Video: Phoebe Bridgers, ‘Garden Song’

Kevin Bronson on February 26th, 2020

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You’d be forgiven for wondering whether Phoebe Bridgers would ever make a follow-up to her widely lauded debut album, 2017’s “Stranger in the Alps.”

Since its release, the singer-songwriter, now 25, has added quite a few lines to her resumé. There was the 2018 collaboration with Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus, Boygenius, which yielded an EP. That was followed by an album and a tour as Better Oblivion Community Center, her project with Conor Oberst. Not to mention a handful of cameo appearances: Bridgers duetted with the National’s Matt Berninger on his solo single “Walking On A String;” she united with Berninger and Fiona Apple for a charity Christmas single; and she lent her vocals to her co-producer Ethan Gruska on a song on his latest solo album.

Today, Bridgers returns with a radiant new single, “Garden Song.” Made at Van Nuys’ Sound City Studios with Gruska and Tony Berg, it’s a serenely beautiful meditation that finds Bridgers sighing her poetry over muted guitars.

As for the video to “Garden Song”: If there’s a monster under Billie Eilish’s bed, Bridgers’ bedroom is a little shop of horrors, too. Filmed by her younger brother Jackson Bridgers, it portrays the singer smoking a bong. She’s a non-smoker, so the effects are a little harsh … which is nothing compared to how weird things get when she is visited by furry monsters and comedian Tig Notaro in a monk’s costume.

While waiting for news of a full album, make your way through the haze.

||| Watch: The video for “Garden Song”