I wasn’t entirely convinced by Lost Weekend the first time I heard it.
Nothing was wrong with it — quite the opposite.
I just didn’t know what to make of it. It came six years after her last solo effort, Punisher, which was released after her 2017 beautiful debut, Stranger in the Alps, and three years after her Grammy-winning effort with indie supergroup (consisting of her, Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus) boygenius – 2023’s the record.
Don’t get me wrong – this is unmistakably Phoebe Bridgers: it’s beautiful, funny, uncomfortable, and occasionally devastating.
But six years after Punisher, I think I kept waiting for ‘the moment’. The equivalent of “I Know the End,” when the restrained little record (in this case, Punisher) suddenly becomes enormous (well, she screams at the end of that song…)
And it never really came.
But after listening again and again (and again), I think I now realize that is perhaps the point.
Lost Weekend is a quieter and much stranger record than Punisher. It doesn’t really want to knock you over. Co-produced by Jack Antanoff (along with her usual co-producers, Tony Berg and Ethan Gruska), the album features many songs that drift in and out. Arrangements appear to be heading somewhere, only to not.
An example is the opener, “The Outside”, which features a vocoder throughout most of the song, and seems to finish: “Screaming my ending, fist in the air. You were there.” Then it ends: “But I was on the outside, watching. I am on the outside, watching.” It feels like it should carry on, but it simply closes with a lovely instrumental outro.
“Lost Boys” is the catchy lead single, with both Baker and Dacus from boygenius providing backing vocals, and with its lyric “Lost boys never grow up, never go home,” she sings in the chorus, “Lost boys never spend their lunch money”… “Lost boys, find me”. And she then sings a fantastic bridge, which is as close to her rocking out on the album than any other song, where she sings “In a twin bed. Where all will be forgiven in an instant. Hands in each other’s hair. We are born again, so who cares where we’re going? In the morning, you are not there. One, two, three, woo, ah!”
The next song, “Kill Me,” is the first to explicitly reference her current partner, comedian and musician, Bo Burnham. (”Bobby, you taught me that I know nothing.”) And there are odd noises, fragments of voices, electronics, and stretches where remarkably little seems to be happening. But it is devastating. (”This is going kill me… wait.” repeated over and over as the chorus).
Gradually, the thing gets under your skin. As it continues with “The Governor’s Waltz”, and an opening line: “I was the belle of the Governor’s Ball. Hiding in the bathroom like Shelley Duvall.” When listening to this, I kept thinking… only Phoebe Bridgers could get away with that lyric! It continues on, beautifully: “So let’s see how long we can go without talking. Watch me pretending to sleep. I’m next to you, you’re next to nothing. You promised that you’d never leave. But maybe you’ll do it for me.” It’s one of the most gorgeous tracks on the album, and, now trust me, that is high praise. Burnham is credited as a co-writer, so perhaps that had an impact.
“Bobby” is wonderful partly because Bridgers sounds almost suspicious of happiness… her current relationship with Burnham. She knows what to do with disaster. Disaster makes sense. Happiness is more complicated. You have something worth losing. (”Bobby. This could be the end of wanting (Bobby). I exist only if you’re watching.”). It ends with a great line: “Now I don’t know if I can make it tonight, but what are you doing the rest of my life, Bobby?” The rest of my life…
“Lost Weekend” opens Side B, which is where I think the album unfolds, looking more into her recent father’s death. His death hangs over the rest of the record, but thankfully she doesn’t turn it into a neat story about grief and reconciliation. Difficult parents don’t become uncomplicated simply because they die. You can love someone and resent them. You can miss them and still be furious with them. You can understand them better and forgive them less.
A lively “Haunted” follows, which – other than “Lost Boys” and “Bobby” – is one of the liveliest tunes on the album. I love her lyrics describing her air travel: “I’ll see the sky in the ocean. A couple ibuprofen. And I’m sleepin’ all the way.” (Hey, that’s me!). The country, bluegrass vibe is great and totally suits her vocals. It ends: “You won’t have to open a heart that’s broken. Water’s gonna flow in either way. My heart is growin’ either way.”
“Panorama” and “Still Standing” kind of blend into each other, in my view.
There is not much really to the first, but the lovely lyric at the end: “If you’re drinking, then I’m drinking.”
… and then with “Still Standing” we head into a darker space: Phoebe looking back at her relationship with her abusive father… and the split between trauma and utter grief. It is quite devastating to hear her sing: “You left your suitcase by the bed. Like you needed to know you could go whenever you wanted. And I’m out on my feet.”
She says in “The Liberty Tree” that “The past is looking brighter all the time.” With backing vocals from Burnham, she ends this kind of dense piece, singing “I got too much money and nothing to lose…. Don’t die, Bobby, before I die. It feels so good to have you in my life.”
We hit the end, except we still have six more songs to go(!) With “Never Going Back!” she kicks off, simply repeating over and over: “Never going back again. The way it used to be is not the way that it is.” And ending with a slightly devastating voicemail from her father:
“Hey Phoebe, it’s your dad
Uh, I know you’re busy
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.”
“Other Plans” follows, which feels natural, but I have to admit, it is probably my least favorite track (other than the following… it is okay – just a short, simple melody, with the chorus “Our love, our love had other plans for us”.
Quick instrumental follows with one of the album’s highlights: “I Can’t Wait”, where she sings about “Not so slowly getting older. California sober” and has a lovely duet with Geese’s Cameron Winter (who, I don’t know why but would love to find out, is credited as named “Son-John Johnson”), where they sing: “All my life. Side by side. Hyde Jekyll Hyde. Finally together.” It’s absolutely gorgeous and so typical of her. “You can change your mind. But you can’t change mine…”
There isn’t really an explosive finish to the album. “As Above” is great, with just amazing lyrics about grief… love… “Now, I don’t want to live forever. But I don’t wanna die.” and then, “You won’t have to believe in magic. Leave it to me, and I’ll make it happen. You can’t imagine, I can’t imagine.” It is four minutes long, and the last two are left to a chorus. While not on the explosive side, it is certainly beautiful.
We end with a simple reprise, “Lost Weekend (Reprise),” which revisits her feelings about her father: “He’s not coming back. He’s not coming back. But I still live by the things he taught me.” And her simple, amazing end:
“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 ever let you forget, not yet.”
Bridgers has become less interested in telling us exactly what happened (with her dad). Instead, she’s interested in what memory does to what happened. That’s a much richer subject.
Memory is unreliable (trust me, I know). The person who broke your heart ten years ago can eventually become someone you remember fondly. Something you once found funny can suddenly become unbearably sad. People disappear, but your relationship with them continues because you keep rewriting them in your head.
The production understands this too. The co-production here with Jack Antonoff is great. He most definitely adds… something!
There are sixteen tracks, and I don’t think every one necessarily needs to be here. Sure, the middle occasionally wanders. There are moments when atmosphere wins the argument over melody, and I can imagine someone getting halfway through and wondering where all the songs went.
Fair enough.
But I also suspect a tighter version would lose something.
The title is unusually apt. The album actually feels like a lost weekend: events slightly out of sequence, some moments incredibly vivid and others hazy, time behaving strangely, and the uncomfortable suspicion afterward that something important happened even if you can’t quite explain what it was.
Which brings us inevitably to Punisher.
Is this better?
I think it might be.
Punisher has the bigger songs. It has the more obvious emotional peaks. It may be the album I’d give someone who had never heard Phoebe Bridgers.
But Lost Weekend is the record I’d rather talk about afterward.
There’s more uncertainty in it.
Punisher frequently has the exhilarating quality of someone suddenly realizing something terrible about herself or someone else.
Lost Weekend is what comes next?
What if I was wrong? What if they were? What if nobody was?
That’s considerably less satisfying, which is precisely why it’s more interesting.
And beneath all the grief, failed relationships, deadpan jokes and strange noises, something even more surprising has appeared.
It’s hope. Not the ghastly inspirational kind.
Nothing has been fixed. People still die. Relationships still end. We still misunderstand each other. Bridgers hasn’t suddenly decided that everything happens for a reason.
But there is a smaller kind of optimism. Things happened.
Some of them were awful. You’re still here.
And now and then, life turns out to be quite good.
Chris Garrod, August 21, 2026
9.75/10.0
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