Taken from Immunity, her 2019 debut album, Sofia remains one of singer-songwriter Clairo’s most popular songs. So, when she decided to retire it from her live repertoire in 2022, some of her fans weren’t happy.
In a new interview with Seventeen, Clairo has now opened up on the reaction to Sofia’s omission from her sets and what it took for her to bring it back.
“I didn’t think people would mind that I didn’t play it, but it became a problem,” she begins. “I got myself into a pickle.”
The star goes on to say that it was a fellow musician and friend who convinced her to bring Sofia back: Charli XCX.
“We were doing this festival in Australia and New Zealand called Laneway, and Charli was headlining,” says Clairo. “We played a few shows, and she told me she watched my set the day before. But she was like, ‘Where’s ‘Sofia?’ and I said, ‘I don’t play it. Don’t you have any songs where you’re just like, Man, we’ve done it a lot?’”
This clearly wasn’t enough to deter Charli, and a plan was hatched: “We came up with the idea to play it together,” says Clairo. “I was like, ‘Well, if anyone can make me sing it again, I think it would be you, Miss Charli.’ So we planned on it and had no sound check. We sort of winged it and it was awesome.”
The performance came at the Melbourne leg of Laneway earlier this year, and the crowd went appropriately mad for it. And, happily, it looks like the song could be back for good.
“Especially with Sofia recently, I feel like I’ve squashed all the beef I have with some of my past songs because people have their own connection to them,” says Clairo. “So what’s the point of not acknowledging them?”
Clairo’s next tour dates are at Coachella over the next two weekends. Whether Sofia will be joining her remains to be seen.
