phoebe, clairo, and me: a diary of lyrics (part 1 - phoebe)

i can no longer avoid facing the reality of my rawest levels of experience: phoebe bridgers and claire cottrill LITERALLY saved my fucking life, and i will love them forever

clairo, buddhism, nyc, and queerhood (retrospective diary: 2019-2024)

phoebe bridgers and the music that blossomed my queerness (retrospective diary: 2021-2024)

introduction

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.

here is what my life was like:

sometimes at night when i was trying to fall asleep, i imagined that i was in the lake of fire. i saw my parents and jesus up on the top of a cliff looking down at me and all the other souls who were screaming in agony and pleading for mercy. then i would see jesus and my parents turn their backs and walk away: i saw this in my nightmares.

would god have mercy on me?

i asked my mom about abraham and isaac. god had stopped abraham from killing isaac at the last moment, but the story still haunted me. i knew god liked to test the loyalty of his followers. i asked my mom, “would you also kill me if god told you to?”

she hesitated and i pressed her. finally she admitted that she would.

what choice do we have when issued one of god’s commandments?

my choice at 16: stop masturbating or burn in hell (salvation chronicles 1)

what if phoebe hadn’t been born in 1994?

what if claire hadn’t been born in 1998?

they were little children and i was one too, but older and in middle school:

i started having the nightmares i used to have in early elementary school. my parents would come and take me out of bed and feed me to a gigantic man-eating flower. i would always wake up screaming, and then my parents would come into the room.

this time when my mom warned me about these men, i screamed at her.

“i will hate you! i will hate you forever! i will never see you again!”

“well!” my dad said, tossing his hands in the air. “that’ll be your choice!”

“we hope you won’t make that decision,” my mom said. “we love you very much. but if your behavior doesn’t improve, be prepared.”

i screamed at them. i knew my dad’s dad had left him, so i called him a bastard. i told my mom she was a fucking bitch. i started grabbing my own things and destroying them, shredding them up.

“don’t do that,” my dad said, suddenly becoming concerned.

i destroyed more of my things. then i went for their things and they changed.

i screamed “i fucking hate you i fucking hate you i fucking hate you” and then i made as if to physically attack them.

not for the first time, my dad slammed his fist on the kitchen island and shouted: “men will come and take you in the night!”

“and you’ll have no way of communicating with any of your friends,” my mom added.

“and you’ll have no way of communicating with us either,” my dad said.

i went to my room and cried.

my middle school memoir (salvation chronicles prologue)

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

i was not exaggerating when i described this experience upon hearing second nature:

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.

from: phoebe bridgers and the music that blossomed my queerness

phoebe and claire’s music production intensified before and after the pandemic: and during this time, i was still trying to get my parents to love me. i was going home. i was living at home spending time with them. all the while i felt deep down, “these people hate me. everyone around me hates me.” i knew that if i simply acted like myself in front of my parents, they would express hatred or contempt for me: as they have many times over my “behavior” (not identity they always say) since i came out.

now: i have no clue whatsoever how i ever dreamed i could get my parents to love me.

my parents hate me and they taught me to hate myself. they almost drove me to commit suicide by the time i was in college. they say “we love you and we care about you,” but their behavior demonstrates indisputable evidence of their hatred for me.

i am sometimes so afraid that if i’d never have found phoebe and claire, i’d never have freed myself from the self-hatred that my parents taught me.

once again, this is my experience:

after listening to phoebe bridgers for well over 1100 hours,

charm immediately woke me up when the album released this july.

the moment i listened to charm, i totally lost control.

the moment i listened to charm, i fucking loved myself.

the whole next two months, when people were telling me to shut up and telling me i was unwell and telling me i was. embarrassing them, i listened to charm.

claire’s music literally gave me the energy to write this entire blog.

no one could stop me anymore.

so what kismet means is:

if phoebe bridgers and claire cottrill had never been born,

this blog would not exist.

that laugh would never have made it onto that track.

that track would not exist: and phoebe only got me part way.

i needed claire too.

without claire and phoebe, i would not be helping anyone become a Goddess.

i would be lost in darkness.

claire and phoebe saved me, and if you appreciate this blog, you have them to thank.

part one: phoebe

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stranger in the alps (phoebe bridgers 2017)

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“Smoke Signals”

I went with you up to the place you grew up
And we spent a week in the cold
Just long enough to Walden it with you
Any longer, it would've got old
Singin' "Ace of Spades" when Lemmy died
But nothing's changed, L.A.'s alright
I'm sleepin' in my bed again
And gettin' in my head and then
Walk around the reservoir

You
You must've been lookin' for me
Sendin' smoke signals
Pelicans circling
Burnin' trash out on the beach

One of your eyes is always half-shut
Somethin' happened when you were a kid
I didn't know you then and I'll never understand
Why it feels like I did
"How Soon Is Now" in an eighties sedan
You slept inside of it because your dad
Lived in a campground in the back of a van
You said that song'll creep you out until you're dead

And you
Must've been lookin' for me
Sendin' smoke signals
Pelicans circling
Burnin' trash out on the beach

I wanna live at the Holiday Inn
Where somebody else makes the bed
We'll watch TV while the lights on the street
Put all the stars to death
It's been on my mind since Bowie died
Just checking out to hide from life
And all of our problems, I'm gonna solve 'em
With you ridin' shotgun
Speeding 'cause fuck the cops

And you
You must've been lookin' for me
Sendin' smoke signals
Pelicans circling
Burnin' trash out on the beach

Mm-mm

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

this song sends chills down my spine: i have listened to it around 600 times.

i have said the best way to consume art is to embrace every piece of art as if it were made especially for you, as a portal into yourself, and this is what “smoke signals” did for me in so many mysterious ways.

i constantly hear so many echoes of my own life.

she knows my trauma:

One of your eyes is always half-shut
Somethin' happened when you were a kid
I didn't know you then and I'll never understand
Why it feels like I did

she knows my exhaustion as i walk peacefully around the reservoir in central park:

I'm sleepin' in my bed again
And gettin' in my head and then
Walk around the reservoir

she reassures me that her music will solve my problems:

And all of our problems, I'm gonna solve 'em
With you ridin' shotgun
Speeding 'cause fuck the cops

she promises me a better future:

I buried a hatchet, it's comin' up lavender
The future's unwritten, the past is a corridor

and she reminds me i was always looking for her:

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

i remember when i got my ghost tattoo, inspired by this album.

i had the artist put lavender beside her.

that is phoebe for me: the ghost who came into my life and turned me into lavender.

---

“Motion Sickness”

I hate you for what you did
And I miss you like a little kid
I faked it every time but that's alright
I can hardly feel anything
I hardly feel anything at all

You gave me fifteen hundred
To see your hypnotherapist
I only went one time, you let it slide
Fell on hard times a year ago
Was hoping you would let it go and you did

I have emotional motion sickness
Somebody roll the windows down
There are no words in the English language
I could scream to drown you out

this song connects with me in so many ways: primarily, “motion sickness” describes my experience of trying to win the affection of toxic people.

I hate you for what you did
And I miss you like a little kid

my parents! what they did to me! and how i loved them anyway!

how i always went to them! and how now they tell me there is nothing they can do for me. and then some of my friends! the people who abandoned me! i spent so long missing them, hating them and missing them all at once: that was motion sickness.

I have emotional motion sickness
Somebody roll the windows down
There are no words in the English language
I could scream to drown you out

that motion sickness has driven me to scream too.

---

jesus christ, i’m so blue all the time
and that's just how i feel
always have and i always will
i always have and always will

(phoebe bridgers, “funeral”)

“funeral” connected with me at the very deepest levels of my depression when i first discovered phoebe at the end of 2020.

here is what i wrote in phoebe bridgers and the music that blossomed my queerness (retrospective diary: 2021-2024)

whenever i hear this line as i walk through the snow, i face the reality of my past: i have always been depressed and i have routinely contemplated suicide. i have this sense that no matter what i do, i will always be sad. sadness seems intrinsic to my being. what am i sad about? there is this emptiness inside of me, this sense i am not me: but why? i actually hate myself even more for not simply appreciating what i have.

i have this sense i will never find fulfillment, and i hate that, because i love the people in my life, i love the things i have done in my life, i love the books i read and the music i listen to: there is so much in my life that so often makes me happy: yet even then i feel empty, like i’m nothing, and the emptiness is filled with sadness.

---

“demi moore”

i don't wanna be stoned
i don't wanna be stoned anymore
i don't wanna be alone
don't wanna be alone anymore, mm

i've got a good feeling
i've got a good feeling
it doesn't happen very often

during covid i was constantly getting stoned and walking around in the park while listening to phoebe and looking at the snow.

i didn’t want to be stoned: i wanted to be happy.

but i was so scared of the people in my life, and i needed drugs to keep calm.

good feelings were so rare: why not seek them out with drugs?

i felt like phoebe understood this: she helped me reflect; she opened a portal.

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“Scott Street”

Walking Scott Street, feeling like a stranger
With an open heart, open container
I've got a stack of mail and a tall can
It's a shower beer, it's a payment plan

There's helicopters over my head
Every night when I go to bed
Spending money and I earned it
When I'm lonely, that's when I'll burn it

Do you feel ashamed
When you hear my name?

i have been in this moment so often, walking out in the world alone, feeling like a stranger, sensing that no one will ever like me if i reveal myself to them. feeling like i have an open heart, a deep and poetic nature, but no one will acknowledge that.

i think about my life in brooklyn: alone, scared, afraid to socialize, helicopters over my head as i fall asleep alone, saving money for some future thing i think i need to do.

and then — “do you feel ashamed / when you hear me name?”

it’s a question for my parents now.

it’s a question for the people who hated me.

phoebe helped me get to that point of recognition and release.

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“Killer”

Can the killer in me tame the fire in you?
Oh, is there nothing left to do for us?
I am sick of the chase but I'm hungry for blood
And there's nothing I can do

…

Can the killer in me tame the fire in you?
I know there's something waiting for us
I am sick of the chase but I'm stupid in love
And there's nothing I can do

And there's nothing I can do

the question rings so true:

there’s a fire in me. in my life i have been quick to wrath and anger. i have demonstrated that on this blog. true, i have been getting better at controlling my anger: and that is thanks to phoebe.

she’s the killer who tamed the fire in me.

she’s the killer who is also hungry for blood but calms me when i go too far.

and it’s her music that does that.

---

“georgia”

Georgia, Georgia, I love your son
And when he gets older, he might be the one
He might be the one

Georgia, Georgia, he has beautiful bones
And he never lies or picks up his phone

And sometimes in the pouring rain
He'll fall in the mud and get back up again

And if you find me
Will you know me?
Will you take me
Or will you fall?

Here is my day plan, here's my new machine
He is a fine new addition, so young and so clean
So young and so clean

He came up through the water without a sound
With my back to the shoreline, I dreamt that he drowned
I dreamt that he drowned

And sometimes, when he looks at me
I know he needs you, you're all that he sees

these lyrics make me think about my mom, “georgia.” it’s as if someone is talking to my mom telling her that she loves me, even though my mom hates me. and even though my mom treats me so terrible, phoebe sees:

“i know he needs you, you’re all that he sees”

for me, the song captures a feeling so many of us experience all the time: that feeling we have when we love someone, when they are all we see, but there is someone else out there who actually loves us for who we really are.

i don’t know phoebe bridgers, i’ve never met her in this life, but i am unafraid to express how deeply these lyrics have impacted me:

phoebe acted as a portal into helping me understand where to find real love after years of trauma with my parents.

---

“Chelsea”

For a chemical imbalance
You sure know how to ride a train
Your revolution is a deathbed
And the music is your maid
When someone comes a-knockin'
With a needle on a tray
Only your lonesome lies beside you
For you told me not to stay

You are somebody's baby
Some mother held you near
No, it's not important
They're just pretty words, my dear
There is no distraction
That can make me disappear
No, there's nothin' that won't remind you
I will always be right here

fucking shit, no? this hits me like a freight train:

For a chemical imbalance
You sure know how to ride a train
Your revolution is a deathbed
And the music is your maid

jesus christ: this is me. i know it happens all the time in lyrics: they are written to be general. but my chemical imbalances, my depression, my empty dreams of revolution, and the music as my fucking maid!!!

that was my life until i helped to start this revolution against the patriarchy thanks to phoebe and claire.

i love the way phoebe’s music makes me think about myself:

He came up through the water without a sound
With my back to the shoreline, I dreamt that he drowned

i love to get in touch with my inner pisces moon and my pisces rising;

i love to be associated with the water.

and you know what phoebe reminds me through her music?

You are somebody's baby
Some mother held you near
No, it's not important
They're just pretty words, my dear

“we love you and we care about you”

they don’t mean shit.

know what else phoebe reminds me?

No, there's nothin' that won't remind you
I will always be right here

it does not matter whether i ever meet phoebe.

she will always be there for me through her music.

she is always right here beside me.

her music makes me know what those words mean when they are full.

---

“Would You Rather”

Playing 'Would You Rather', when it comes to fire
You always say that you'd prefer to drown
You were still in the ambulance
When the cop suggested you're the one who tried to burn it down

Come to find out
I'm a can on a string, you're on the end
We found our way out
Of a suicide pact of our family and friends
In the background
I'll be waitin'

We have the same face, I laid awake
As someone shoved you up against a wall
Quarantined in a bad dream
He's half the man and you're twice as tall

Come to find out
I'm a can on a string, you're on the end
We found our way out
Of a suicide pact of our family and friends
In the background
I'll be waitin'

Next time I see you, you'll show me
A hundred different ways to say the same things

”would you rather” hits me so fucking hard.

i feel like phoebe is the one who helped me find my way out of this suicide pact with my family and friends: this pact to obliterate ourselves in the name of made up concepts.

i feel like phoebe’s music sees how i have been blamed for things by my family, made to feel like a bad child and a bad person:

Playing 'Would You Rather', when it comes to fire
You always say that you'd prefer to drown
You were still in the ambulance
When the cop suggested you're the one who tried to burn it down

like playing “would you rather” with my family?

fuck no. they would hate to hear me speak any truth,

and they would tell me i am the one who burned it all down.

they tell me i am the one who destroyed my family.

phoebe sees this through her music.

but the song goes much deeper than that:

We have the same face, I laid awake
As someone shoved you up against a wall
Quarantined in a bad dream
He's half the man and you're twice as tall

i feel like my whole life, phoebe has been awake, and i have been asleep,

quarantined in a bad dream,

seeking something, searching for smoke signals:

the dream world is the real world

and so then 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)

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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 stranger in the alps), i was on the floor with the teens, hanging out in the back with the elder emos, and i was singing, dancing, screaming along to the lyrics. i sang, swayed, and smiled more at that show than at any show in my life. my phone stayed in my pocket on “do not disturb,” and i only looked at the screen three or four times. i didn’t take a single picture.

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.

at that show, i adored music more than ever. i was connecting with art in a way i never had before; surges of happiness and love rushed through me relentlessly until i was screeching “I WANNA BE EMACIATED” with all the fans around me while the boys (that’s their group gender) performed “me & my dog.”

from phoebe bridgers and the music that blossomed my queerness (retrospective diary: 2021-2024)

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“You Missed My Heart”

You missed my heart, you missed my heart
You got me good, I knew you would
But you missed my heart, you missed my heart
Were his last words before he died

Looking out the window, up at the blue sky
Listening to her scream, listening to her cry
A feeling of relief came over my soul
I couldn't take it any longer, and I lost control

I chased her up the stairs and I pinned her to the ground
And underneath her whimpering, I could hear the sirens sound
I rattled off a list of all the things I miss
Like going to the movies with her and the way she kissed me

Driving into downtown Wheeling, showing her off
Backyard barbecues and reunions in the park
I said I missed her skin when she started laughing
While I clenched down on her wrist
She said, "That's quite a list, but there's one thing you missed"

"You missed my heart, you missed my heart
That's quite a list, but what you really missed (you missed my heart)
You missed my heart, you missed my heart
That's quite a list, but what you really missed"

this song hits me like a reminder from phoebe of what will happen to me if i do not control my anger. she did not write this song; it is a cover: but the message hits me the same. she is the killer taming the fire in me.

she is the person reminding me through her music that if i become too angry, my words too will be nothing more than “quite a list.”

she’s waking up my pisces moon, she’s turning it into my pisces rising: she’s bringing out the love inside of me.

that is what phoebe’s music has done for me:

she has transformed me. she has saved me.

thank you so fucking much phoebe.

maybe you’ll never meet me:

but you’ll always be here for me with your music.

everything i do now is thanks to you and claire.

and i will never stop fucking loving you for that.

and you’re still fucking reminding me phoebe:

it’ll all work out.

She wore faded jeans and soft black leather
She had eyes so blue they looked like weather
When she needed me, I wasn't around
That's the way it goes, it'll all work out

There were times apart, there were times together
I was pledged to her for worse or better
When it mattered most I let her down
That's the way it goes, it'll all work out

It'll all work out eventually
Better off with him than here with me

Now the wind is high and the rain is heavy
The water's rising in the levee
Still I think of her when the sun goes down
Never goes away, but it all works out
Never goes away, but it all works out

and with that peace which you have given me through your music and merch,

i am ready to be a Goddess; i am ready to be a butterfly.

you and claire (and the boys) turned me into Elosie.

extract:

phoebe bridgers and the music that blossomed my queerness (retrospective diary: 2021-2024)

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.

phoebe bridgers and the music that blossomed my queerness (retrospective diary: 2021-2024)

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10 tactics for avoiding writer's block

extract:
i once saw an interview with lucy dacus, a very important artist to me, in which she explained her songwriting process. she said that she couldn’t imagine herself just sitting down at a desk to write a song. instead, she likes to go for walks, and she likes to record ideas as they come to her. lucy says she has an enormous google drive which, among other things like shadow selfies, contains lines for potential songs. when she wants to continue the creative process, she has a huge repository of ideas, and all of them are hers, even if they are not developed or currently hold no clear meaning.

“always an angel, never a god.” lucy says that this was one of the lyrics that suddenly came to her and she recorded in her notes.

“always an angel, never a god,” once a mysterious string of words recorded from lucy’s mind, reflective of a deeper meaning which she had suddenly found this way to express, became the basis for a grammy-winning rock performance. this grammy did not come from lucy sitting down and deliberately writing a song on her bed or at her desk: this grammy came from the fact that lucy is constantly capturing her ideas so she can return to them later and build on them, either alone or with co-creators.

the story about this boygenius hit, “not strong enough,” is why there is one central theme running through all these tactics:

keep the wheels turning, even if you have no idea where you’re going.

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phoebe, clairo, and me: a diary of lyrics (part 2 - notes, extracts, additional songs)

phoebe, clairo, and me: a diary of lyrics (part 3 - clairo)

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Drive: how i got it back

release the Goddess within: 10 strategies