In 2023, Phoebe Bridgers buried her father. The two had a complicated relationship: Tony Bridgers was a set builder for television and film productions, and largely responsible for why his daughter Phoebe became so interested in the arts. Unfortunately, over the years, their communication became strained and the pair slowly became more distant. During the pandemic, the two began to reconnect, but a few short years later, he died.

Bridgers is no stranger to talking about her father. Her song “Kyoto,” from her sophomore album “Punisher,” was entirely about him, written before the two reconnected. Before she sings the song in live performances, she dedicates it to all the fathers in the audience. She sings: 

You called me from a payphone
They still got payphones
It cost a dollar a minute
To tell me you’re getting sober
And you wrote me a letter
But I don’t have to read it
I’m gonna kill you
If you don’t beat me to it.

Now, she has released “Lost Weekend,” an album dedicated to exploring her grief—mourning her father, her romantic relationships and her younger, more innocent self.

It starts with “The Outside,” a track resembling a discordant hymn, appropriate as it tells the story of a funeral: her father’s. She sings: “Crying in a suit and tie/ But you should see the other guy/ One more time for old time’s sake/ I’ll watch him get carried away.” Bridgers often wears a suit and tie as part of her public persona, particularly when she performs as part of “Boygenius,” the supergroup she formed with Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus. It’s a tongue-in-cheek reference to the fact that her group is composed entirely of women. But she also wears a suit and tie to her father’s funeral, in effect twisting her own image, darkening it and turning it morose. This theme of happy memories transforming into something tragic is a constant through the record.

The very next track, the lead single “Lost Boys,” is all about the desire to return to the innocence of childhood. The Peter Pan references in the song are obvious, but in classic Bridgers fashion, she converts them into an early-2000s escapist fantasia. The music video shows a beleaguered worker who escapes into the world of an old video game featuring knights and monsters and learns to cope with mundane reality by dressing up as his character in the real world at a Renaissance Faire. “This machine is killing me,” she sings, “I pretended it was make believe.”

“Kill Me,” the following track, is about her inability to feel happy for her friends’ engagement because of her own anxieties. “Bobby,” a song about her boyfriend, the comedian and musician Bo Burnham, talks about how desperate she is to feel affection to stave off her depression and how she constantly fears for the end of their relationship. In “Haunted,” she sings of the persona she must put on as performer: 

So I’m puttin’ on my makeup
While they’re lighting the stage up
Just like candles in a cake
If you’re gonna make a wish
Then you better be specific
You’re gonna have to live it every day.

One of Bridgers’s strengths as an artist has always been her ability to point out the absurdity and darkness in the mundane. She has mastered the skill of communicating the feeling of loneliness one gets when alone in a brightly-lit supermarket aisle or standing in line at the pharmacy. “Liberty Tree” mourns the Liberty Tree Mall, which her boyfriend frequented growing up, tapping into the modern online fascination with abandoned malls—places that were once full of life, now decaying and decrepit.

“Liberty Tree Mall/ In the photo booth / This place is dying,” she sings. “You were made in the image of God/ But you look like your mom in this picture of us/ Fallin’ in love that night after our fight/ And the past is lookin’ brighter all the time.”

Bridgers first processes her grief by gazing backward. It is her natural response to being put in a bad situation. In that way, much of this album acts like an Ignatian Examen: She is examining her past traumas and acknowledging the mistakes she made along the way while ultimately forgiving herself and others. 

“Never Going Back!” features a voicemail from Bridgers’s father, like a haunting echo of the past, from when he was attempting to reconnect with her. “Being a rock star takes up a lot of your time, I’m guessing. Hahaha, you’re everywhere, dude. Anyway, give me a call if you get a chance, love you.”

Bridgers grapples with anger and strife in her romantic relationships, with being reminded of death when she sees the happiness of her friends, with her sadness when looking at how innocent she used to be. But after all of it, through all the disillusionment and disappointment, she realizes just how important love is.

The title track “Lost Weekend” is her message to her loved ones: “Now I can’t see any stars in the sky/ When a dream comes true, a fantasy dies/ But we’re gonna be alright, me and you/ You love me and I won’t еver let you forget, not yеt.” For Bridgers, there is no such thing as an assurance of safety and security, but she still makes a promise to her loved ones: I won’t let you be abandoned.

Kevin Christopher Robles is the studio production associate at America. He was previously an O'Hare Fellow and intern.