Credits for the single offer detailed insight into who produced and plays on her 'Lost Weekend' album, which was announced the day before this track's release.
Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic
Phoebe Bridgers released her first new solo single in four years, “Lost Boys,” on Thursday, accompanied by a music video that sees the singer doing some serious Renaissance Faire-style role playing in the suburbs with a cast of sword-bearing compatriots, and taking on co-star Skyler Gisondo as a possible suitor among all the suits-of-armor.
The video was directed by Lance Oppenheim and Pablo Rochat, which explains a lot, with Oppenheim being the creator of the 2024 HBO docuseries “Ren Faire.”
The video follows on the heels, by one day, of Bridgers announcing her upcoming album, “Lost Weekend,” which will arrive Aug. 14. The project is her first solo album since 2020’s “Punisher,” with a major detour having taken place with her side group Boygenius’ acclaimed album “The Record” in 2023.
The video has Bridgers in a blue dress and elfin ears, attracting the attention of a smitten convenience store clerk as she and her fellow role-players stop in for snacks. The clerk goes home and begins practicing swordplay with the heavy tools in his basement, eventually becoming part of the troupe before he and Bridgers wind up as figures in a primitive-looking videogame, with an old-school electronic variation on the song’s melody to match.
Credits were released for the audio track of “Lost Boys,” which is now available on all streaming services, and it’s quite a cast. The tune was co-produced by Tony Berg, Ethan Gruska, Jack Antonoff and Bridgers, with additional production by Alex G. Fellow Boygenius members Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker provide background vocals, along with Caroline Shaw, who is co-credited for the vocal arrangement along with Bridgers. The credited musicians in this wall of sound include all of the co-producers, plus familiar names like longtime band member Marshall Vore (drums), Sebastian Steinberg (upright bass), Chris Thile (mandolin), Blake Mills (synthesizers), Rob Moose (strings and string arrangement), Nate Walcott (trumpets), Will Maclellan (drum programming) and Harrison Whitford (electric and 12-string guitar).
Outside the realm of the video’s whimsical setting, the song itself appears to deal with failed romance in the singer’s past, as Bridgers sings about Peter Pan syndrome: “Lost boys never grow up, never go home… Lost boys never spend their lunch money… Lost boys never grow up, never get old / Lost boys find me.” As is often the case with Bridgers’ songs, the words grow particularly specific at times, such as in a verse where she mentions “that one time in East Berlin when you threw a tantrum with a .57 and broke a rib.”
Absence has only made the heart grow fonder for Bridgers fans, who immediately sold out all the dates of a fall arena tour put on sale earlier this month, which includes three nights at L.A.’s Intuit Dome and three at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center.
