Phoebe Bridgers’ Lost Boys: The Machine Killing Us

Phoebe Bridgers is back with Lost Boys, her first solo music in six years — a song haunted by nostalgia, isolation, masculinity and the machines we carry in our pockets.At its centre is a dark inversion of one of the most famous slogans in protest music. Where Woody Guthrie wrote “This Machine Kills Fascists,” Bridgers sings: “This machine is killing me.”In this episode of The Last Mixed Tape, Stephen White explores what Lost Boys tells us about smartphones, social media, male loneliness and generations who no longer simply use technology, but have grown up inside it.From the reckless young men haunting the song’s lyrics, to Bridgers’ phone-free Lost Tour and her attempts to rebuild a more direct emotional connection with audiences, this is a story about the machines built to connect us, the people getting lost inside them… and what happens when we decide to leave the machine at the door.The song identifies the machine. The tour attempts to dismantle it.