tw/cw: sewer slide, intrusive thoughts

If you want to know me, you MUST know  about my insane obsession with boygenius, the work they have together (“boygenius” - 2018, “the record” - 2023 and “the rest” - 2023) are some of my favorite pieces of lyrical and melodical composition. But here I’m going to focus on the years of bg drought (2019-2022) 

For some context, Julien Baker (aka the little one) has OCD and struggled (or still does) with depression, we don’t exactly know the year but around 2019 and 2020 she wanted, maybe even tried to k!ll herself, leading to Phoebe Bridges (the blondest one) and Lucy Dacus (the tall one) to dedicate songs to Julien, “Graceland Too” and “Please Stay” respectively. While Julien did a song kind of thanking them called “Favor”. Although the songs were released at very different times (Phoebe’s on “punisher” - 2020, Lucy’s on “Home video” - June 2021 and Julien’s on “little oblivions” - February 2021) they worked on them together, doing the backing vocals in each others songs , maybe (speculated) helping each other write.

About the songs themselves, let’s start with “Ketchum, ID”, the las song from their self-titled and first EP. This song exposes some very raw emotions of all three of the boys. The way it only has guitars and the three of them sing and harmonize makes it a very personal song.

In “Graceland too”, Phoebe’s solo song, she sings “no longer a danger to herself or others, she made up her mind and laced up her shoes” what I interpret (emphasis on I) is that Julien no longer has su1c1d4l ideations and has been able to manage intrusive thoughts of damaging others, this intrusive thoughts are also mentioned in the line “[…] so thoughts don’t intrude”. In this song Phoebe also mentions some things that they did together, not really good memories but more like being there for each other. The moment we get that this song is not about any girl and it is about THE Julien Baker is when the three of them harmonize in the chorus to “She could do anything she wants to”, then again in the second chorus “I would do anything you want me to” and to finish off this songs, Julien’s and Lucy’s vocals get louder for “whatever she wants”.

For “Please stay”, Lucy’s song, she starts singing about uncompleted day-to-day tasks and how sad she gets about this person not doing them. She also mentions how this person does the things usual in people with su1c1d4l ideations “You tell me you love me like it will be the last time” and then her interpretation of something they told her “I think you mean what yo say when you say you wanna die, I think you mean what you say when you say you wanna stay alive”. The background vocals in this song are way more subtle than on the previous song, if you don’t pay attention you probably won’t notice more people are singing up until the last few seconds and won’t be able to know that said person is Julien. I don’t really know how to connect this with their story, but this is my favorite line from the album “Call me if you need a friend or never talk to me again, but please stay”.

Last, but clearly not least, Julien’s part, “Favor”. This song is Julien herself singing about her struggles. The backing vocals are also subtle on this song speaking of volume, but the three of them sing at the end of most lines. Some of the personal experiences she shares on this song are common amongst mentally ill people “I always want to tell the truth but it never seems like the right time to be serious enough, im sorry, im making myself cry” in MY (emphasis on my) experience this line refers to not giving enough importance to one selfs emotions and feeling like they could be a burden to others. She also sings about something that can be seen as a detachment of self-esteem, not feeling worthy “Who put me in your way to find? What right had you not to let me die?”

To wrap up all this “trilogy”, on the record (3 years after “Graceland too”, 2 years after “Favor” and “Please stay”) the intro is an a cappella song “Without you, Without them”, here they are implying that they are there for each other.