The Meaning of “Motion Sickness” by Phoebe Bridgers

Plenty of success and accolades, and also plenty of heartache and trauma, contributed to the meaning of “Motion Sickness” by Phoebe Bridgers.

Bridgers is everywhere. She’s busted a guitar on Saturday Night Live, toured with Taylor Swift, and recorded with The National and Conor Oberst. She then gathered her friends and fellow indie aces Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus to form a supergroup called boygenius. 

There’s a New Yorker cartoon captioned: “So you say you’re an indie band—and yet you have no tracks featuring Phoebe Bridgers.” She really is everywhere. 

But Are You Phoebe Bridgers Indie?

Bridgers released her debut album, Stranger in the Alps, in 2017 on Dead Oceans to critical acclaim. The album title references a bowdlerized line from The Big Lebowski. The TV editor’s “accidental poetry” drew her in. If you don’t know the line, it’s the part where Walter Sobchak, played by John Goodman, rages on a Corvette. 

Speaking of rage, the SNL performance of “I Know the End” from her brilliant second album, Punisher, ends with unhinged purgation. Before Bridgers smashes her guitar to pieces, she screams into the microphone, releasing some kind of demon while her band explodes into noise rock and free jazz on national television. She echoed Bright Eyes’ chaotic gear-smashing TV performance of “Road to Joy.”

The squares took to the Internet to complain about the destruction, which only highlighted rock ’n’ roll’s double standards. It’s probably why her defining song, “Motion Sickness,” has resonated with so many people.  

The Meaning of “Motion Sickness” by Phoebe Bridgers

Bridgers co-wrote “Motion Sickness” with her drummer, frequent collaborator, and, as he puts it, “ex-boyfriend,” Marshall Vore. Vore told Nylon he was impressed by her confessional writing. He described the American singer/songwriter scene at the time as “dusty cowboy hat whiskey kind of mentality—suspender shit.” Bridgers was bravely willing to narrate her life directly.

The song is about her ex-boyfriend, Ryan Adams, whom she and several women accused of abusive behavior in a 2019 New York Times story. The Times article said Adams dangled success over younger female artists, pursued them sexually, and turned vengeful when they rebuffed his efforts. Adams denied the claims, though he later issued a public apology.  

You gave me fifteen hundred
To see your hypnotherapist
I only went one time; you let it slide
Fell on hard times a year ago
Was hoping you would let it go, and you did

[RELATED: The Meaning Behind a Song of Adoration, “Waiting Room” by Phoebe Bridgers]

Music Finally Says #MeToo

Unlike other forms of media, the music industry escaped the #MeToo movement for a time. There’s a mythology built into “sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll” that seemed to inoculate famous musicians from the same fate as powerful people like Harvey Weinstein and Matt Lauer. R. Kelly had escaped consequences for decades.

I have emotional motion sickness
Somebody roll the windows down
There are no words in the English language
I could scream to drown you out

Bridgers mentions the age gap—20 years—between her and Adams. The age gap and his position in the music industry at the time created a sizable power imbalance. 

You said when you met me, you were bored
And you, you were in a band when I was born

A Small Circle in a Giant City of Angels

In the past, Vore played drums for Ryan Adams, and he’d introduced Bridgers to Adams through guitarist Harrison Whitford—who also collaborates with Bridgers. The relationship between Adams and Bridgers began professionally, then became romantic. In a 2017 interview with Nylon, Bridgers called Adams “another forever friend.” 

It would be easy and not entirely wrong to criticize the musicians around Adams who witnessed his behavior and said nothing. But power is the ability to influence the behavior of others. Record companies and streaming services aren’t the only ones exploiting musicians. Power flows downhill, and often, the person at the top wielding it is a fellow musician. Still, none of this happened in a vacuum. 

Bridgers survived, but how many silent female voices remain? The Adams story is a microcosm of a microcosm of a microcosm of human behavior. 

Disturbed in a Karaoke Bar

Justin Mitchell directed the music video for “Motion Sickness.” In the clip, Bridgers rides a scooter around a Los Angeles neighborhood and—wearing a tuxedo—she ends up at a karaoke bar. She told DIY the video was “probably inspired by my brother Jackson singing “Down with the Sickness” to me in karaoke with 100% commitment in an orange jumpsuit.” 

Purging Feelings

When Phoebe Bridgers released “Motion Sickness,” some critics called it a breakup anthem while others called it a “diss” track. But catharsis seems more accurate. It echoes a more refined confessional Elliot Smith might have written. 

The song’s third line gets much attention for its explicit “takedown.” But the opening lines speak to the complexity and pain of the entire affair: I hate you for what you did / And I miss you like a little kid. 

Photo by Rich Fury/Getty Images