Clairo Shares the Secrets Behind ‘Charm’

Working on her third album, Charm, Claire Cottrill had one goal. “This is my third album, and people know me a little bit better, but fuck, they still don’t know,” says Cottrill, 25, who performs as Clairo. “It takes so many records to really understand someone’s choices.“

Working with co-producer Leon Michels — known for his work with El Michels Affair and Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings — she expanded on the vintage instrumentation she explored on 2021’s Sling, while reviving the sugary synth-pop of her 2019 debut, Immunity. She wound up with an album of dazzlingly delicate indie-pop, so cohesive it presents as a whimsical little world of its own.

“Sling and Immunity were both extremely informative for me, and I couldn’t have made this record without the context of either of them at all,” she continues. “I was like, ‘How can these two records come from the same person?’ Charm was this project of, ‘Let’s see how we can meld both together to really show the one person.’” 

Cottrill also dug deeper into her inspirations on Charm, from jazz singer-pianist Blossom Dearie to cult songwriter Margo Guryon to the Beach Boys and Harry Nilsson. “When I was pulling references for this album and analyzing what I was gravitating towards, it really had to do with heroes of mine and their silly work — Smiley Smile, The Point. I feel like I studied it harder this time around. I’m focusing on mystery and allure. I was obsessed with it, and I feel like I found something for myself in it.”

Cottrill sat down with us and walked us through every track on Charm. Check it out below. 

“Nomad”

“Nomad” is the bridge between Sling and Charm. I was in a Bee Gees trance when that song came about, so it was really happy and snappy. I cut a version with Leon that was the first thing we did, and started performing it on tour. And the more I performed it, the more I realized it was actually sort of sad and less upbeat than I initially planned. So that was a journey.

“Sexy to Someone”

I wrote that upstate at the house. “Sexy to Someone” was more of a turning point of the Charm palette to me. It’s when I discovered the overall vibe, especially when I brought it to Leon. I think Charm requires you to listen to the whole thing to really understand it, because “Sexy to Someone” is a lot cooler to me with the whole album. By itself, it can be kind of lame [laughs]. It’s not lame. It’s just, you need the weirder songs on Charm to understand that that was tongue-in-cheek, if that makes sense.

It’s just one of those funny things. No one really wants to ask for external validation. It’s like asking for someone to get you flowers. You don’t want to ask people to compliment you. You just want the little dose of “Well, that was really nice. I wasn’t expecting that!”

“Second Nature”

That one to me is the most Harry Nilsson or Beach Boys one of all of them. It’s so important for the album in terms of mood. There’s a song called “Little Pad” on Smiley Smile by the Beach Boys. I’ve loved that song for a long time. My friend put me onto it in high school and I was like, “This is insane. This is so weird and cool.” There’s laughter in the beginning and there’s time signature changes, and it’s this weird little world of a song. I also really like the idea of something feeling like second nature. I love nature and I love symbiotic relationships.

“Slow Dance”

“Slow Dance” is one of my favorites. I basically made a PSA in the studio being like, “Please make some feminine music. Have a little femme in your step!” “Slow Dance” is probably the most vulnerable song on the record. [Charm] is a lot about dating in your twenties and figuring out how to date. I know everyone talks about it being really hard. 

“Second Nature” and “Slow Dance” were really huge for the recording process because I brought Leon and Nick Movshon and Homer Steinweiss and some other friends that came in and out of the process. Dylan Nowik, Marco Benevento — they all stayed at Allaire [Studios] with me. We were working on stuff and getting through it, but we really needed a couple songs to feel like, “Oh shit, this was worth it.” And “Second Nature” and “Slow Dance” were those moments.

I rerecorded those vocals five times trying to figure out how to make them sound better. And every time we listened to it, we kept going back to the first vocals. They were like, “It’s perfect. Don’t butcher it.” But I am a butcher-er at times, so it was nice for them to be like, “It’s beautiful how it is. Just stop toying with it.”

“Thank You”

That one was really fun. For a long time, the chorus and the verses were the same chords. Every single one of my demos, just the same chords over and over again until someone steps in and is like, “What if we change chords?” [Laughs.] So Leon changed the verse chords, and the song was immediately done. Within minutes of him changing it, I was able to write the verses. There’s a lot of fun sounds, and there’s some cheeky lyrics. I love that bridge so much. It’s super, super awesome.

“Terrapin”

“Terrapin” and “Juna” were both instrumentals that I was given that Leon had worked on separately. My idea for that was, “I just want to float on top of this.” The challenge for those two songs was writing a full song over something that was so dense and so crazy. I listen to music like that. But fitting words and verses and choruses on something that’s already made was a really fun challenge. Also, some of the music Leon makes sounds like it should be rapped over, and I just sang about love over it [laughs]. There’s a silly element to that.

“Juna”

It’s probably my favorite one on the album besides “Second Nature.” I made that song not thinking it was going to become huge. [The performance on Fallon] was going to be “Sexy to Someone,” and then everything started happening with “Juna.” So we changed it maybe two days before, which was nerve-wracking, but super sweet. I just wasn’t anticipating doing mouth trumpet on television.

“Add Up My Love”

I made that in Brooklyn by myself, and then I brought it to the band. Chords are almost the same as “Sexy as Someone.” Kind of on purpose, kind of not really, but I just loved those chords, so I decided to keep both of them. 

That one was super fun to make, also kind of infuriating at times. I was struggling with the sounds and how to make it weird enough. That’s probably the one I had the hardest time with, because it’s so openly pop that I was afraid it was going to skew the album a little bit pop. But then I made “Echo,” so it was like, “Let’s put them next to each other.” Two completely opposite songs, weirdly next to each other on the album.

“Echo”

I have been really obsessed with Broadcast since high school. Trish Keenan is one of the greatest musicians ever, and I’d never made a song that had elements of that. This record was a lot about showcasing my taste more and putting that forward, and showing my audience what I listen to.

Broadcast has such a particular sound, but then you listen to “Goodbye Girls” and you’re like, “They made the perfect pop song.” It sounds weird and it sounds like them, but it’s also this step into pop… question mark? So inspiring to me. That one song “Man Is Not a Bird,” the drums are insane and beautiful, and they just took so many risks that I appreciate.

“Glory of the Snow”

To me, it’s underrated. I saw that [fans] were talking about it less. “Slow Dance,” “Glory of the Snow,” “Terrapin,” you guys are really not talking about those! But whatever. 

That song was made the second day Leon and I ever worked together. I rewrote the verse and the chorus a million times before it landed on something that felt sweet. “Glory of the Snow” is a plant that I saw at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden that, once I read about it, I knew there was something really beautiful. It’s one of the first plants that sprouts at the beginning of spring, so you can see them sprouting through snow. The fact it’s called Glory of the Snow, it’s just something that struck me. 

The song is about picking yourself back up and reframing the situation and doing the hard stuff to get through something and seeing it on the other end. It was heavily inspired by “Seabird” by the Alessi Brothers, and it was made in the winter. It’s this bouncy little moment. That song feels like upstate to me.

“Pier 4”

We recorded that the same way we did “Just for Today” on Sling, which was the Elliott Smith method of guitar and vocal on one mic, and then doing the perfect double take after that — so that it’s only two tracks, and then they just nail perfectly together. 

I was listening to a lot of Ted Lucas, and I loved how weird his harmonies were. I also love the conviction in his voice. He’s really sure of himself, even if he’s talking about getting stoned. I think that song being the last one was a cool moment: “Nomad” starts the album, and it’s this yearning song full of desire. And then “Pier 4” is at the end of the dating process, after you’ve yearned for someone and it didn’t work out. It’s a cyclical thing. If you listen to the record over and over again, you’re experiencing one whole pocket of dating someone. The bookends tell you what happened.

I wanted people to remember that even though I was having fun on Charm, it doesn’t take away that I also have something like “Pier 4” or “Nomad” in me. Maybe some of the lyrics on Charm are less meaningful or kind of silly. But it’s really weird how sometimes people can listen to lyrics and think that that’s the highest of that artist’s intellect. When we reference albums like Smiley Smile or Beach Boys Love You and more silly things that come from people that we consider to be great songwriters, we never see that as their highest intellect. It is an intentional choice, so I want it to be felt and heard as an intentional choice.