{"id":1958,"date":"2025-07-05T21:49:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-05T21:49:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/07\/05\/how-phoebe-bridgers-punisher-changes-with-time\/"},"modified":"2025-07-05T21:50:15","modified_gmt":"2025-07-05T21:50:15","slug":"how-phoebe-bridgers-punisher-changes-with-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/07\/05\/how-phoebe-bridgers-punisher-changes-with-time\/","title":{"rendered":"How Phoebe Bridgers\u2019 \u2018Punisher\u2019 changes with time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/genius.com\/Phoebe-bridgers-chinese-satellite-lyrics\">\u201cI\u2019ve been runnin\u2019 around in circles \/ Pretending to be myself \/ Why would somebody do this on purpose \/ When\u2005they\u2005could do something\u2005else?\u201d<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-dots\"\/>\n<p>This is a list of places where I\u2019ve listened to <em>Punisher<\/em>: the emergency room, my childhood bedroom, a northern Michigan hotel room, my East Quad Residence Hall room, a Culver\u2019s bathroom, the park near my house and my high school science class, every day for over a year.<\/p>\n<p>I hate repeating music, and I only let myself listen to the same song once a day for fear of overplaying it. But <em>Punisher<\/em> is different. Its 40-minute runtime seems the perfect length to get me out of my own head, while somehow helping me to understand my thoughts.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><em>Punisher<\/em> is now <a href=\"https:\/\/ewingsvoice.com\/2455\/opinion\/in-rotation-punisher-by-phoebe-bridgers\/\">five years<\/a> past its release. And half a decade later, after rarely skipping my weekly listen of the album, I still feel like there\u2019s so much buried in it. What <em>Punisher<\/em> taught me at 15 is not what it teaches me now, and what I was so sure Phoebe Bridgers was saying doesn\u2019t quite seem to fit anymore.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p><em>Punisher <\/em>was not only significant to me when it released, but also, it pretty quickly became a cultural phenomenon of quarantine. This album<em> <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.broadwayworld.com\/bwwmusic\/article\/Phoebe-Bridgers-Receives-Four-GRAMMY-Nominations-20201124\">cemented<\/a> Bridgers\u2019 status as a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nylon.com\/entertainment\/phoebe-bridgers-cover-story-punisher-grammy-nominations\">legend<\/a> in the folk and indie rock scene, with a very <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=1U4l2X-6_o4\">distinct<\/a> stripped-back sound: Her nearly whispering multi-layered vocals dance over a gentle humming piano or a distant fingerpicked guitar. Her voice often sounds far away, giving a distinctly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/arts\/music\/the-spirit-of-halloween-in-phoebe-bridgerss-punisher\/\">spooky<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/firebirdmagazine.com\/reviews\/punisher\">effect<\/a> to the album. Her <a href=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/phoebe-bridgers-turned-the-craziest-thing-she-had-ever-heard-into-a-lyric\/\">brilliant<\/a> lyricism shines, and she takes a few major production leaps from her iconic mellow sound, like on the surprisingly upbeat \u201cKyoto,\u201d or on the blood-curdling <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=_9Oa1HYxwjA&amp;list=RD_9Oa1HYxwjA&amp;start_radio=1\">screams<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/arts\/phoebe-bridgers-knows-the-end-but-how-do-we-deal-with-the-ending\/\">on<\/a> \u201cI Know the End.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bridgers\u2019 commended lyrical style often leans into sharp <a href=\"https:\/\/eerostakes.substack.com\/p\/phoebe-bridgers-what-makes-the-songwriter\">specificity<\/a>. She sings, \u201cThe doctor put her hands over my liver \/ she told me my resentment\u2019s getting smaller\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/genius.com\/Phoebe-bridgers-icu-lyrics\">and<\/a> \u201cI used to light you up \/ now I can\u2019t even get you to play the drums.\u201d I used to think this obsession with particularity made her lyrics perfectly concrete, with the ingenuity coming from how easily she could lay out the exact truth of her thoughts. But now, I realize this obsession with specificity acts as more of a vessel for truth: a playground for taped-over, scribbled out meanings.<\/p>\n<p>On \u201cMoon Song,\u201d Bridgers <a href=\"https:\/\/genius.com\/Phoebe-bridgers-moon-song-lyrics\">writes<\/a> \u201cYou couldn\u2019t have stuck your tongue down the throat of somebody who loves you more \/ So I will wait for the next time you want me \/ Like a dog with a bird at your door.\u201d It has the edge of her typical wit, but contains more mystery every time I hear it. Is \u201cyou couldn\u2019t have\u201d purely honest, saying this person genuinely couldn\u2019t have found somebody more perfect? Or is it quietly sarcastic, a \u201cyou couldn\u2019t have\u201d with an eye roll, in the tone of a sarcastic \u201cyou shouldn\u2019t have,\u201d knowing she\u2019s the person they\u2019ve always truly wanted? I don\u2019t know.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not just the inherently confusing, sticky lyrics that evolve the more you listen to <em>Punisher<\/em>, but the seemingly simple ones as well. On \u201cGarden Song,\u201d Bridgers says \u201cI hopped the fence when I was 17 \/ Then I knew what I wanted.\u201d 15, 16, even 17-year-old me \u2014 who had never done anything more rebellious than staying up 30 minutes past my supposed bedtime \u2014 thought this lyric was sick as fuck. Now, I laugh it off as something that a teenager <em>would<\/em> think is wildly badass. I love the naivety of it, a naivety I didn\u2019t even identify in the lyric five years ago. Not only was Bridgers\u2019 rebellion at 16 feigned, but also my teenage confidence that I understood her tone \u2014\u00a0 taking the line as awe rather than disparagement. This evolution makes the listening experience so fruitful, allowing me to understand how I\u2019m processing the final dregs of my teenage years depending on how I think about that line. I hope in five more years, I\u2019ll find another piece of her delivery to be the truth of the lyric, a tone likely to match whatever I then feel about my teenage self.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>With time, the act of listening to <em>Punisher<\/em> is not only one of personal enrichment, but also an academic, eclectic one as well, due to how referential the writing is. The album\u2019s collection of references further challenges the attempt to make complete sense of Bridgers\u2019 writing. Many of the songs reference Elliott Smith, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2020\/04\/16\/834971727\/phoebe-bridgers-elliott-smith-figure-8-20th-anniversary\">Bridgers\u2019<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.stevenduongwrites.com\/blog\/on-phoebe-bridgers-ghosts-and-copycat-killers-bjkxy\">longtime<\/a> muse. The title track is <a href=\"https:\/\/westridgespyglass.org\/3386\/op-ed\/review-the-relatable-meaning-behind-punisher-by-phoebe-bridgers\/\">dedicated<\/a> to him, making the album a sort of devotion. I\u2019ve started to listen to Smith because of her love for him, seeking to find parallels for myself \u2014 her obsession comes through way more often than I\u2019d realized.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cMoon Song\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/genius.com\/20187666\">has<\/a> \u201cand we fought about John Lennon until I cried,\u201d a lyric I used to accept at face value, but now, as a Beatlemanic confused by Lennon\u2019s legacy, I find myself both admiring and flinching away from. I find her confusion relatable and comforting, as I similarly struggle with his work. The \u201cWizard of Oz\u201d reference <a href=\"https:\/\/genius.com\/Phoebe-bridgers-i-know-the-end-lyrics\">on<\/a> \u201cI Know the End\u201d seemed clear to me on early listens, in \u201cthree clicks and I\u2019m home.\u201d It never needed much more thought. But on a recent listen, \u201cI\u2019m not gonna go down with my hometown in a tornado\u201d clicked as another Ozian moment. As I get older, and know more art, <em>Punisher<\/em> bursts in brighter color. Slowly, references show themselves to me, revealing more meaning to the lyrics, more understanding of the patchwork of Bridgers.<\/p>\n<p>On \u201cHalloween\u201d Bridgers <a href=\"https:\/\/genius.com\/Phoebe-bridgers-halloween-lyrics\">repeats<\/a> \u201cI\u2019ll be whatever you want.\u201d On \u201cGraceland Too\u201d she <a href=\"https:\/\/genius.com\/Phoebe-bridgers-graceland-too-lyrics\">says<\/a> \u201cWhatever you want me to do, I will do.\u201d On <em>Punisher<\/em>, she promises to mold around the wants of others, no matter what that want is. It\u2019s also the spirit of listening to the album. It bends under my life, from soothing to scary to funny to hopelessly and endlessly sad, depending on my day\u2019s mood. <em>Punisher<\/em> will give you whatever you want.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-dots\"\/>\n<p>In \u201cStoned at the Nail Salon,\u201d Lorde <a href=\"https:\/\/genius.com\/Lorde-stoned-at-the-nail-salon-lyrics\">writes<\/a> \u201c\u2018Cause all the music you loved at sixteen you\u2019ll grow out of.\u201d But I disagree, at least with <em>Punisher<\/em>. Five years isn\u2019t a long time, but it\u2019s enough to know that this album will always have some treasure for me. When I think that I\u2019ve grown out of it, <em>Punisher <\/em>grows right along with me.<\/p>\n<p>At 15 years old, moping with chipped black nail polish and wired earbuds in science class, I thought I really got <em>Punisher<\/em>. I thought my teenage brain had all the tools to unlock it, and I was just pretentious enough to believe I\u2019d unwound the web of her storytelling. At 20, I understand that not only will I never \u201cunderstand\u201d <em>Punisher<\/em> \u2014 but I also don\u2019t want to. I want the album to continue to crack me open in new ways, to teach me about myself during college graduation and doctors\u2019 appointments and even retirement.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a comfort to realize that the album still has meanings I cannot understand, whether that\u2019s due to my age or what I have yet to go through or people I\u2019ve yet to know. I can listen to <em>Punisher<\/em> tomorrow and find things I\u2019d miss yesterday. At 50, I\u2019ll discover even more.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-3    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>The sly crypticness of <em>Punisher<\/em> doesn\u2019t just give the album longevity; it forces the album to match every era of my life. And it\u2019s not just that Bridgers does a wonderful job creating art that can mold \u2014 rather, she forces me to process my thoughts. To interpret a line differently from how I used to is to process what\u2019s changed in my life since my last listen, to reconceptualize small things that change my way of thinking. I\u2019ve learned <em>Punisher<\/em> is an opportunity to give yourself permission to feel your growing pains, art that forces you to be honest with your thoughts.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe all albums you loved in your teenage years change shape with time. Maybe <em>Punisher<\/em> isn\u2019t special for how it molds itself around my swirling life. The album no longer feels fresh \u2014 I have too many memories stuck to every track. But <em>Punisher<\/em>, more than anything I loved at that time, still feels like a mystery. It\u2019s a mystery I\u2019ve understood I\u2019ll never truly uncover, because I don\u2019t think I want to.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ll run with Bridgers in circles for another five years, and on and on. Each time, I\u2019ll get lost with her on purpose.<\/p>\n<p><em>Summer Managing Arts Editor Campbell Johns can be reached at <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/arts\/b-side\/what-punisher-teaches-you-on-the-hundredth-listen\/mailto:caajohns@umich.edu\"><em>caajohns@umich.edu<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<aside>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p><h3 class=\"jp-relatedposts-headline\"><em>Related articles<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cI\u2019ve been runnin\u2019 around in circles \/ Pretending to be myself \/ Why would somebody do this on purpose \/ When\u2005they\u2005could do something\u2005else?\u201d This is a list of places where I\u2019ve listened to Punisher: the emergency room, my childhood bedroom, a northern Michigan hotel room, my East Quad Residence Hall room, a Culver\u2019s bathroom, the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[2194,2193,2195,403],"class_list":{"0":"post-1958","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-bridgers","9":"tag-phoebe","10":"tag-punisher","11":"tag-time"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1958"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1960,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1958\/revisions\/1960"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}