Phoebe Bridgers is Reborn in ‘Lost Weekend’
Few artists have mastered confessional songwriting quite as well as Phoebe Bridgers. The alt-rock titan’s sophomore album, Punisher, is widely regarded as one of the founding sad-girl texts for its melancholic instrumentals and sharp ability to capture the ugliest parts of humanity; those aspects persist in Lost Weekend, but it’s immediately clear that Bridgers’ third album is an expansion both sonically and lyrically.
The album boasts a star-studded team, listing Alex G, Jack Antonoff, Ethan Gruska, Christian Lee Hutson, Maya Hawke, Bo Burnham, and Jake Minch (whose OTR cover story you can read here) in the liner notes. A mysterious “Son-John Johnson” is listed for backing vocals as well, but even casual fans will be quick to recognize Cameron Winter’s distinct warbling.
Lost Weekend cements what most fans already know: Bridgers is one of the strongest lyricists in the industry, if not the definitive lyricist. Some of the album’s most arresting lines are deceptively simple, Bridgers’ witty and uniquely agonizing lines effortlessly proving that, most times, less is more when it comes to songwriting.
Lost Weekend opens on Bridgers’ father’s funeral, the first lines a perfect reminder of her morbid wit: “Crying in a suit and tie / But you should see the other guy.” “The Outside” begins with a robotic verse in acapella, while a gorgeous, swelling instrumental outro closes out the song; images of crowdsurfing are juxtaposed with the carrying of a casket; heavy vocoder vocals are grounded by Bridgers’ soft falsetto between verses. Immediately, Bridgers transports listeners with vivacity, flawlessly personifying the feeling of dissociation. The album’s tone is set at once, but Bridgers swiftly establishes that Lost Weekend will explore broader pastures.
Bridgers is an artist of contradictions and double meanings, beloved for her ability to capture the most complicated and human of relationships – “I hate you for what you did / and I miss you like a little kid” is one of the most memorable lines of the past decade for a reason. So when she sings “I know you'd never actually think about jumping / But do it for me” on “The Governor’s Waltz,” it is both a tongue-in-cheek quip about suicide and a plea: love me enough to leave me, so I don’t have to be the one to walk. It acknowledges the two feelings at once.
“The Governor’s Waltz” is one of the album’s more popular songs, widely-discussed for it’s depiction of Bridgers’ relationship with actor and internet-boyfriend Paul Mescal (and, assumably, his subsequent relationship with singer Gracie Abrams). The general public’s interpretation of it, though, feels like a disservice to the nuance of Bridgers’ art – what some fans regard as “shade” seems, in actuality, to be a bittersweet reflection on feeling like a performer in your own life. There’s no malice in the infamous final chorus – there’s a poignant kind of relief, a reframing of the relationship once it has ended.
This reframing is the basis of Lost Weekend, whose thesis comes in the third track. “Kill Me” delivers the heart of the album in one neat line: “Bobby, you taught me that I know nothing.” The record is one of uncertainty, both in sound and subject matter – Bridgers shifts wildly from bluegrass to indie folk to alt-rock as she moves down the tracklist; songs oscillate between frantic existentialism and lovestruck euphoria; even within one track Bridgers will move from subject-to-subject with seemingly no rhyme or reason, singing about her partner in one breath only to deliver a crushing line about her father in the next. Lost Weekend is a rebirth, a making-sense of the world once everything you thought you knew has been flipped on its head, whether grief or love has delivered the blow.
The tracks about Bridgers’ father epitomize this, holding two truths in their fragile words – “Still Standing,” a heartbreaking song featuring some of Bridgers’ most vivid imagery (and the bar is high), demonstrates the push and pull of abusive parental relationships. Bridgers sings “Sometimes I want you back / But not today” as she recounts tumultuous nights with her father, only to finish the song with, “I can’t imagine you dead / But you are every day / Thank you for everything” – grief and love both take up space, and Bridgers makes no move to justify that fact; it simply is.
It’s also songs like “I Can’t Wait” and “Lost Weekend (Reprise)” that change the overall tone of the album, recontextualizing these warring emotions to point towards a larger acceptance of absurdity. “Son-John Johnson” joins Bridgers on the bridge to sing, “All my life / Side by side / Hyde Jekyll Hyde / Finally together.” Instead of trying to make sense of the paradoxical nature of her emotions, Bridgers accepts them, feeling them as they come – in accepting them, she becomes whole. Where “The Outside” began in numb dissociation, “Lost Weekend (Reprise)” ends the record with a quiet hope: “He’s not coming back as a bird…But we’re gonna be alright / Me and you.” In Lost Weekend, Bridgers is born anew.
Stream Lost Weekend wherever you listen to music, and catch Phoebe Bridgers on her North American tour this autumn or in Europe in the winter.
