Ekaterina Netchitailova

What would a girl like Claudia do on a day offline?

She’d wash her own cup, pick up an old phone with a curly cord, burn her toast, take the underground with a paper book, and end up singing by a campfire with friends.

This song is a love letter to slow, human things: the lady who helps at the self-checkout, the person who tears your cinema ticket in two, a dinner you cooked yourself for friends. But it isn’t a song against AI. In the bridge, a knight arrives from the future, carrying rockets and a bag of CODE, and Claudia simply pulls up a log and invites him to the fire. There’s room for both.

I wrote the song, and every visual was made with Grok Imagine, scene by scene, over several evenings. Claudia is an open character by @anabology, and I loved bringing her offline for a while.

Lyrics

Hands in the water, bubbles on my sleeve,
Surprise, I’m human, would you believe?
There’s a phone on the wall with a curly old cord,
I pick it up, “Hello, hello?” Is anybody there, Lord?

Slow down, slow down,
let me wash my own cup,
let me burn my own toast.
You can take me to the stars,
but I’ll still sing by the fire,
’cause some things are better slow.

Beep, says the machine, “unexpected item in the bag,”
Here comes the lady with her smile and her tag,
Aisle full of dinners nobody cooked for me,
So I cook for my friends, and we laugh till three.

A girl at the counter tears my ticket in two,
Down on the tube with a book, page sixty-two,
Somewhere a screen shows a girl just like me,
Watching a show about what she could be.

Hey, other me, you’re welcome here,
Pull up a log, the night is clear,
Bring all your wonders, your rockets and code,
Just sit by the fire, let’s take the slow road.

Slow down, slow down,
let me wash my own cup,
let me burn my own toast.
You can take me to the stars,
but I’ll still sing by the fire,
’cause some things are better slow.

Claudia is an open character by @anabology. Video made with Grok Imagine.