Clairo Releases Moving ‘For Now’ Single to Benefit Trans Assistance, Gun Control Groups
In the wake of a nationwide string of laws from conservative politicians and states targeting the trans community and last week’s murder of three children and adults at a Nashville school in a mass shooting, Clairo dropped a one-off charity single on Saturday (April 1) benefitting a pair of charities.
The moving 3:25 track uploaded to Bandcamp, “For Now,” is a stately, voice and keyboard ballad about staying in the moment that opens with the lines, “Pull the rug from underneath me now/ Caught up in the landslide, blindside on the ground/ And would it make a difference if i’d looked at all?/ Loving you is simple, sweet, and I’m bound to fall/ Because I’m/ Loving you for now/ Loving you for now.”
All proceeds from the $1 track will benefit For the Gworls, a trans-led collective that curates parties to raise funds to help Black transgender people pay for their rent, gender-affirming surgeries and co-pays for medicine and doctor’s visits and Everytown for Gun Safety, the nation’s leading gun violence prevention organization.
On the song’s meditative chorus Clairo sings, “Because I’m loving you for now/ Loving you for now/ I’m loving you for now/ Until it all breaks down.”
In the midst of an unprecedented attack on trans rights by Republican legislators and governors across the country via laws that criminalize drag shows/story times, gender-affirming care and, in Kentucky, restrict which bathrooms students can use, a number of artists have spoken out against the efforts.
In early March, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed controversial laws banning minors from receiving gender-affirming care and preventing drag queens from performing in certain public spaces. Last week, Kentucky legislators overrode democratic Gov. Andy Beshear’s veto of the nation’s most restrictive bill, which will allow public school teachers to misgender trans students, prevent public schools from allowed educational presentations that study gender identity/sexual orientation and which bans nearly all forms of hormone therapy and treatments for trans and nonbinary people under 18.
There has also been an upswell of calls for the passage of common-sense gun regulation in the wake of last Monday’s killing of three nine-year-old students and three adults staffers at a private Christian school in Nashville.
On Wednesday, Sheryl Crow, Margo Price and Old Crow Medicine Show singer Ketch Secor performed at the “Nashville Remembers” vigil in the town’s Public Square Park honoring the victims of the Covenant School shooting.
A number of Nashville musicians spoke out in grief and anger after the nation’s 132nd mass shooting so far this year, carried out by a 28-year-old former student at the private religious charter school while armed with one military-grade semi-automatic rifle and two handguns.
While conservative politicians offered up thoughts and prayers, pivoted to mental health and made comments including “emotion doesn’t solve problems,” Pres. Biden once again urged Congress to take any action to curb the easy access to military-style weapons. “We have to do more to stop gun violence. It’s ripping our communities apart, ripping the soul of this nation — ripping at the very soul of the nation. And we — we have to do more to protect our schools so they aren’t turned into prisons,” Biden said in remarks following the 17th school shooting so far this year.
Biden once again urged Congress to pass his assault weapons ban, an action that GOP lawmakers have steadfastly refused to take on.
Click here to listen to “For Now.”
Gil Kaufman
Billboard
