Phoebe Bridgers touches hearts with her music
Phoebe Bridgers, indie artist, continues her journey as a songwriter following her release of the album “Punisher’’ in 2020, as she began her Reunion Tour this summer. Bridgers is an emotional singer inspired by her favorite singer, Elliot Smith, an American songwriter who wrote music for the Oscar award winning movie, “Good Will Hunting.” Eilliot Smith is deemed one of the most “intimate and emotionally convincing songwriters of all time,” a theme readily detectable within Bridgers’s own music. Her penultimate show was at Paso Robles’s Vina Robles Amphitheater, where I was lucky enough to taste the world she’s created through her music.
As an avid listener of “sad indie” music myself I can confidently say “Punisher” is unlike any other album. It tells the story of a girl battling the internal struggles of validating her sadness. Bridgers has explained several times that while she’s achieved success, she still isn’t happy. Her album is about accepting the intrinsic flaws we are born with. Bridgers is easily identifiable by her seemingly timorous singing voice which ironically contributes to the delivery of her emotionally disarming music. The artist describes her own music as “candid, multi-dimensional, slyly psychedelic, and full of heart.” To those who struggle with anxiety, Bridgers provides tangible meaning to the words “music therapy.”
Bridgers went into the first song “Garden Song,” a story of forgiveness and acceptance. By her famous line, “The doctor put her hands over my liver, she told me my resentments getting smaller,” every audience member was screaming their lungs out. The concert progressed through other heart-breakers such as “Moon Song,” “ICU,” and “Savior Complex.” It was my favorite song “Graceland Too” that made me sob. By the end of the two hours, there was not a dry eye within the theater. Bridgers sings with such devastating sorrow and yet her music is a reassuring hand, a shoulder to cry on. She doesn’t rid her listeners of their problems, but teaches them the valuable lesson that it is okay to feel upset.
The ineffable feeling Bridgers left me with is one that everyone deserves to experience: To be one with the quiet yet ear-shattering truth she shares through her music, to feel the self-sufficiency she encourages her fans to take on, to be imparted the strength to push forward against all odds. I left the concert with the purest feeling of content. Thank you Phoebe Bridgers for one of the most wonderful nights of my life.
