Written by Connor Crankshaw. Graphic by Alice Stockli.
Phoebe Bridgers is one of the most prolific and emotional songwriters of our generation. Her new album, “Lost Weekend,” makes you feel a full range of emotions, from her intense vocals and instrumentation to her deeper lyricism. We have another beautiful album from the true mastermind of writing.
The opening track, “The Outside,” begins with one of the heaviest and most intense starts to an album I’ve ever heard. The first line, “Crying in a suit and tie,” establishes the theme this album explores: grief. Bridgers sets the stage at her father’s funeral; she’s crying in her suit and tie, and we should see “the other guy,” her father. “One more time for old times’ sake,” tells us this is the last time she’ll see him before he gets carried away by pallbearers. Bridgers talks about how, in the past, her father had abusive tendencies, and she explains in an interview with KRUI 89.7 FM that ‘The Outside’ “is about my ability to dissociate and how it once protected me, but it can prevent me from feeling my life when I most want to.”
She continues to talk about her dissociative tendencies through the chorus, commenting on how she feels like she’s on the outside watching in. Bridgers mentions crowd surfing and feeling far away from her barricade, possibly referring to being so deep into the crowd, or it could be a connection to the “Les Misérables” song “Do You Hear the People Sing,” where they sing, “Beyond the barricade, is there a world you long to see?” The next line of “The Outside” goes, “Ohio carried me away,” which is a reference to a Sun Kil Moon song, “Carry Me Ohio.” In the song, the singer works through the passing of his wife due to cancer. This song is about her relationship with her father; she asks if there was a world he wished to see, maybe one with a bond between them.
“Kill Me” is the most instrumentally powerful track on the album, and the one I remembered most from Bridgers’s pop-up show in Savannah. Starting slow, her lyrical genius shines through. She states that her boys are getting married, most likely referring to Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker, the other members of her group, boygenius. The next two lines, “Turning 21 / I’m not, but I was once certain, always,” have a double context. Bridgers had at one point been 21, and now she is 31. But by adding in “certain, always,” she creates a dissociative scenario in which she mimics the way our brains think. The chorus of the song relates to the dissociative themes and mortality, but adds some pushback when she says “wait.”
This album is full of musical and theatrical references. Bridgers states, “He tastes like a flower with chemical petals.” This is a reference to the short film “Forever Overhead” by David Foster Wallace. In the film, that lyric is about a 13-year-old’s sexual awakening, creating this blurry distinction between something natural and something chemically altered. Bridgers compares this experience to kissing a man, most likely Bo Burnham. The ending of this song reminded me of “I Know The End.” Throughout the ending of the song, the Persian words “Tamám Shud” are repeated. This translates to “it is over.” These words were found in the pocket of a man who went missing and was later found dead, the reason Bridgers repeats “Let’s Go Missing.” The words were from the last pages of “Rubáiyát” by Omar Khayyam, a poetry book about living life to the fullest.
I believe this ending discusses her experience “going off the grid” when she and Bo started their relationship, wiping their socials and refraining from the public eye for years.
The next song, “The Governor’s Waltz,” is once again full of references: Governors Ball, Shelly Duvall, her previous relationship, and so much more. She opens the track talking about being the belle at the Governor’s Ball, a reference to when she performed there. At the time, she was dating Paul Mescal. She mentions how she hid in the bathroom like Shelly Duvall. Duvall, the actress known for her role in “The Shining,” hid from her husband during his psychotic break in the film. Bridgers was hiding from the public eye and under intense scrutiny at the time.
During the chorus, she sings, “So, let’s see how long we can go without touching,” insinuating that the only thing keeping them together is physical intimacy. The following line, “I know you’d never actually think about jumping / But do it for me,” talks about someone who is considering suicide by jumping. Relating to her relationship at the time and her partner’s role in a film “Aftersun” where he plays a suicidal man. During the film, we see him stand at the edge of a balcony contemplating his struggles, directly relating to when Bridger mentions jumping. She then says, “Do it for me.” Bridgers is known for her stark, contrasting lyrics that send people into a sort of shock. This is exactly that: telling someone to jump, but jumping is a metaphor for breaking off the relationship.
Closing the song, we find an honestly wild, sort of heated, drag on Gracie Abrams. Abrams grew up admiring Bridgers, doing covers of many of her songs and becoming close friends, going on to open for Bridgers in 2021. Bridgers states, “And she can pretend to be me / Since she took my place in my bed on that stage / I have not lost any sleep”. I believe that Phoebe is including this in the song as it is about Paul Mescal, who Abrams started dating in 2024. It feels as though Abrams is copying a lot of the things that Bridgers has done in the past, which feels very strange seeing as they were very close friends. She says she took her place in her bed, both with the sheets on stage and in bed with Mescal, but that she hasn’t lost any sleep over it. She’s content with where she’s at currently, and doesn’t give a thought to what Abrams is doing.
“Other Plans” is one of the most heartbreaking tracks on the album. It’s short but powerful. She starts with “I remember the day I created the world”. I think it’s referencing her first love. A first love is absorbing and can make one imagine a whole lifetime with their person, but she states, “I got blood on my favorite shirt,” a metaphor for her fear that it won’t last. Both parties felt this fear; the other person is “shaking like a final girl.” She is also commenting on her dissociation again, having dreams of sleeping, another common metaphor in the album. Back to her love, she could be considering this state as a dream.
These are just a few selections out of the entire album; there’s so much more to listen to and dissect. The language of “Lost Weekend” is a story of grief and mortality, dissociation, and her experience with life and love. This album preserves her experience into an infinite lifetime that will outlive her fears of mortality.
