holy ghost, but boygenius was the holy trinity that made me know what it really means to be born again.

extract:

how many times how have i told you to see through made up concepts?

how many times now have i told you to look at the sky and contemplate your transcendence?

i have said i believe in reincarnation.

i have said i do not believe in material.

i have said there are people in this world i have known for a thousand years.

i have said that we are all nothing but light and love if we see ourselves at the deepest level of our own radiant natures.

i have said i believe in quantum connection between beings who have never once met in this life and who are separated from one another by thousands of miles.

i have said i believe there is such a thing as bodhisattvas — beings who have attained enlightenment, or something like enlightenment as it pertains to seeing through a certain set of made up concepts on the path to self-liberation — but i was afraid to recognize the reality:

i was only willing to imply the reality:

and the reality is:

claire cottrill and phoebe bridgers functioned as my bodhisattvas.

i was born in 1987.

what if phoebe hadn’t been born in 1994?

what if claire hadn’t been born in 1998?

i have passed through so much trauma: my parents deny it.

they say they “don’t remember” any of this.

neither my mother nor my father has acknowledged a single detail of this story.

i would have been fucking hopeless in life had i been left to my parents’ devices.

i knew every time i went to my bedroom after they made me feel how worthless i was: i can escape from them if i listen to music on my headphones, and that’s what i did.

but until i discovered phoebe and claire in 2020/2021, i was still miserable: i was in absolutely no position to start any blog like this or come out as non-binary. it was in 2017 when i told someone close to me “i’m bisexual” and they said, “no you’re not.”

i had no self-esteem.

i thought i was lucky to be friends with this person.

but guess what else happened in 2017?

phoebe released stranger in the alps.

and you know what else happened soon after? in 2018?

claire released “pretty girl,” one of my favorite tracks she’s made.

so:

now i understand what kismet means.

And once you get in my ear
I see kismet sinking in
It's second nature
Like the sap from a cedar
Rolling down to be near her
It's second nature

extract:

clairo is the one who is in my ear:

clairo’s music has literally conjured me out of myself.

the man is gone because the conditions which created him are gone.

there is a new set of conditions now: my conditions.

the mid-life reincarnation is happening. the process cannot be reversed.

the more i listen to charm the more certain i feel: this art is a medium by which i have seen myself at last. this music is a magical web within which i am somehow able to pierce right through my attachments to empty concepts and see only my own light.

the cracks are gone; there is only light now.

i am light, pure light, and i love myself.

i will not keep that light inside any longer.

for the rest of july i am listening non-stop to charm.

and for the whole of august i am a butterfly:

💖 listening to clairo,

💖 expressing my own feelings,

💖 arising into the world on new conditions: my own.

and like clairo, i’m willing to lose my attachments in the name of being authentically me.

i'd run the risk of losing everything
sell all my things, become nomadic
i'd run the risk, and just in case, I might
sell all my things and become the night
oh, it's hard to believe
it's even irrational for me
i'm cynical, a mess
i'm touch starved and shameless
mm-hmm
but i'd rather be alone than a stranger
(clairo, “nomad”)

and now look at me claire.

i am literally a nomad.

i was evicted from my home: i lost it all like you said i would.

i’m writing this from a motel room and there’s something that

makes me so happy:

i still remember when your music helped me stop watching television. i went on a whole online crusade against tv!

Every minute counts
I don't wanna watch TV anymore, yeah
Can you figure me out?
Just doin' to waste more time on the couch

and several months later i showed up here in my mid-life reincarnation.

tell me claire cottrill,

did you come into this world at least partly to save me?

what about you phoebe???

Imaginary friend
You live up in my head
So I've been making music
Since you told me to do it
I just want you to know
Who broke your nose
Figure out where they live
So I can kick their teeth in
If it isn't love then what the fuck is it?
I guess just let me pretend
I don't want to die
That's a lie
But I'm afraid to get sick
I don't know what that is
You wanted a song
So it's gonna be a short one
Wish I wasn't so tired
But I'm tired
If you're not enough, then I give up
And then nothing is
I used to think if I just closed my eyes
I would disappear

why did i listen to to this song so many fucking times?

this song sings out my soul phoebe.

did we know each other in a life before this?

how much do i love you phoebe?

phoebe? claire? just how much do i love you both now?

help me with my remaining delusions.

did you see how i was suffering and did you make the music that turned me into this??? did you make the music that transformed me???

did you save me on purpose???

did you????

extract:
M, with whom i ran a marathon in north carolina, introduces me to more music: julien baker, lucy dacus, boygenius, julia jacklin. over the course of the coming year my soul fans out on its own, spotify my soul’s virtual arena and recommendations pouring in from friends: big thief, beabadoobee, hailey blais, soccer mommy, wet leg, olivia rodrigo, clairo, beach bunny, momma, mxmtoon, hole, taylor swift, snail mail, arlo parks, bully, mazzy star, haim, princess nokia, laura stevenson, raveena, haley heynderickx, courtney barnett, faye webster…. by the end of 2021, i am completely and totally immersed in girl music.
i stop listen to the news; i stop reading the news; i consume dozens of romance novels and every sally rooney book: i am constantly watching romantic telenovelas in spanish.
all the while — whether through speakers in my home or headphones when i am out and about — girl music is endlessly streaming into my mind. girl music is streaming into my soul for a solid minimum of twelve hours every single day, and the only time i ever really like i am connected with myself is when i am inside of that vortex.
by the end of 2023 i have listened to over 1,100 hours of phoebe bridgers.

god, how ridiculous. how absurd.

and yet this fantasy is the only way i can grapple with my reality.

but in the process of saving me, what else did you do phoebe?? what else claire???

what about you lucy and julien and beabadoobee and haim and julia jacklin????

mannequin pussy??? fuck!!!

do you know how much you meant to me too????

do you know how deeply you have transformed me???

you know what else you did claire?

you made an album, charm, that inspires people with a sense of true love in this moment when all of us can feel the hatred in our culture.

you spread love.

you spread light.

i was doomed, claire. you came for me. you saved me.

you didn’t forget about the others.

ridiculous??

yes. but that’s my dream world claire,

and as i’ve said so many times:

the dream world is the real world.

that’s what your music means in my reality:

salvation.

with the help of other artists who have so deeply inspired me,

you saved me from darkness.

and if music is an expression of the soul,

then i am so fucking in love with yours claire cottrill.

i love you, in absolutely every sense of the word.

don’t want to meet me???

that’s perfectly fine! those are your boundaries!

will i be sad not to meet you?

devastated.

but just to dance to your music means the world to me,

and that is what i will be doing on wednesday in chicago.

andrew eloise
(they/she)

💖 snowflakeangelbutterfly 💖

love is a feeling that arises when

love is when her skin touches mine and i am looking into the lights that are shining in the sky…

a month ago · 10 likes · 6 comments · eloise butterfly (they/she)

extract:

love is when her skin touches mine and i am looking into the lights that are shining in the sky

love is when i look into her sparkling eyes and i see the true reality

love is when i realize:

there is nothing inside my soul i wouldn’t tell her

love is when i have this sense: relationships don’t matter. marriage doesn’t matter. the future doesn’t matter. love will turn me into a nihilist: love will remind me of my own oblivion. love will reassure me that i don’t care what happens to me anymore because i am so happy: for her.

whether i kiss her: doesn’t matter. whether she wants to marry me: doesn’t matter. whether there’s any hope of even going on a date: doesn’t matter.

what matters: the microsecond when her skin touches mine.

what matters: sitting fifteen feet away from her.

when her skin touches mine for a fraction of a microsecond,

i am reminded of one simple fact:

i cannot honestly look anyone else in the face and say,

“you are the one for me.”

when she’s sitting fifteen feet away from me,

she’s the only person there.

no matter who i meet, no matter what i do, no matter where i am, she will be in the back of my mind.

love is a feeling that arises when she enters into my mind.