Just For Today

Album: Sling (2021)
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Songfacts®:

  • Clairo – real name Claire Cottrill – has battled depression and anxiety for much of her life. This intimate song reflects her struggles with mental health amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • Cottrill first shared a home recording of the vulnerable song, via Instagram, on January 25, 2021. She told NME writing the track helped her deal with her mental health struggles during quarantine.

    "Quarantine was just really strange and terrible for [people with] mental health issues – no one really knew what to do and I think that made it even worse," Cottrill said. "Writing that song helped me and I'm glad that people enjoyed it."
  • The home recording finds Clairo singing and playing guitar, and also getting briefly interrupted by her Chow Chow-Pyrenees puppy, Joanie. She wrote on Instagram:

    "Not sure about you, but my mental health has taken a major dip since quarantine started- at times I feel like I've never felt worse. New medication, hotlines, and one scheduled appointment with a psychiatrist later and I'm feeling more like myself again. I wrote this last night and I feel there's no real reason I should hold onto it. Hope you enjoy the song and Joanie's squeaks."

    Cottrill named her puppy after Joni Mitchell, but spelt differently "just so it's not entirely creepy."
  • In the chorus, Clairo references a night when she joined the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline's online chat during a panic attack.

    Mommy, I'm afraid I've been talking to the hotline again
    It's stirring, but the ripples always seek out the ones who carry me, me


    Clairo previously discussed suicide on her 2019 track "Alewife," where she recalled being 13 and thinking she couldn't go on.
  • Clairo recorded a studio version for her second album, Sling. The singer didn't originally plan on including the song on the record, but her home recording had such a striking impact on her followers she added it.
  • Jack Antonoff (Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey Lorde) co-produced the song with Clairo at upstate New York's Allaire Studios. Antonoff also was on violin and mellotron. Clairo played acoustic guitar.

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