Music

Fans Asked Phoebe Bridgers To Explain Her Puzzling Lyrics, And The Answers Were Wild

"Yeah I had a crush on someone who lives next to a nazi and used to joke about just killing him and burying him in the garden."

by Jared Richards  12 November 2020
Phoebe Bridgers explains 'Punisher' lyrics on Twitter

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Phoebe Bridgers’ sophomore album Punisher is one of the year’s most celebrated and devastating — but not necessarily understood. After a fan made a meme about barely being able to decipher the singer-songwriter’s lyrics, Bridgers tweeted she would reveal the meanings behind whatever lines fan were confused by.

Across her work, whether it’s Punisher, predecessor Stranger In The Alps or her side-projects boygenius (with Lucy Daucus and Julien Baker) and Better Oblivion Community Centre (with Connor Oberst), Bridgers has displayed a unique ability to convey complex, often-conflicting feelings with incredibly specific lyrics that prick the ear at each listen, or devastating punchlines that hurt to hear.

Some, we now know, are simply in-jokes, such as “Man, I hate this part of Texas” in ‘I Know The End’: it arrives brutally, but is actually a reference to a dumb line Oberst’s tour manager would make as they arrived in new European cities.

There are also multiple references to taking MDMA: some are much more obvious (‘chew on our cheeks’) than others (‘eating saltines’).

Lines about running ‘around in circles pretending to be myself’ are actually about trying jogging; showing skeletons in the closet points towards secrets and nudes, while a lyric about ‘the craziest thing for love’ references ‘shitting in a sandbox’. Clearly, some answers only prompt more questions.

A few of the stand-out lyrics on ‘Garden Song’ are apparently stranger than fiction, too, with Bridgers confirming the line about wanting to kill a Nazi next-door was half-true. And it turns out that a doctor once really did tell her that the resentment in her liver is getting smaller.

Then there’s the line about being given $1500 to see a hypnotherapist: that apparently happened, too, via Bridgers’ allegedly abusive ex, Ryan Adams. Apparently, she spent most of the session trying not to laugh, and left halfway through.

If you’re obsessed with Punisher, read through Bridgers’ responses on Twitter.

She recently announced an EP called ‘Copycat Killer’, which features new versions of Punisher tracks ‘Kyoto’, ‘Punisher’, ‘Chinese Satellite’ and ‘Savior Complex’, recorded with string player Rob Moose — she’s dropped the version of ‘Kyoto’ already. Listen to it below.