Phoebe Bridgers Shares “Garden Song,” Her First New Solo Single Since 2017

Don’t call it a comeback: Phoebe Bridgers has stayed plenty busy since the 2017 release of her stellar debut album Stranger in the Alps, steadily releasing music via two supergroups—boygenius, featuring Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker, and Better Oblivion Community Center, her collab with Conor Oberst—that handily transcended side project status, making for some of the best indie music of 2018 and 2019, respectively. Now, Bridgers is kicking off 2020 by going solo again: Though she has yet to formally announce her new album, the Pasadena, California-born singer-songwriter has shared a new(ish) single, “Garden Song,” out now on Dead Oceans. Her first proper solo release since Stranger in the Alps, the song is accompanied by a music video directed by her brother, Jackson Bridgers.

“Garden Song” opens with contemplative strings, which lead into a gentle, tumbling guitar riff, sprouting from a bed of soft static as Bridgers delivers surreal vocals: “Someday I’m gonna live in your house up on the hill / and when your skinhead neighbor goes missing / I’ll plant a garden in the yard, then / they’re gluing roses on a flatbed / You should see it / I mean thousands.” The imagery is serene, yet ominous, like a dream that may actually be a nightmare. The video captures that same tension: Bridgers asked her younger brother to film her hitting a bong, then “surprise” her with what happened next. Bridgers, who doesn’t smoke, stares into the camera through the haze, keeping her composure as best she can while various figures in odd costumes (one of whom is comedian Tig Notaro, dressed as a monk) wander in and out of frame, their intentions never quite clear. At the video’s end, Bridgers collapses into bed, spent, perhaps bound for more strange dreams.

Bridgers recorded “Garden Song” at Sound City Studios in Van Nuys, Calif., enlisting Jeroen Vrijhoef on backing vocals, and producing the song herself alongside her Stranger In The Alps collaborators Tony Berg and Ethan Gruska. Many Bridgers fans will already be familiar with the track, as we alluded to before: She’s played it live at a number of shows, including a performance in Los Angeles last October, and had been perfecting it for a while prior. “I’m kinda partial to her new song that she’s working on. I don’t know the name of it. [Phoebe] keeps calling it ‘Garden Song,’” Oberst told Paste last January.

As also aforementioned, there’s no official word on a new solo album from Bridgers, but that hasn’t stopped it from becoming one of Paste’s most-anticipated releases of the year. You can catch up on everything we know about the project so far here. Other recent releases from Bridgers include: “Walking on a String,” a duet with The National’s Matt Berninger for Between Two Ferns: The Movie; a cover of Tom Waits’ “Georgia Lee” for Dualtone’s Waits tribute album Come On Up To The House: Women Sing Waits; and a Christmas cover of Simon and Garfunkel’s “7 O’Clock News/ Silent Night” with Berninger and Fiona Apple, to benefit Planned Parenthood.

Bridgers has a big year ahead: She’ll spend this spring touring Japan, Australia and New Zealand with The National, and North America with The 1975. Attendees at Shaky Knees, Boston Calling, Pitchfork Music Festival and Osheaga Festival, among others, will also be able to see Bridgers perform.

Watch the “Garden Song” video below and revisit Bridgers’ 2017 Paste Studio session further down. Keep scrolling to see her upcoming tour dates.