Summer 2024 has been a summer of iconic new female music releases. A central theme that unites them are considerations of how the modern woman grapples with age-old feelings of love and loss.
Charlie XCX’s vibrant Brat green coloured every corner of the internet, preaching a party girl lifestyle as the path to female freedom. We also had the addictive aesthetics of Sabrina Carpenter’s “Taste” music video, which used horror movie tropes to humorously dramatise the struggles of a young woman trying to get her ex back. Not quite so conspicuous by comparison though just as strong, Clairo’s “Charm” blazes gently and warmly.
Released on July 12 and produced alongside Leon Michels, it offers a quieter yet more simple and honest outlook on 21st-century living and loving, not only in relation to the music of her contemporaries, but also her own oeuvre.
“Immunity” (2019), in particular, is punctuated by melodramatic teenage longings and a gut-wrenching fear of abandonment. This is evident in “Bags,” whereby the singer deems anything to be better than her lover leaving. Pitchfork aptly describes it as being “a more sophisticated palette.” For a more general overview of the album, see here.
When we explore Clairo’s new set of lyrics, we see clearly how she uses natural imagery and stripped-back language. Rather than needing to be fought for, Clairo affirms that “true” love should be simple and something that just comes to you. It should be so easy, that it’s basically “Second Nature.”
“Second Nature” and “Juna:” Do we really have to try so hard in love?
Sweet giggles and an easy breezy “da-dum” melody make up the beginning of “Second Nature.” Backed by wind instruments and percussion, it effuses effortlessness.
The song is about how blissfully simple a love that is truly meant for you feels. It has the power to “cut [through] all the noise,” presumably of any anxieties or doubts that often crop up when we begin to develop feelings for someone new. The negative “train of thought [is] destroyed,” her new love able to “move without a void.”
The slowed-down, ethereal vocals of the bridge appear like a divine revelation. “Soon you’ll realize, too/how it aligns you” reassures the listener. The right love will make you feel calm and fulfilled, not confused or scared.
In the age of the internet, where endless streams of relationship advice feel overwhelming (“10 tips to make sure he never leaves!”), the song’s confident assertion that once the right partner appears you will “see kismet sinking in,” comes as a great relief. Rather than obsessing over how to make them stay, we can rest assured that the right ones will never go.
“Juna” offers a similar perspective. The speaker initially feels hesitant about entering into a new love (“most of these days/I don’t get too intimate/why would I let you in?”).
But by the time we hit the refrain these worries melt away, because “with you, there’s no pretending.” Real love is difficult to resist because it doesn’t require effort or thought. It just grows.
She relishes in the comforting feeling of compatibility and mutual sympathy; “you know me, you know me/and I just might know you too.” Why waste time trying to make the wrong person understand you? The right one just will.
“Thank You” (for your time): There are blessings to find in our endings
It seems that endings are inevitable. After going through my first breakup at 19, I assumed endings would always be carnage. I went through an another breakup at 21, and as much as I’d been dreading reliving such a traumatic experience, when it did eventually happen, it actually felt quite peaceful.
Perhaps my favourite track on the album, “Thank You” warmly accepts the end of a relationship. Rather than mourning its loss, the singer is able to make a positive out of the negative, expressing gratitude for the time she did have with this person.
She admits “we don’t get on, can’t make you laugh, personality.” Simply put, they weren’t meant for each other. “Why doesn’t this happen more naturally?” – again we see the perspective that love should flow easily. Kindly, softly. Why not with this love?
It doesn’t matter – as much as this relationship meant something to her, it shows her that it wasn’t supposed to be forever. And so she can walk away gently, and say not only “thank for your time,” but also “thank you for the time.” This subtle modification of the final chorus line also shows gratitude for a life that is bountiful and forgiving, making space for our mistakes in love, as well as our revelations.
“Glory of the Snow” and “Terrapin:” Nature as love’s metaphor
“Glory of the Snow” is a delicate flower known for being one of “the earliest flowers to bloom after dormancy in the grey of winter, even when there’s still snow on the ground– hence the name.” The ebb and flow of a love won and lost is like the seasonal change of a flower.
Clairo uses the Glory of the Snow as a metaphor to describe the point in this natural love cycle where she is able to pull herself out from the darkness of old memories (“When I drive, I always check over the seat/I could see you right there”), and into the light.
Seasons change, and the singer is finding hope again – “waking up and now I know.” She begins her rituals that will bring her back into the present world, new and afresh. “Dust[ing] the windows, the shutters, the channels” where this person used to sit. “Sweeping under rugs” that in the depths of her grief she believed she wasn’t “gonna dance on again.” Hibernation ends; the dark periods of love, too are seasonal.
In “Terrapin” (itself a connection to nature, a type of turtle), Clairo once again sings of a love that is simple and true. And we know that it is true because the pureness of their love allows them to become a very part of nature.
“We can go wherever we want/The plains, the sand, the salt, the dust.”
When you are pursuing love, follow the guides and patterns of nature. For love is nature.
So… are we charmed by “Charm?”
In my opinion, “Charm” has been the musical success of this summer.
From Clairo’s musical insights we can learn that, contrary to feeling like we need to change who we are or what we want in order to make things work out with a partner, when the right person comes into our lives they will flow into it seamlessly, naturally. And so too when it’s time for a relationship to end; this can also be done with gentleness and grace, when we appreciate that this is the natural way of things.
Perhaps we philosophise or complicate our attitudes towards love and relationships too much in the modern day. Do we really need “situationships,” or are we just too scared to make the natural progression from strangers to lovers to strangers again? We forget that it was never meant to be so difficult to love, doesn’t have to be.
Perhaps Clairo’s “Charm” is exactly the reminder we need to open up our hearts again.
