I sit in bed late at night after a hard day and scroll through my Spotify, deciding what music to listen to. I could listen to music that’ll make me happier, but, naturally, I choose the sadder music, the playlist filled with Phoebe Bridgers.
I listen as her melancholy voice sings me to sleep. I wake up in the morning and once again find myself going back to that same playlist. Bridgers has continued to be the artist to get me through the hard days and find comfort in the unknown.
On Sept. 22, 2026, Bridgers took her “Lost Weekend,” concert tour to Columbus, Ohio. Here, I got to experience the songs I’ve spent years crying to in my bed live in a stadium surrounded by people with the same feelings and love for music that couldn’t be any sadder.
It was not just a stadium filled with sad people and an immense amount of emotions. I have never felt more human connection in one room in my entire life.
In the center of the stadium was an orb-shaped light that lit up the arena as “The Outside,” played, and I immediately felt chills on my arms as my eyes began to well up with tears. Everyone in the stadium sat eager to watch the one person who has made them feel more seen than any artist ever could.
Being in that stadium felt like being in another world, almost as if you saw an alien sighting and no matter who you told, they would never believe you without proof, as this was a no phones concert.
As the concert continued on, I looked around and saw people hugging each other, crying in their best friends’ arms and singing every lyric. People held up lighters instead of the flashlights on their phones, people did the wave as they waited for Bridgers to come out and I watched as girls in the pit of the stadium head banged to “Waiting Room.”
I’ll always remember the feeling of everyone screaming at the end of “I Know The End.” The show ended with Bridgers singing “Scott Street,” as all the lights in the stadium turned on and you could see the faces of people with bittersweet looks on their faces as they hugged their friends next to them.
Everyone in that stadium started off as a teenager discovering Bridgers’ sad discography and listening to her late into the night. Everyone there had felt the feelings of loss, anxiety, stress, depression, fear, failure, loneliness and insecurity at some point in their life, and Bridgers’ was the one who made them feel human.
I felt the energy of everybody rush through the stadium almost as if there was an invisible string that somehow tied us all together, mirroring how we can relate to one another.
While we, as humans, want to live a painless life with only pleasant feelings of joy, it has been known that we often gravitate toward sadder forms of media like sad music, films, books or art. But why?
In an article on Verywellmind, author Cynthia Vinney discussed how sad things can make us feel connected to real life, understand why life is so meaningful and feel gratitude for our own lives.
The article mentions that scholars Mary Beth Oliver and Anna Bartsch, “labeled the feeling of being moved by a sad, poignant or bittersweet story as ‘appreciation’ and suggest that people seek out stories that will elicit this feeling when they are hoping to uncover meaning or deeper truths.”
I’ve always found this to be true, as when I find myself feeling any amount of sadness, I often feel alone and think to myself “Why do I feel this way?” Sad media has let me know that I’m not alone, and that everything will turn out okay. I remember when I first discovered “Funeral,” by Bridgers, which remains as one of my favorites to this day.
The song starts out with Bridgers singing about how she’s singing at a funeral for a kid a year older than her but how she also feels “so blue all the time.”
The lyrics, “Wishing I was someone else, feeling sorry for myself/ Then I remember someone’s kid is dead,” have always stood out as being some of her most impactful lyrics to me. It illuminates that no matter how sad we may be, even if we wish we were someone else, it doesn’t make our struggles any easier, as everyone around us has struggles ranging from one level to another.
As sad as “Funeral” may seem, it has grown to be one of my comfort songs, as it really does make me feel connected to someone and that my feelings are valid. I’m not crazy and it truly is okay to not be okay.
Other songs of Bridgers’ have continued to help me understand myself. “Graceland Too” became my anthem when I was graduating high school, as it perfectly encapsulated my feelings of wanting to achieve my dreams.
“I Know The End” is for when I’m about to do something that feels really big, and “Chinese Satellite,” is for when I have trouble understanding religion.
Laying in my bedroom listening to sad music will always be what I come back to, as a way to better understand not just myself, but life. Being in that stadium reminded me how I’m certainly not alone and this is everyone’s first time living, too.