It’s easy to misread Phoebe Bridgers’s first solo single in years as a retread of what made her 2020 album Punisher so effective.
Her newest song, “Lost Boys,” has all the features of the kind of fare Bridgers fans have come to expect: slinky harmonic modulation, nonchalant yet emotive vocals, and her seminal use of specific detail and anecdote, all of which make the song sparkle.
“Lost Boys” is essentially a film-reel collage — flicking though an unsteady trip to Berlin, a soft moment with a lover in bed, and the chorus’s reference to Peter Pan’s crew of eternal youth never “pay[ing] their lunch money.” All of this comes over warm and expansive production with contributions from everyone from Jack Antonoff, Alex G, and vocal composer Caroline Shaw.
The song’s most central line, though, comes in its pre-chorus, where Bridgers sings, “This machine is killing me.” It’s a line that is purposefully vague, and infinitely interpretative, given the plethora of “machines” surrounding us that are, indeed, wreaking havoc on us all. Given the fact that Bridgers has made a no-phone-use policy a pillar of her forthcoming arena tour, the line struck me as a potentially potent reflection on our phone-addled culture.
Bridgers has largely hidden from the public in the years since her GRAMMY-winning boygenuis project with Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus made her reach musical ubiquity. As Holden Seidlitz noted for The New Yorker, Bridgers once "posted often and heedlessly" on social media, clowning politicians and shitposters alike on her Twitter (now deactivated). But an increase in parasocial attention due to her heartfelt music, and rising scrutiny of her love life, likely sapped the fun from the major digital and IRL spotlight on her. Bridgers, once a fellow digital traveler, exited the internet’s twisted terrain, and now she’s essentially prohibiting fans who attend her tour from throwing her back in the digitized ring with clips from her shows.
The internet is a Peter Pan zone, where the lost boys stay young off a diet of dopamine and vitriol. Maybe she’s trying to end that fairy tale with this new album and tour, and subtly vanquish the aforementioned “machine.” But I wonder if it's powerful enough to truly counteract these digital forces in 2026.
