Charlotte Lawrence Wants You to Hear the Song She Wrote About You

Charlotte Lawrence is putting together a David Bowie puzzle during our Zoom call. It’s of his iconic album cover for Aladdin Sane. She’s finished Bowie’s face and outline, and all that’s left is the most challenging part: the background. “Whenever I’m talking on the phone or doing anything like this, if I’m not doing something physical, I will go on for hours,” she says. “I got the head and the body, but now all this is just white, so I’m like, what the fuck am I supposed to do?”

Lawrence’s new album Somewhere, out today, was something like that too. She’s been working on the project for years, first teasing it with the 2022 track “Morning.” She has since shared four more singles, including one of her favorites, “Bodybag.” Although she released two EPs in high school, Young (2018) and Charlotte (2021), a full album has long been a bucket list item for the 25-year-old singer. “It’s been such a crazy few years figuring it out—all the tedious pieces of the puzzle that I had to put together, and all the awesome creative bits,” Lawrence says. Now that the album is finally out, it still feels unreal. “I’m like, that’s disgusting. That’s illegal.”

Somewhere is autobiographical, detailing the highs and lows of Lawrence’s last few years, from life during COVID to the growing pains of her 20s. It has rock and indie influences, with Lawrence’s calming voice soaring throughout. She’ll soon take the music on the road with a North American tour throughout July and August. After that, the singer and actress will return in the second season of AppleTV+’s Bad Monkey.

Raised by parents in the entertainment industry, Lawrence has been surrounded by creatives from a young age. Her dad, Bill Lawrence, is a producer and writer, and her mom, Christa Miller, is an actress and music supervisor. They both have championed her music career, putting her in piano and singing lessons as a kid. “I grew up around writers and beautiful people in Hollywood that just were passionate about their jobs,” she says. “I was like, ‘Oh, this is a possibility. You can pursue your passion. You can do this creative thing.’”

A few days before the album drop, ELLE caught up with Lawrence to talk Somewhere.

Yeah, I do. It’s so personal to me. I’ve really gotten to the place of utter love and acceptance for it. I obviously want billions of people to listen to it and love it, and I want to play it for millions of people. If only five people that I respect love it, I’ll be happy. If somebody doesn’t like it, I’m not going to take it personally. It feels like me, and it feels so authentic. Everybody has their own taste, who cares? It’ll be a part of me that I’ve chosen to [share with] people, but it’ll still be my story, and that won’t change.

I love everything. I was going into the COVID-19 pandemic knowing that I just wanted to make new music, have fun, and go on tour. I was very blasé about it all. I released my first two EPs when I was in high school, not giving a care in the world and just partying and being like, okay, cool. I make music.

Then, along with the rest of the world, I had a horrible, tough time with COVID. Being isolated like that and going through a whole worldwide event, is really fucking scary and disorienting. That, combined with a very hefty amount of personal shit that I was going through, was like: Okay, you’re not a kid anymore. You’re an adult. This is what heartbreak is. This is what deep pain is. Take off the rose-colored glasses. Welcome to reality.

It really felt like my world was collapsing in a big way. I took the time to go through it, to feel it, to break down, to be insane, and then heal, work on myself, and figure out who I was. And then, I was like, okay, I love making music more than anything in the motherfucking world. This is what brings me joy and peace.

I dove in and really made something that I feel proud of. This is the first time in my whole life that I would listen to my entire album top to bottom and would love it, even if my name wasn’t on it. I’d be like, “Who the fuck is this?”

One of the last songs I made for this album was the title track. I had a similar feeling about “Bodybag,” the first song I made for the project. “Bodybag” is about me being the one who was hurt, a scorned woman almost. “Somewhere” is a weird opposite of that. It’s about a time that I really messed up and made a huge mistake. I really hurt somebody. I remember writing “Somewhere” and being like, “Yeah, this fucking feels good.” Everybody makes mistakes. I’ve been on this side of it, and now I’m on that side of it. This feels like a huge button on the end of the album, like the cherry on top.

I would just start calling the album Somewhere. The “Somewhere album” or “I want to go somewhere on tour.” I heard Haim say something like this recently, and I really resonated with it. You know those things that start as meaning nothing and then eventually, through time, hold weight and meaning for you? I equate this album to growing up in Los Angeles, as a young girl, maybe being shown too much too early, and feeling like my brain is somewhere, anywhere, everywhere, all the time.

Oh my God, I want everybody that all my songs are about to hear them. I have the opposite worry. I’ve had songs written about me before. Even the mean ones, I’m like, this is exciting. The rush is amazing. The attention is wonderful. On the reverse side of it, I’m like, how cool is it to have a song written about you? Even if it’s like, “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.” This person is thinking about me. That’s awesome.

A little part of me is like, “I want you to fucking know, bitch, I want you to remember that you hurt me, so listen to it, please. If you hurt me bitch, and I’m screaming at you, I want you to hear it again. I want it to play in your house all the time. I want you to hear it everywhere you step.”

My parents are not musically inclined, but they are so creative in their own right. I think I get my songwriting affinity and passion from [my dad]. My mom has an impeccable ear. I remember I asked my mom if I could take piano lessons when I was five or so. She found me this woman named Jamie. I told [Jamie] that I really wanted to sing, and it was a passion of mine. We would spend the first 30 minutes learning classical piano music. Then, the last 30 minutes I got to choose any song that I loved. She would teach it to me, and I would sing it.

I remember anytime I would sing at my school choir, they’d always be like, “Sing loud. Belt.” Jamie was always like, “No, keep your quiet voice. This is your natural voice. Nurture this, keep going, let’s start writing. You like these chords from this song? How about you just change a few, and then write your own song with it?” I was like…12. She just really nurtured this natural passion. And through my parents, their friends, and the awesome people that I grew up around, I got to walk through many doors and meet all the right people. The rest is history.

I understand how fortunate I am and that I was born with more opportunities. Growing up, I got to meet Ed Sheeran and all these cool musicians and go to these cool concerts and have great seats. That is what it is, and I’m so frickin’ grateful for it. To be frank, I was born with this passion, this thing that brings me more joy than anything in my life. So, I truly do feel like I would be doing myself a massive disservice if I didn’t take advantage of those things. I do truly believe that connections, being a “nepo-baby,” and growing up with money can open the door and make it so that I’m not needing to make music or I won’t be able to eat or pay rent. I am doing it because I want to, not because I desperately need to.

I very much recognize that, but it can’t get me through the door. They can introduce me to all the right people, but I’m not going to sell out a tour because of my parents. I’m going to sell out a tour if people want to come see me sing. I understand that, and I can appreciate my own talent and my hard work, while also being extremely aware and appreciative of the opportunities I’ve gotten from my parents.

I also recognize that a lot of people grow up without this being a possibility. Their parents are like, “You’ve got to go to college, you’ve got to do this.” My parents always were like, “No, find what you’re passionate about and fucking stick with it. Pursue it.” Their only rule with me was, if you want to do something like this, you got to put your all into it. You can’t half-ass it.

I don’t hate it. It’s a hard question because they're similar in many ways, but they’re so different. I also feel like when I’m currently in something, I give it my all a hundred times over. So, my album is out in four days, and I’m about to go on tour, and I’m so in the music world. That’s all that matters. When I was filming Bad Monkey, I was like, “This is all that is.”

But, if I’m going to be so open and real with you, music is my heart, joy, and love. This is so lame, but did you ever watch Soul?

You know when they’re in their element or something? When he closes eyes, he plays piano, and he’s in this other world? That’s how I feel, in a weird way. The thing that music brings me is, even if I’m closing my eyes and listening to a song that’s not even mine, I have this weird connection with it. I get full body chills. It is how I narrate my life. Music is everything to me on such a crazy level.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.