A Musician’s Thoughts on Surrender

Otherwise known as the week of the Southeastern Freeze. I think many would agree there’s a certain symbiosis between nature and the general, personified tone of human life. The freeze was jarring. It seemed to come out of nowhere. I was piloting my rental car off the ferry from Ocracoke, moving through a heavy fog along the liminal space between the dock and Cape Hatteras, when my co-producer, Lawrence, texted: "I don’t know if you saw but we’ve got perhaps this huge snowstorm this weekend so plan accordingly!" The weather, these days, was jarring. As was going online at any given moment. And then there was this: I sat on the leather couch in my Airbnb a few days later, discussing my music with a potential collaborator on Google Meets, who said she hoped I would consider integrating Blue Monkey and Charlee Remitz a bit more, as Charlee Remitz’s social media had, since September 2025, generated a large swath of followers. It occurred to me right then that she was right. My mother had said something similar ahead of this trip, which would kick off six months of nearly non-stop travel while I attempted to finish the album and see another 200 lighthouses. “Is there something we could do to make your life ten percent easier?” There was. And, like all else these days, it was a jarring realization. Then again, that’s how most things seem when you’ve failed to pay attention to the less urgent signs that precede desperation. The universe is always having conversations with us; we just haven’t learned to listen. First, I’d had a falling out with my band. Then, my beloved visual collaborator moved out of state. And finally, there was the absolute dread I felt at composing a post for Blue Monkey’s Instagram page. At a certain point, Charlee Remitz and Blue Monkey felt like they were on a level playing field in that area. Both had something to say. And then, quite suddenly, one had more to say and more metaphorical mouths to feed. There is tremendous responsibility in having and maintaining an audience, whether it be in person or online. I kept telling myself as the album neared completion, I’d find a lust for Blue Monkey’s social media once again. I’d find some pocket of energy I wasn’t already using to shape Blue Monkey’s page. The only thing was, Charlee Remitz’s sudden uptick in online popularity felt partially divined. There was no protocol to follow and no miraculous, undiscovered pocket of energy from which I could pull. I was using every ounce of my allotted cup to see lighthouses, maintain Charlee Remitz’s online presence, and record a 14-song, full length album. Whatever was left over I held in reserve for workouts, nourishment and the upkeep of personal relationships. In this life, little is worth the compromise of your body, spirit, community or mind. And so, it was halfway through this fourth week in the studio that I announced to Lawrence, as we sat chatting in his dining room, with the sun pouring in through the windows and a cold brew on the table before me, that I would release this album as Charlee Remitz. I can’t quite remember his reaction. I think it was a little awed. And then, the freeze came. First it hit Nashville, where my partner, at our townhouse on the west side, lost heat for two weeks, and power for six days. Then, it came to Richmond, where I prepared my Airbnb as best as I could without spending money on emergency supplies. I stocked the empty cabinet with boxed mac n cheese, and the empty fridge with vegetables and containers of shredded chicken. I asked Tatiana, the owner, if she’d stock me up with extra toilet paper and paper towels, in case things got really dire. And then, I drove to the studio like any other day. Lawrence and I tried to negotiate studio time with the weather, to limit my exposure to a city with a few odd snowplows keeping hundreds of roads passable. In sessions past, we had a system: two days per song, and one wrap day where we ironed out the creases. For a three-song week, that meant seven days. For a two-song week, five. And so far, we had been deeply prolific. We had a measure of earned delusion when it came to studio time by January. We really believed in our ability to make art on a timeline. Even with the snow, and the oncoming freezing rain, we refused to deviate from the plan. I found myself on back-to-back days, driving at a snail’s pace from one side of the city to the other, simply so we could stick to the schedule we’d laid out for ourselves. There was a sense of, “I’ll get this album done if it’s the death of me,” pushing me forward as I passed people sliding in the snow, their tires struggling for purchase. On my one day off, when a sheet of hard-packed snow had laid itself over the city in a way that seemed to wipe every slate clean, I wandered the still, quiet streets as golden hour turned blue. A movie about a married couple separating, finding themselves, and then coming back together again was showing at the Byrd Theater. I purchased a ticket and an IPA, and I settled myself in the middle of the mostly empty theater, laying out my jacket so it could dry from the wintry mix. Watching that great push and pull was the first time in a long while I’d felt any kind of hope. I thought of this couple as a great reflection of Charlee Remitz and Blue Monkey. There was a crucial separation that needed to occur for me to come back to Charlee Remitz, nearly six years after quitting music in that capacity in the first place. I needed to become someone else, be something else, to give Charlee Remitz a second to breathe. To rest. To dream without the years of music I’d already created dragging along behind her like noisy cans. I’ve taken to referring to Blue Monkey as my Disney Channel Deviation. Many of us watched as our favorite Disney Channel stars, feeling shackled to a certain image, took a bold right turn and did something so dramatic that it shocked people into submission. This was Miley Cyrus now: on her wrecking ball. This was Charlee Remitz in 2024: Blue Monkey. I’d had all these rules about Blue Monkey’s album when I wrote and recorded it in 2020. It couldn’t be pop. It couldn’t have too many electronic sounds. It needed to be folk. It needed a banjo and a mandolin. A harmonica. It needed to drive one thing home: I was not Charlee Remitz anymore. When I think of it now, I recognize part of this need to disappear into Blue Monkey as an aversion to who Charlee Remitz had become. She felt like a dead end. Where I saw happenstance and luck and viability in other music careers, Charlee Remitz felt like she’d come by her very flat and lifeless story by effort and effort alone. It was messy and tiring, and certainly it wasn’t meant to be because nothing was happening. I remember completing my final album, Heaven’s a Scary Place like I was running the last leg of a cross-country sprint. I was absolutely, certifiably done with Charlee Remitz and everything she’d become by that point. I couldn’t wait to be rid of her. And so, I got rid of her. Well, that version of her at least. That was when I found the lighthouses. Or maybe they found me. I’m not really sure who did the finding, but certainly I’ve done the keeping. And, now here we are, five years later, in love as ever before. I moved across the country with my partner. I wrote songs on a guitar that I had no intention of ever actually recording. I went on solo dates. I did things because I wanted to do things. And, eventually, somewhere in that gentleness of pursuit just because, Charlee Remitz became viable again. Sometimes I think of this as a plant sitting dormant for years starting to sprout new leaves. In fact, in just the last year, my pink Anthurium grew a lily, something I never thought I’d see again, for the first time in years. It was just like that. Charlee Remitz felt possible again. I just needed some space and time away from what wasn’t working so I could find the confidence to not care if it ever did. So, here’s my art. I don’t give a shit if it resonates with you. Because it resonates with me. Really, what it cracks down to is this: I was not ready then. I was not confident in who I was or what I had to say. I was embarrassed to talk about my music because I couldn’t separate my worth from the concept of streams. I was too attached to the aesthetics of my social media rather than the impact of having a platform to advocate. Now, the music is less definitive and more whimsical. One small part of the mass of projects I’m constantly watering that make me me. Back then, the music needed to do something for me, which is why I was constantly disappointed. Now, the music just needs to be. And I with it. From a young age, my mother taught me to believe in timing, that when things aren’t working out… it doesn’t mean they never will. So, here we go again. “Paranoid”, Charlee Remitz’s first single in six years, is out May 29th . Find out more here.

It was my third trek to Richmond and, by this point, I was a local. I had all my favorite spots. The health food store where I got a green smoothie every..