In Phoebe Bridgers’ song “Kyoto,” she lamented the complex dynamic she has with her father. “They still got payphones / It cost a dollar a minute / To tell me you’re getting sober,” the lyrics read. “And you wrote me a letter / But I don’t have to read it / I’m gonna kill you/ If you don’t beat me to it.”
Speaking with The New Yorker, Bridgers admitted that it was about her strong feelings towards her dad. “I feel so much f***ing empathy and so much f***ing anger toward him,” she confessed, adding that she couldn’t quite pinpoint what was wrong with him. “It’ll always be day to day: Are we talking, are we not talking? What’s the vibe?” In her NPR interview, she also revealed that her father was “emotionally unavailable” but still “very present in a weird way.” And while she wrote the song when she was “emotionally trapped,” it eventually changed. “The song is basically about, like, not being angry anymore.”
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Before her father passed, it appears they were able to mend their relationship. In a December 2022 “Chicken Shop Date” interview, host Amelia Dimoldenberg asked, “Do you still want to kill your dad?” After a few moments of thinking, Bridgers responded: “No.”
