how i'm feeling now

2026-01-08

I've been a bit obsessed with hifn by Charli lately.

I listen to it, and I feel this tension in my chest, that happy-sad biochemistry that makes me know I'm feeling something that I can't fake.

Feels very "of the moment", for whereever this is, for me, right now.

I think this was the first Charli album that I really got into. I recall Fantano reviewing it and listening to it as a lark. forever immediately stuck with me, it being sticky as the synths in its verses.

I think forever makes me feel the kind of love that I am looking for, that unconditional, uncontainable, unbearable kind. I daydream about listening to it with a girlfriend, on the floor, staring at the ceiling, happy as clams in its melacholy. I think my most unrealistic expectation for my future.

Though this song isn't about being in a relationship, it's about saying goodbye to it. The sort you say when someone's moving far far away and you want to lie to yourself, for that moment.

I will always love you (Love you)
I love you forever
Even when we're not together
[...]
I know in future
We won't see each other
[...]
But I will always love you
I'll love you forever

Funnily enough, this is basically what my last girlfriend said.

I will always care about your
I hope that we can stay friends

You're not a ghost, you're in my head

I like, I like, I like, I like, I like
everything about you

This is how I want to feel about someone. That sugary rush, when you talk to them, where everything about them feels brand new and sparkly.

I think I want someone just to feel this. I wonder if I will find it. I don't think I've met someone in recent memory that's really made me feel like this.

Also when Charli talks about sex and desire in this song, it's so ... good? I can't even perform commentary on this, it's a subject so out of my wheelhouse, embarrassingly. I wish I could speak on sensuality and sex as well as she can. It's so effortless, on her part. I just get very shy and blush.

I think detonate is the first song I sent to Lisa (a close friend), since it had that bubblewrap poppy feel that I kinda typecast, at the time, her taste in music into. It's really in contrast to the subject matter of the song.

This song is the most unforgiving Charli's written. She doesn't pull any punches. I think the context of this song was that Charli was semi-cheating with George of the 1975 while she was still dating Huck. Me, well, my problem was that I was a bit of an asshole for about a year, something which I've never really gotten past.

I don't think I'm an asshole anymore ... but I really hated who I was in that year, and I think whatever self image brewed up in that year has stuck around.

Hurt me, know you won't hurt me
I'm about to detonate, pull you close and then I'll be gone
[...]
Think you worked me out, but you're wrong

I think what was most painful about this period was that I was reeling from a friendship lost and in a moment of weakness, I decided that no one can know me, and I will never know anyone. I remember wonderful memories of my friends and I remember myself thinking "they will never know me". I didn't like that I thought that.

I don't trust myself alone
Why should you love me?

I felt very alone in this period and existentially anxious about whether anyone would ever really love me, outside my mother.

I really like raves. I went to one and made that my whole personality. I want to wear black and baggy clothes, wear sunglasses and leather jackets. I want edgy tattoos and silver jewelry.

But what I really want is to disassociate in the dark. I want to be lost in a sea of bodies. Skinny, emaciated. Emancipated. Sweaty, grimy. Unknown.

I want anthems
Late nights, my friends, New York
I sleep, wanna wake up brand new.
[...]
I get existential and so strange
I hear no sounds when I'm shouting
I just wanna go to parties
Up high, wanna feel the heat from all the bodies

I should've gone to more when I came to Groningen. A missed opportunity of my 20s. Fuck, I wanna go now.

I got pictures in my mind
I can see it so clearly, see it all the time
Visions coming every night
You can call me so crazy following that light
I can see you at night
I got pictrues in my mind

visions, lyrically, is a song of hope, visions of seeing it through. But its clubby outro is dark, more sinister. It makes no promises of lasting love. It's a picture of dancing solo in a rave, occassional lights bouncing on you. A picture that zooms out. A picture of you withdrawing into that crowd as it eats you whole.

I just wanna go real hard
I just wanna go real hard
Pink diamond in the dark
I just wanna go real hard
I just wanna go real hard

I think the worst part about the degradation of my friendship with Calla is that it was so slow and it didn't really happen. I still call her my sister, mostly to cope with being unable to call her my best friend.

It feels good to write that. She is not my best friend.

And now we're honest and it feels so good
Hello, hello, hello I see clearly
So long, been scared to show off my feelings

Some people have taken up that mantle temporarily, but never for as long or as meaningfully. I typically foist it on them because I desperately want another best friend like that.

I've lost best friends in the past. I never understood why. I suppose with Calla I thought it was different.

I know that look inside my eyes meant always
[...]
Really complicated, we're too deep

Maybe you're my enemy
Now I've finally let you come a little close to me, oh
Maybe you're my enemy
You're the only one who knows te way I really feel oh!
Now it's really clear to me you could do a little damage, you could cut me deeper

I think I read somewhere that Charli thought party 4 u makes for a more "traditional" album closer, but visions felt ... right as the closer. I can't say I disagree, but I had to mention it, considering that it's basically closing this entry.

It's a song by a pathetic wretch for pathetic wretches.

It feels holy, like a hymn.

I hope I find someone that I can sing this song to.

epilogue

I heard this album was basically done inside of a month.

If you listen to the album, one interesting note is that it was produced completely during the pandemic. The themes of isolation and missing life come through very clearly. It actually came off the heels of her self titled album and a lot of momentum that the pandemic put a stop to.

i finally understand walked so that brat could run.

Sampling clique for c2.0 is such a perfect idea. I mean, the original song is about celebrating your closest friends and c2.0 is about missing your friends. Also, during that portion it just repeats "clique", I hear "lick that clit". Minds in the gutter, I know.

This entry means a lot to me, so if you read it let me know!