We’re counting down the days until boygenius’s first full-length album, but in the meantime, we’re breaking down one of the band’s best inventions.
“Me & My Dog” was written by Bridgers, but her lyrics are made all the more poignant with vocals from Dacus and Baker. The song dreams up a peaceful escape from anxiety—one that includes an entire solar system and Phoebe’s late senior dog, Max.
Let’s break down the lyrics:
“We had a great day/Even though we forgot to eat/And you had a bad dream/Then we got no sleep/‘Cause we were kissing”
Despite all the makings of a bad day—being hungry and tired and stressed—the speaker’s time spent with her lover changes her attitude. Knowing Bridgers’ woeful discography, a great day is rare for her protagonists. Even so, Bridgers uses past tense, letting listeners know that better days have been left behind.
“I had a fever/Until I met you/Now you make me cool/But sometimes I still do/Something embarrassing”
Bridgers’ play on words here is impressive. Before this soured relationship, she feels sick, but when she meets this person, she’s cured. And even more than that, she’s actually “cool.” The next lines crack through the coolness, as she lets us in on the secret that as much as this person keeps her interesting or popular, she’s still plagued by some awkwardness.
“I never said I’d be all right/Just thought I could hold myself together/But I couldn’t breathe, I went outside/Don’t know why I thought it’d be any better/I’m fine now, it doesn’t matter”
Bridgers has revealed that this song narrates a panic attack that she once had in the audience of a show. With that in mind, the sudden instrumental build mirrors just how unruly and unexpected her anxiety is. But she insists that no one worries about her; it’s over with.
“I didn’t wanna be this guy/I cried at your show with the teenagers/Tell your friends I’ll be all right/In the morning it won’t matter”
While the teenagers cry and obsess over this person, she’s crying for a different reason. Still, crying over a break-up leads this narrator to equate herself with the naivety and innocence of teenagers. Again, she dismisses herself, half-heartedly reassuring us that it wasn’t that serious.
“I wanna be emaciated/I wanna hear one song without thinking of you/I wish I was on a spaceship/Just me and my dog and an impossible view/I dream about it/And I wake up falling”
In the climax of the piece, we’re sonically sent into the stratosphere with the help of Baker and Dacus’s harmonies. It’s cosmic. Literally otherworldly. Bridgers’ sound and lyrics erupt, as we’re brought back to the hunger at the beginning of the song. She tells us that she wants to be starved, much like when she “forgot to eat” because she was savoring her lover’s company. She would do damage to herself just to be back in her honeymoon state. But more than anything, she wants to leave Earth to fly to outer space with her dog. It’s her way of seeking comfort. Once she wakes up, she’s jolted back to reality.
We can’t wait to see more lyrical jewels from boygenius on the record.
Stream the first four singles from the record on Spotify!
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