{"id":737923,"date":"2026-08-14T16:20:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T16:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/737923\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T16:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T16:20:09","slug":"phoebe-bridgers-lost-weekend-easter-eggs-and-lyrical-references","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/737923\/","title":{"rendered":"Phoebe Bridgers ‘Lost Weekend’: Easter Eggs and Lyrical References"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tPhoebe Bridgers<\/a> loves to nod to her heroes. Her lyrics, like those of many of her biggest musical influences, are dense texts, full of winking allusions and subtle references to records, bands, and albums that have shaped her own songwriting. Sometimes, Bridgers uses music as a small narrative detail (see the Lemmy and Smiths shoutouts in \u201cSmoke Signals\u201d), and sometimes she just writes an entire verse about music (see the famous Lennon and Clapton-referencing \u201cMoon Song\u201d). Other times, she\u2019ll make a reference that\u2019s barely noticeable until it\u2019s pointed out (the line about someone being \u201cbored\u201d in the \u201cMotion Sickness\u201d bridge has been interpreted as a dig at the chorus of Ryan Adams\u2019 \u201cOutbound Train\u201d).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBut Bridgers\u2019 stunning<\/a> new album, Lost Weekend, has seemingly even more allusions to albums and songs in her record collection than ever. Here are a few likely call-outs that caught our attention.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\tElliott Smith<\/a>, \u201cAngel in the Snow\u201d\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAn angel in the snow\/Accident prone,\u201d Bridgers sings in the first verse of \u201cStill Standing.\u201d Bridgers has talked at length<\/a> about her love for New Moon, the posthumous 2007 compilation of Elliott Smith songs. This is, after all, the same person who once inscribed<\/a> lyrics from an early version of \u201cMiss Misery\u201d (found, yes, on New Moon) on the Figure 8 memorial wall in Los Angeles\u2019 Silver Lake neighborhood. Is it a coincidence that the phrase \u201cangel in the snow\u201d also happens to be the title of the opening track on New Moon? Almost certainly not.<\/p>\n

\t\tDamien Jurado, \u201cThe Last Great Washington State\u201d\t<\/p>\n

\n\tDamien Jurado is a prolific and criminally under-acknowledged singer-songwriter from the Pacific Northwest. He\u2019s also the only artist whose work was interpolated and incorporated so heavily into Bridgers\u2019 new album that he received a co-writing credit, on both \u201cLost Weekend\u201d and \u201cLost Weekend (Reprise).\u201d The melody of those tracks are based on \u201cLast Great Washington State,\u201d a beautiful, six-minute gem buried on Jurado\u2019s 2018 album The Horizon Just Laughed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\t\tThe Replacements, \u201cCan\u2019t Hardly Wait\u201d\t<\/p>\n

\n\tIs it a stretch to assume the chorus of Bridgers\u2019 new song \u201cI Can\u2019t Wait\u201d (\u201cI can\u2019t wait, but I\u2019m waiting\u201d) is some sort of nod to the Replacements\u2019 mid-Eighties masterpiece \u201cCan\u2019t Hardly Wait\u201d? Possibly, but the fact that Bridgers has previously played around with the same exact song in a different chorus would certainly seem to increase the likelihood: \u201cI can\u2019t hardly wait for someone to replace,\u201d she sang on \u201cChesapeake,\u201d from her 2018 collaborative album with Conor Oberst<\/a> as Better Oblivion Community Center<\/a>. On tour for that album, Bridgers and Oberst made the influence clear when they actually covered<\/a> the Replacements tune, but that\u2019s not even the only Replacements song<\/a> she\u2019s performed live.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tThe Crickets\/The Bobby Fuller Four\/The Clash, \u201cI Fought The Law\u201d\t<\/p>\n

\n\tThis one\u2019s pretty simple. On \u201cLost Weekend (Reprise),\u201d a devastating portrait of grief seemingly inspired by the death of Bridgers\u2019 father, she sings: \u201cI am my old man\u2019s oldest son\/I fought the wall, and the wall won.\u201d That\u2019s a callback to the eternal rock & roll classic \u201cI Fought the Law,\u201d first recorded in 1959 by the Crickets (and written by their guitarist Sonny Curtis), made a hit the following year by the Bobby Fuller Four, and turned into an immortal punk anthem by the Clash nearly two decades later.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\tBright Eyes, I\u2019m Wide Awake, It\u2019s Morning\t<\/p>\n

\n\tDid we really think Bridgers would go a whole album without in some way winking to Conor Oberst? \u201cI\u2019ve been daydreaming about sleeping,\u201d she sings on \u201cHaunted,\u201d one of the album standouts. \u201cBut by the evening, I\u2019m wide awake.\u201d That second line sounds like a play on the title of Oberst\u2019s 2005 I\u2019m Wide Awake, It\u2019s Morning, an album we\u2019re well aware Bridgers knows<\/a> very well. It\u2019s also not the only Oberst connection to this record: The Bright Eyes frontman plays harmonica on \u201cI Can\u2019t Wait.\u201d (Is \u201cGovernor\u2019s Waltz,\u201d another Lost Weekend highlight, also a play on the title of Oberst\u2019s 2014 song \u201cGovernor\u2019s Ball\u201d? With Phoebe, anything\u2019s possible!)<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n

\t\tThe Statler Brothers, \u201cMy Past Is Looking Brighter (All The Time)\u201d\t<\/p>\n

\n\tIs there any reason to think Phoebe Bridgers is a fan of this late-career deep cut from the country-gospel vocal group the Statler Brothers? Not necessarily, but the song title does appear, almost verbatim, as a pay-off moment during \u201cLiberty Tree\u201d: \u201cFalling in love that night\/After our fight,\u201d Bridgers sings, \u201cThe past is looking brighter all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tBlack Sabbath, \u201cLive Forever\u201d\t<\/p>\n

\n\tBridgers is a huge Sabbath head. When she previewed<\/a> her new album at Madison Square Garden this summer, she wore a Black Sabbath T-shirt. She\u2019s explained<\/a> that her penchant for tuning her guitars low earlier in her career came from wanting to sound more like Tony Iommi. So when Bridgers sings \u201cNow I don\u2019t want to live forever\/But I don\u2019t wanna die,\u201d on \u201cAs Above,\u201d the first thing that comes to mind is \u201cLive Forever,\u201d a rocker on Sabbath\u2019s final studio album (2013\u2019s 13) that just happens to have the exact same pair of lines.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\t\tPhoebe Bridgers, \u201cGraceland Too\u201d\t<\/p>\n

\n\tIsn\u2019t this list about other artists? Yes, but we\u2019d be remiss to leave off this song. Like her songwriting heroes, Bridgers has been known to sprinkle in a self-referential lyrical or musical callback to her own body of work here and there, and there\u2019s no Bridgers song that has a larger musical bearing on Lost Weekend than this Punisher fan favorite. The \u201cGraceland Too\u201d melody is a recurring musical motif throughout this record, showing up repeatedly and serving, in a way, as a sonic connective tissue through the album\u2019s second half, from the chorus melody of \u201cLiberty Tree\u201d to the instrumental segue \u201cLost Parade.\u201d (Even the bridge of \u201cAs Above\u201d has hints of that same melody.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tMaybe Bridgers is making some sort of deep narrative point here. Or maybe she\u2019s just having some postmodern fun, referencing a song of hers that, as she explained<\/a> in 2020, itself contains a lyric with a history of being used by others: The \u201cGraceland Too\u201d phrase \u201crebel without a clue\u201d was, in a five-year span beginning in 1986, found in songs by Bonnie Tyler<\/a>, the Replacements<\/a>, and Tom Petty<\/a>. But whatever larger point she\u2019s making, it all adds yet another layer of meaning to an already fantastic record.<\/p>\n