[gtranslate]
Music

Pop queen COTTA pens an open letter of love surrounding her latest breakup anthem

Sweltering with kind of feminist prowess that comes with a post-break epiphany, COTTA releases an anthemic hit with Better.

Queensland darling COTTA takes heartbreak by the horns and channels the angst into a tune for pure healing. Her latest release Better channels a danceable, joyous rhythm with the vulnerability and honesty of woman once in love. She took some time to do what she does best: articulately and sensually acknowledge her past.

In an essay of experience, Cassidy Mackie of COTTA delves into the story behind her song and offers up a playlist of pure perfection.

As the description of the playlist lets on, this is one empowering soundtrack: “songs that pat you on the back and say hey, well done, you’re growing! (and a couple that you can aggressively sing in the car)”

In her own words below, COTTA writes an ode to Better:

Better.

The word continually intercepted my thoughts like it was high tide, this time ten months ago.  “I just want to be better”, I thought, over and over, like my heart was the vinyl and my mind was a broken needle.  I had just been unceremoniously dumped by someone I thought I was about to commit to a forever with.  I watched him walk out my front door, one month into what we now know wasn’t just another virus, and my first thought was, I wish I could have been better (followed very closely by I wonder when someone will next walk through that door with what’s going on.)  I was living alone.  I had just been made redundant.  My roommates had both moved out.  All my gigs for the foreseeable future had been cancelled.  The world was stopping around me.  And to top it off, this guy – who I thought was the guy – had just left. 

I was alone. At the time, I was living in the house I’d built, but despite designing the floorplan for its spaciousness, the walls felt like they were closing in on me. Not to mention, I had no outlet.  The proverbial creative wells had long since run dry.  I had to get out.  

So I flew north and spent a fortnight with my wonderful mother and her husband.  I got some space around me, a bit more Vitamin D, and their two legendary cavoodles, and I reflected on what I’d just had end around me.  And, after two very emotionally-gruelling weeks, I started to hear that word again.  Better.  Except for the first time, it wasn’t preceded by “I just want to be”, but instead, “I’m just getting”I’m just getting better.  You know how sometimes in life you have those real “this feels big” moments?  For me, it was in that very moment that I realised I had a decision to make.  I could mentally crucify the other party for dragging my heart and soul with him like the cans on the back of a “Just Married” vehicle, or I could just get on with it, and get better.

All at once, I stopped moping.  I stopped wallowing in the kiddie pool of self-pity and I got myself the hell up.  I started breathing freely again.  I came back home to the Gold Coast.  I opened the windows up.  I let the light in.  Importantly, I wrote that sentence down, knowing it would come up again one day.  I still have the note in my phone: I’m not getting bitter, I’m just getting better.  

It seems to have worked. 

It’s been a year now, and I’m so glad I watched that guy walk out my front door for good.  I got a year – the year, thanks Rona – to work through and work past some of the stuff I’d been burying.  I started to enjoy my own company.  I started to work through griefs I had previously ignored.  I genuinely put in the mental hard-yards.  I started writing music again.  My heart garden (if you’ll pardon the overtly poetic mental picture) has been meticulously weeded, and the soil tended to.  The rain came through, and I went through the winter, but things are finally starting to bloom.  I’m just getting better.

I compiled a playlist of all the songs that got me here.  They’re widely varied in sound, feel and lyricists, and I love that.  It truly took a village.

If I’m just getting better, so can you.

COTTA x

Enjoy COTTA’s playlist titled “pov: you’re just getting better” below: