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

notes from my patterns of experience listening to music by phoebe bridgers and claire cottrill

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

before i turn to analyzing my experience listening to charm,

i believed it would be useful —

both to myself for my own processing and for my readers —

to collect some additional notes, extracts, and song observations from my experiences listening to music by phoebe and claire:

something i have spent hundreds upon hundreds of hours doing at this point while walking around aimlessly for entire evenings.

part 3 — focused on claire’s music — will hit later in the night.

then i will watch the sunrise.

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some additional notes, extracts, and observations from my experiences listening to phoebe and claire

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

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there are queer people all around us being themselves, dancing and singing when phoebe steps on, and my whole soul is on fire when she’s playing. by now i’ve heard all these songs more than two hundred times a piece: i know every word by heart and sometimes, when i leave the room in the middle of a phoebe song, i can still hear every little instrument proceeding in my mind as if the speaker were right by my face: when i step back into the room, the song is just where she’s singing in my mind.

but i don’t sing really. i whisper-sing. i stand there in my dark flannel and jeans: i still have fairly short hair: i hate my clothes, i hate my hair, and i hate that i won’t sing.

even so: i am seeing phoebe bridgers in the middle of the park where i have spent the past year and a half relentlessly consuming her music. i know M would understand if i just let it all out: but there’s also a man with us, and i’m dressed like one.

my soul is erupting when phoebe starts “smoke signals.” the sky is dark and i can see phoebe singing: on the other side of the tree branches between me and the stage.

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you
you must've been lookin' for me
sendin' smoke signals
pelicans circling
burnin' trash out on the beach

(phoebe bridgers, “smoke signals”)

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?

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when i am with W, i feel like i am not myself.

i feel like i must construct myself into someone only he could want.

sometimes i convince myself that this is only because i am anxious and i hate myself and i project that hate onto others. my self-hatred leaves me confused: i never know when my skepticism is valid, i never know when i can and can’t “trust my own gut,” the best advice my dad ever gave me.

i want to follow my dad’s advice and trust my gut: this person does not know you.

we start going to more shows together: haim, a few smaller acts.

and i realize:

when i am with him at these shows, i cannot fully experience the art.

when i loosen up, he thinks i’m weird. he communicates: you are a man, you are old.

i am always repressing myself around him, even when it comes to art we share.

i want to tell him: i am not a man and i am not old:

i am a butterfly.

i am a goddess.

listening to phoebe makes me feel that way.

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almost every day i draw the high priestess. sometimes i draw the hermit.

i am alone: i am afraid, but i am constantly immersed in art, constantly reading, constantly writing. i am struggling to see beneath the surface of things.

i know the surface is not real, but i do not yet know what lies beneath.

i only use my buffy the vampire slayer deck.

i have a massive buffy poster on my wall.

like me W is obsessed with buffy but we never talk about tara.

tara is the high priestess: for so many months i have felt this affinity for tara.

tara is a witch; tara is willow’s lover; tara’s family taught her that she is a demon.

i sink down into my girl music: this is the means by which i go beneath the surface.

i walk through prospect park while listening to an interview in which phoebe bridgers says she considers herself to be a hedge witch. i wonder: could i be a hedge witch?

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i am on the floor and i am here alone.

clairo is playing first and i am dancing in the rain. the drizzle is pouring down on me: everyone around me is dancing and singing: people look at me and smile.

something has been holding me back from embracing my obsession with clairo.

but nothing is now, and neither is anything when boygenius comes on.

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some additional notes on phoebe songs

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“Waiting Room”

If you were a teacher, I would fail your class
Take it over and over 'til you noticed me
If you were a waiting room, I would never see a doctor
I would sit there with my first-aid kit and bleed

I wanna be the power ballad that lifts you up and holds you down
I wanna be the broken love song that feeds your misery
And I can wish all that I want, but it won't bring us together
Plus, I know whatever happens to me, I know it's for the better

And when broken bodies are washed ashore
Who am I to ask for more, more, more?
But you're breathing in my open mouth
You're the gun in my lips that will blow my brains out

I wanna make you drive all night just because I said, "Maybe you should come over"
Wanna make you fall in love as hard as my poor parents' teenage daughter
She'll be the best you ever had if you let her

this is by far one of my absolute favorite songs by phoebe bridgers.

i listened to this song hundreds of times in the fall of 2021. i listened to this song at least a hundred times alone while walking around over three days in dublin, switching between benches and reading sally while this song was in my mind.

why did this song call to me so deeply? why does it still?

it’s just the sincere expression of love: there’s nothing else there.

it’s a song that sees through every concept: she’s talking about a romance with a teacher, a “teenage girl” being the “best you ever had if you let her,” making you “fall in love as hard as my poor parents’ teenage daughter.”

i was so fucking lonely and so fucking sad when i was listening to this song all the time.

I wanna be the power ballad that lifts you up and holds you down
I wanna be the broken love song that feeds your misery
And I can wish all that I want, but it won't bring us together

this song was that for me: the power ballad that lifts me up and holds me down;

the broken love song that fed my misery,

and the art itself seemed like something i needed closer to me.

but i could never be close enough to this song.

that’s why i listened to it 400 times.

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“Revolution O”

Imaginary friend
You live up in my head
So I've been making music
Since you told me to do it

whenever i listen to revolution o, which is often — i cannot stop — i can sense phoebe as she has always been to me through her art: an imaginary friend who guides me through my life, who gives me directions and helps me liberate myself, who stirs me up and directs me to think about my feelings in an honest and reflective way.

there’s no one in my life who has done this for me quite like phoebe has through her art.

and when i hear her say,

“so i’ve been making music / since you told me to do it”

i am left with a sense of my deeper connection with music:

i have said we should always approach art as if it were made specifically for us.

this is how we find ourselves in music — by abandoning “logic” and “science.”

this music feels intertwined with my soul now: my soul is an expression of how i have internalized this music now. there’s just fucking nothing about my being in this world that can be divorced from the music claire and phoebe brought into the world,

and i stand in awe of that.

I just want you to know
Who broke your nose
Figure out where they live
So I can kick their teeth in

claire and phoebe have always taught me through their music to love myself:

and sometimes phoebe, the killer who tames me, reminds me of how i should stick up for myself when the people surrounding me treat me like shit.

If it isn't love then what the fuck is it?
I guess just let me pretend

i’m not a parasocialist. i cannot claim any romantic love for phoebe as a person: i do not know her; we have not met.

all i can say is:

this music sets me on fucking fire with love.

this music sets me on fire with love for myself and love for the world.

if that isn’t love, then what the fuck is it?

I don't want to die
That's a lie
But I'm afraid to get sick
I don't know what that is

this line just sums up so much of the depression i have felt.

the confusion of being torn between wanting to live and wanting to die.

the sadness of wanting to find a healthy attachment,

but hardly being able to grasp them.

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

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

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but even when i am with B, P, A, and S: i feel like i cannot fully be myself because…

i still see that man walking by in my mind and i am afraid when i think about him.

that man is not cool, not cool enough for me, and not cool enough for S.

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additional note: i have thought about S a lot in the past month. what i notice is that S constantly goes to music festivals and tells me about this when we communicate. i love to look at her music festival pictures on instagram. she is one of the coolest beings i know.

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apparently this man is who S sees when she looks at me: i am obliterated.

i am seeking higher beings to help me un-obliterate, whatever this means. to help me escape from this man who is always with me, who stops me from calling S.

over the course of 2019 and much of 2020, here is where i seek for higher beings:

💖 chilling adventures of sabrina
💖 cable girls
💖 velvet
💖 el tiempo entre costuras
💖 isabel allende novels
💖 netflix christmas rom coms

i can feel how i am transforming while i connect with the beings in these mediums, but i do not know what this means. they are not even beings, are they? they are fabrications, representations of beings. although i am uncertain about this: in all honesty i do believe in the reality of fictional characters.

i only know i am drawn to these beings. i know they are only works of art, but i want them so badly to be the beings who will help me.

i believe in higher beings.

but i don’t know what a higher being is.

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i am walking all the time during lockdown. i am going on walks for hours, for miles, listening to music, feeling like i am me in those moments, obliterating that man.

i decide to stop reading the news. i cast podcasts to the side.

i must sink down into music.

i must go beneath the surface.

i know this is what i am doing when i walk for hours upon hours in prospect park: but i do not know what that means.

these lyrics are always in my head: they mean something. they are directions.

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

(phoebe bridgers, “smoke signals”)

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i am constantly thinking about ideas and where they come from. what comes first? ideas or material? do human beings emerge from the assembling of material and then this material begins to generate ideas? or do ideas pre-exist material? do ideas somehow flow across the universe between our minds?

the latter possibility feels much more likely to me than the first.

even so, i find that i am always striving after materialistic explanations. i find i am afraid to tell people like W about the ideas which are swirling in the ether around our beings. “we can absorb them,” i want to say, and i know this is something i could say to B — or really to virtually any woman friend i have — but not to W.

over time i know: whether i admit it or not:

i am no longer a materialist.

the longer i dwell upon the axial age, the more convinced i become:

across human history, there is a force at work beneath the surface.

we are not material: we emanate from something.

consciousness comes before material.

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note from today:

this tree is so special to me that this week i drove to new york, stood under its branches, soaked up its energy, walked around prospect park listening to phoebe and claire, and then i drove home to michigan after staying just one night.

i could feel that tree’s energy.

and i could remember: i saw phoebe once in this park. i listened to her in this park for at least half a thousand hours.

she transformed me here.

like claire transformed me in central park.

and then i remember: claire and i lived there at the same time.

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there is something about clairo’s music i find difficult to really embrace.

i send her album immunity to my friend W, but he says the first song is too girly. it’s the same thing he later says about camera obscura.

i want to say, “that’s why i like it”: the first statement that comes to mind.

but i have known W long enough to anticipate his response:

lmfao

so we continue to discuss music on the surface of things.

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from today (or recently):

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i listen to clairo in secret: i share thoughts about her music only with my female friend M. i am not listening to clairo in secret because i feel like i should, but because i know that if i am open about why i love her music, i will be made to feel ashamed.

what’s strange: i am trying to convince myself i do not like clairo all that much.

i am deliberately limiting how much time i spend listening to clairo.

i am trying to convince myself that clairo is too soft, too juvenile, too young.

at the same time i am not trying to convince myself of any of these things.

at the same time, i am watching some other entity at work in my psyche:

this entity, uninvited, planted in me from the world outside, attempts to convince my mind of these things:

clairo is too soft,

clairo is too girly,

clairo is too juvenile,

clairo is too young,

clairo is a girl.

these thoughts stream into my mind not from within but from the outside: i can see how they enter into my being, i can see that they are not me, and yet even so:

these thoughts are floating about everywhere inside me.

these thoughts are so dense that even once i recognize them for what they are — a kind of “false shame” — i am unable to see through them to my real thoughts.

there is a foreign entity at work when clairo plays:

the man is mustering defenses.

the man is walking around inside me again.

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one weekend on a saturday when i am alone, i am feeling lonely so i go for a walk.

everywhere outside the leaves are glowing bright green. when i arrive at prospect park there are blankets and dogs and children everywhere: there are enormous groups of friends, groups of friends i don’t have, sitting together and smiling.

i walk around the park for hours, wishing i was a part of one of these groups.

B does not live in new york anymore.

i could call S, but she is too cool. i could call A or P: but.

i sit down on a bench and stare sadly out at the picnic goers. i wish i had friends.

suddenly i see her, I, a girl i was once friends with in india, walking with her dog, headphones on, and she is steadily proceeding up the path toward my bench.

i want so badly to say hi to her, but one thought captivates my mind:

the man she sees, the man walking into oblivion, the man who is nothing.

the man who does not exist.

i look down into my lap and wait for her to pass.

i don’t think she notices me.

i don’t see her again.

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i am constantly walking my friend’s dog in central park for 30 dollars a walk.

it’s a pretty good deal because i usually walk this dog for about two hours. we enter the park from the south end: we walk all the way around the reservoir and back.

the little doggie is always so excited, choking himself until we switch to a harness.

i find that i am normally in central park during warmer months, and i do not listen so fanatically to phoebe bridgers here. somehow i associate phoebe with prospect park, and whenever i am walking through central park, i am drawn to clairo.

now it occurs to me: she hit me like a sling

clairo: “sling” album cover

i listened to this song all the fucking time for months:

Between the gaps, I was swimming laps
Got close to some epiphany
I'll convince a friend to join deep ends
Have your toes touch the lack of cement

We'll gather to our corner of the woods
Echo chambers inside a neighborhood
In centerfold, humility's shown
You're not as good as what your mama's sewn

Aren't you glad that you reside in a hell and in disguise?
Nobody yet everything, a pool to shed your memory
Could you say you've even tried? You haven't called your family twice
I can hope tonight goes differently, but I show up to the party just to leave

this little bit is new content,

but “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.

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“sinking”

every night
think of things i can't do or haven't done
and does it make me weak?
sometimes i feel like i can't breathe
is it all you see in me?

don't you wait for something more
i'll still be sinking to the floor
oh, you can't help me
now i'm all alone
is it my doing? Is it my doing?

outside is getting colder
why does it feel like i'm older than i asked to be?

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“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”)

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.

“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.

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i want so badly to live like clairo manifests in her art.

at a certain point clairo is almost like a prophet to me, whispering me directions.

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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.

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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.

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.

i am constantly reading about buddhist and hindu art.

the yakshis stand out most of all.

they are feminine forest spirits who often flank hindu and buddhist gods.

i want to be a yakshi in a future life.

sometimes i walk around listening to clairo and daydreaming that i am a yakshi.

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there is a buddhist concept i think about all the time: mid-life reincarnation.

i read about this concept in peter harvey’s an introduction to buddhism and the idea is making sense to me.

all things arise as a condition of some other thing:

my own being in the world arises from the content of my own consciousness.

how i manifest in the world is not a fixed thing. how i manifest in the world arises from my own inner consciousness: consciousness, not external reality, comes first.

i see the man who walked beside me and B: and i see him now for what he is.

i break him down into all his little parts.

i disintegrate him like an automobile.

i crush him up into powder: he is a compounded thing, he is nothing, he is gone.

i can see that he is nothing: he does not scare me anymore.

even so, there are chains. weakening, yes: but there are still chains to my attachments.

sometimes, walking for hours, listening to clairo, i sense myself:

emerging into the world. arising into existence. come out in a way that is conditioned upon my own internal being rather than the external fabrications chained up to me.

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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.

(you make me wanna) try on feminine
(you make me wanna) go buy a new dress
(you make me wanna) slip off a new dress

(clairo, “juna”)

new analysis of “second nature” and me

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
I move without a void
My train of thought destroyed
And when I tell you, it's because
I've known you well before
My train of thought destroyed

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.

Soon you'll realize too
How it, it aligns you
Ought to know, know the
Know the truth

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

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

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continued extracts from clairo post

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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”)

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as i look at these details,

i can do nothing but cry in the face of mystery.

i can do nothing but cry tears of joy to know that because claire cottrill and phoebe bridgers came into this world, i was fucking saved.

claire cottrill:

phoebe bridgers:

i love you.

i will always love you.

you saved my fucking life.

thank you.

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

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part 3: a re-analysis of charm and some additional song notes from my experience listening to phoebe and claire will hit by sunrise my time

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

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