Chinese Satellite

Phoebe Bridgers, longing, and listening

My dear friend Sophie and I recently decided to write an essay for each other about a song that meant something to us. We didn’t agree on a format or style so the essays are wildly different! Mine is below. You can read Soph’s beautiful essay here.

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Dear Soph,

Two years ago someone gave me a ticket to Laneway, which Phoebe Bridgers was playing. We were exchanging emails at the time and I wrote you to ask, Are there any Phoebe Bridgers songs I don't find kind of insufferable?? You wrote back and said Because I now have an MFA, I'm obligated to spread the good word of boygenius, which made me laugh a lot. Then you recommended your favourite Phoebe Bridgers song, which was “Chinese Satellite”.

Well, I listened and I didn’t get it. Maybe I just wasn’t in the right headspace. At the beginning of 2023, I was moving to Wellington to pursue my own MFA and feeling very free and light. “Chinese Satellite” is not light. It starts with a trumbly sort of bass line and the lyric I’ve been running around in circles / pretending to be myself, which, however relatable, makes my eyes roll all the way back in my head. It’s that devastated voice she has, you know? It’s not delicious, and all the songs sound the same, which drove me nuts back then because back then I didn’t love the songs. But you loved “Chinese Satellite”, so I didn’t forget about it. Instead, I put it in a big nine-hour shuffle playlist and so it returned to me at stray moments all through my two years in Wellington. Mostly on the bus down grey Taranaki Street, on my way to work or uni. One time while walking round the South Coast, lashed by the salt, the waves cinematic with wind.

The main two reasons I listen to music are (a) to perk myself up and consolidate a good mood and (b) to yearn, which is sometimes sad and sometimes nice. (Do you think these are the same reasons everyone listens?) “Chinese Satellite” is perfect for category B. I guess the song is about wanting to believe in God but not being able to, which already makes it quite an interesting sort of song. But I secretly think of it as a song about yearning qua yearning. One of the best moments is when she sings I want to believe, where want leaps up an octave from the previous note, exactly like the swell of wanting, like that’s how big the feeling is, it’s in a whole different register.

Such a song can make any bus ride feel meaningful. But it can be there in times of unborrowed yearning, too. It’s been a weird summer this year, Soph — a sudden breakup, an overseas move, a godforsaken job hunt, everywhere trailing a sadness I don’t quite feel entitled to — and along the way I’ve listened and listened to “Chinese Satellite”. I’ve held fast to the knowledge that somebody else has known exactly the feeling of not knowing but hoping and caught it in a three-and-a-half-minute net of music. Oh to yearn away one’s life in three-and-a-half-minute increments! I still think it’s precious for a song to become not-just-theoretical, even if, when the track finishes, you have to laugh at yourself and go on, summoning your courage.

My favourite lyric in the song is I’d stand on a corner, embarrassed with a picket sign / if it meant I would see you when I die. (My second favourite is I will never be your vegetable.) I just think it’s great. I love the silliness of it, and the big emotion underneath. It turns out what I want, more than anything, is earnestness. I would stand on a corner, embarrassed with a picket sign. What would your picket sign say? I think mine would say I’M LISTENING.

Love,

Maddie