The 5: Levi McCachen’s Top 5 Phoebe Bridgers Songs
Comedian Levi McCachen just released his debut album, “Illuminati”, and covers all the comedy topics you need, like Donald Trump ruining conspiracy theories, what rom-coms say about the human condition and being a 30-year-old millennial. Described as “smart and observant, yet also fretful, exposed, and seeped in white guilt,” by Dan Dion, Head of A&R at 800 Pound Gorilla Records, Levi combines social anxiety with a vulnerable Canadian courtesy.
Levi hails from Calgary, and moved to Vancouver to hone his skills at Vancouver’s The Comedy Mix, working his way up from guest spot to headliner. He has since performed at Just For Laughs Northwest, on CBC’s Debaters, at the Pemberton Music Festival as well as shows across the country. Levi was the winner of the CFox Comedy Competition and a finalist in the Yuk Yuk’s Yuk Off Competition three years in a row.
In addition to comedy, Levi is also an award-winning filmmaker. His short films have played in Film Festivals in Toronto, New York, Vancouver, and L.A. AND we now know he’s an expert at Phoebe Bridgers Songs. Whether you’re also a Phoebe Bridgers super fan, or just curious and want to start at the top, you will love Levi’s addition to the 5 series.
Make sure you check out Levi McCachen’s debut album, “Illuminati” from 800 Pound Gorilla Records.
#5 – Kyoto
Including Kyoto on this list, much like Thanos, was inevitable. For me, and the legion of rabid Phoebe Bridgers superfans like me, it was hands-down the song of the summer in 2020. This de facto made it the song of the year as 2020 technically had no summer or any seasons whatsoever. It was just a never-ending stretch of netflix and banging on pots and pans for nurses who, in all likelihood, were either on shift or trying to sleep. It’s the first single from Bridger’s sophomore album ‘Punisher’ and it’s a dang bop. It’s by far the most upbeat tune on an album that centers around themes of emotional trauma, desperately wanting to believe in God but not quite being able to muster up the faith, and never being able to meet Elliot Smith. Alas, the very levity and breeziness of Kyoto is what prevents it from being higher up on the list. If someone told me their favourite Phoebe Bridgers’ song was Kyoto I would doubt that person’s devotion to her as an artist. She makes sad songs for sad people, and Kyoto, even though it’s about her strained relationship with her father, is her least sad solo track. It’s like saying your favourite Bruce Willis performance was the music video for ‘Respect Yourself’, a track from his debut R&B album ‘The Return of Bruno.’ Sure, it’s great, But to say it’s your favourite is disrespectful to his canon as an artist.
#4 – Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
Gonna get a lot of haters with this one. This obviously isn’t a Phoebe Bridgers original. It’s the Christmas carol written by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blaine originally performed by Judy Garland in the 1944 musical Meet Me In St. Louis. But Bridgers released a rendition of it along with 3 other Christmas covers on the Holiday EP ‘If We Make It Through December.’ But it has the soul of a Phoebe Bridgers song. In fact the original lyrics of the song were criticized by Garland for being “too depressing.” The line “Let your heart be light / Next year all our troubles will be out of sight” was originally “It may be our last / Next year we may all be living in the past.” That’s some Phoebe Bridgers shit right there. This entire EP did a lot of heavy lifting getting me and a lot of others through the dismal affair that was Christmas 2020. She’s the perfect artist to capture the inherent melancholy to any Christmas, but especially a socially distanced one. Phoebe has previously described her work as “trauma representation.” And when she crooned in her version of McCarthy Trenching’s Christmas song “You don’t have to be alone to be lonesome/ It’s so easy to forget/ The sadness comes crashing like a brick through the window/ And it’s christmas so no one can fix it” I’ve never felt more seen.
# 3 – Chinese Satellite
The primary theme in this song is of reluctant agnosticism; of not having faith in a higher power no matter how badly you want to. But it’s also about general disillusionment with the world and your place within it. Phoebe Bridgers is very much a millennial artist. Her canon focuses heavily on themes of disenchantment, imbalanced power struggles, and world weariness. This makes her the perfect artist for a generation raised with 90’s optimism only to enter adulthood in the age of the PATRIOT Act, a never-ending war, and the financial collapse (among other cool world-changing events, here’s looking at you Covid-19!). In an interview with Apple Music she said of ‘Chinese Satellite’ “If I’m being honest, this song is about turning 11 and not getting a letter from Hogwarts, just realizing that nobody’s going to save me from my life, nobody’s going to wake me up and be like, “Hey, just kidding. Actually, it’s really a lot more special than this, and you’re special.” If you can think of a more apt metaphor for the millennial experience, I’d love to hear it.
#2 – Didn’t Know What I Was In For
Again, I’m sort of going off the rails with this one as it’s not a pure Phoebe Bridgers song but a track by Better Oblivion Community Center, her side project with Conor Oberst. I was an emotional and angst-ridden 90s kid who grew up in the suburbs, so of course I was a huge Conor Obert/ Bright Eyes fan. When I found out he had recorded an album with Bridgers it was what I imagine a Baby Boomer would feel if they found out Fleetwood Mac had somehow recorded an album with the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act; pure bliss. Bridgers once said of Elliot Smith “”If someone doesn’t like his music, I actually feel like I’m not going to agree with them about anything. It informs everything I like.” That’s how I feel about Phoebe Bridgers and Conor Oberst. If you don’t relate to Phoebe and Conor singing about how they need to listen to white noise to fall asleep “otherwise I pace about, sit on the couch and think about, how livings just a promise that I made” I immediately know two things about you. The first is that you’re probably a much better adjusted human being than me. The second is that we have vastly different worldviews.
#1 – Killer
This song off the EP of the same name was my first introduction to Phoebe Bridgers. Discover Weekly recommended it to me because the algorithm knows me better than myself. These days I spend an increasingly inordinate amount of time worrying about the role of technology in the modern world. It only takes about 4 seconds of watching any Boston Dynamics video to send me into a full on anxiety spiral about the impending birth of sentient robots and the inevitable rise of Skynet. But then I remember that Spotify told me to listen to this song the very day it was released by a relatively unknown artist at the time. The algorithm knew I’d love Phoebe Bridgers. And this sets my anxiety at ease because I remember that when robots take over it won’t be through violent means, as a war is a terribly inefficient method to overthrow the dominant species and computers hate inefficiency. It will be through creating perfect little pods where all our creature comforts will be met. The age of robots will be welcomed by humans because the robots will have infinite amounts of data on what actually makes us happy and they will create the technological virtual utopia for us that we could never create for ourselves. Spotify wasn’t guessing that I’d like Phoebe Bridgers, it knew. Anyways, it’s a great song. Check it out.
Make sure to check out Levi McCachen’s debut album, “Illuminati”. available everywhere albums are sold.
