I’ve been in absolute pieces wrt SOPHIE and I have been struggling for an even slightly rational explanation, but I think it’s about multiple wolves.

Wolf one listened to an awful lot of Peelie and so has a huge and often intransigent pile of music. Wolf one also vividly remembers failing to understand Big Black until they covered ‘The Model’. At which point I had enough cultural reference points to make sense of what I was trying to listen to. Thankfully most modern music was invented by Kraftwerk, so they’ve been a handy cultural shortcut. Wolf one also has been a gatekeepery indie kid and thus should be forgiven for being a bit suspicious of the instant fan.

Given my current path through a second puberty and hormonal balance, Wolf two is a fifteen-y-o girl. Thus is (re)discovering a pile of music that MEANS EVERYTHING. Which is actually fucking marvellous because who wants to be a jaded old tosser, but at the same time has taken two snotrags to explain to my personal braincare specialist.

So. ‘It’s okay to cry’ sailed right past any cultural firewalling I may have and hit me so hard in the feels that it is actually funny. It is a trans fucking anthem and I will fight any fucker who dares to opine otherwise.

At the same time I have (had, thankfully) absolutely no cultural reference points with which to make sense of the rest of her work, and this has been making me feel like all sorts of an arse/poser for the past couple of days.

Meanwhile I am really quite pissed off to have only discovered her after the fact. So many trans people have a wildly creative energy about them, but the act of simply existing as a trans person, while an absolute fucking joy, can drain you of all you have. And that creativity gets burned out coping with (waves hands). So to watch a trans woman just, I don’t know, set light to pop music as if it were just some simple fiddling about, be living her best life… and then for that stupid thing to happen. That’s genuinely distressing.

It’s also been interesting/uncomfortable listening to a lot of more familiar music and thinking ‘JFC this was put together like people making wooden carts for horses.’ I wonder where that will lead..