Where the song began

I wrote “Sister Cece” after a Catholic wedding. I was sitting next to my sister, who’s married to a woman, when the priest took a moment out of the ceremony to explain that true marriage was only between a man and a woman.

I was appalled. Cece’s reaction was more like, This is life. That stayed with me as much as what the priest said. I kept thinking about how many times she must have heard some version of it before. I was sitting in this stunning church, watching someone I know is in love get married, and the person marrying them was drawing a line around whose love “counted.” My sister was right there beside me.

I’ve had a lot of conflicting feelings in churches, sometimes all at once. I keep coming back to that tension on the album: how religion can make us feel closer to something bigger than ourselves, and how it can put so much distance between us.

That wedding made me think of another time I sat in a church: our father’s funeral. I was so little my feet swung from the pew.

When I got back to Nashville after the wedding, I picked up my guitar. Two words kept coming back to me: Sister Cece. Say it one way and you can almost see her: a nun, maybe, with a lot of baggage. Say it the way I’ve said it my whole life and it’s just Cece. My big sister.

How we made the video

Cece’s ten years older than me, and growing up, there was a lot about her life I didn’t understand. I knew what it felt like to be her little sister. I had no idea what it felt like to be her. That gap helped shape the video.

I’m a songwriter. She’s a filmmaker. When Cece heard the song, she imagined a queer coming-of-age and coming-out story set in early-2000s Tennessee. There are girls riding horses, smoking cigarettes, and running their mouths. They have plenty to say, even when they don’t have the words for what they’re feeling yet. The beauty in danger, the love in the anger. Cece produced the video through her company, Twisted Valley Films.

The video is Cece’s story in the way fiction can belong to the person who dreamed it up. I wrote a song about sitting next to my sister in church. She heard it and saw girls on horseback. I love that I couldn’t have guessed where she’d take it.

I’m still finding the words for what it meant to make this with her. My sister’s love and support has helped me keep making music, and this time I got to make something with her. Life is beautiful. The universe is weird. Hold your hands still...

xx

Carly