Phoebe Bridgers’ Cover of “Iris”
When you think of “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls, do you think of its earnest lyrics and powerful vocal performance, or do you think of awkward slow dances and cheesy rom-coms? The latter, right? I guess that’s what can make a good cover so exciting.
As someone born in 1994, It’s only in retrospect that I understand the weird in-between state the Goo Goo Dolls found themselves in when they released “Iris” in ‘98. It seems obvious now that the song would become a huge hit. However, at the time, an alternative rock band making a radio-friendly power ballad for a Nicolas Cage movie flew in the face of all the people trying to fight for the sanctity of indie and alternative music.
The schism between pop and indie music was never more stark than during the late ‘90’s. Think of Elliott Smith fans and Celine Dion fans then as Liberals and Republicans now (I’ll let you decide whether that’s respectively or not). This makes it all the more remarkable that “Iris” was able to reach the top of modern rock, pop, and adult contemporary charts. The record was the ultimate crossover, an epic love song whose singability just barely outweighed the features that gave it any indie cred (it’s oscillation between time signatures, its unusual guitar tuning, etc.). Of course, as I’ve often found on this podcast, when you try to do something that pleases everyone, you end up pleasing no one.
Both the song’s initial appeal and eventual downfall was its spill-out-your-guts conviction. For lack of a better term, the song is needy; it demands your full emotional attention, like a kid who, mid-tantrum, opens one eye to make sure you’re still watching. John Rzeznik - the band’s songwriter and vocalist - sings as though he’s trying to compact all the stakes of a Rachel McAdams movie into a 3-minute song. To be fair, he succeeds. Can you imagine hearing the line “Yeah you bleed just to know you’re alive” and not singing along with all your heart? No! If you didn’t feel like doing that, then what would be the point in listening? You only get as much as you give with this song. So when “Iris” got played on the radio over and over again, it was only a matter of time before listeners decided they had nothing more to give, and the song soon became exhausting and cliche’d. Now, “Iris” is considered the epitome of sappiness, and the band has received a lot of punishment for it.
The music of indie singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers, on the other hand, is not nearly as needy as “Iris”. Songs like “Funeral” and “Garden Song“ are so subtle, it’s almost as if they don’t even realize anyone’s listening. Experiencing them feels as though you’ve snuck into Bridgers’ room while she was singing to herself; you don’t want to even move or else she might notice you’re there and stop. What’s so effective about her acoustic cover of “Iris” - which she performs alongside fellow singer-songwriter Maggie Rogers - is that it offers us a chance to experience Rzeznik’s music and lyrics without having to match his energy.
This version of “Iris” was briefly available on Bandcamp on November 14th after Bridgers made a promise that she would cover the song if Donald Trump lost the presidential election. Bridgers, who’s been on the internet for all her career, knows better than to not follow through on this kind of promise. Three days after Election Day, she tweeted a link to buy the recording, announcing that proceeds would go to Fair Fight, Stacey Abram’s election-reform organization helping Democrats win the upcoming Georgia run-offs. The accompanying artwork is a meme suggesting that we use this version of “Iris” as fuel for the impending revolution. There’s something so delightfully and specifically 2020 about all of this: a young and talented woman using her social media platform to troll the President by covering a corny song from the ‘90’s.
Artwork for “Iris” by Phoebe Bridgers and Maggie Rogers
Bridgers’ promise to cover “Iris” showed an understanding of how ironic it would be for an artist like her to sing a song like that. However, on the cover itself, she refuses to belittle the song by doing any sort of winking; the final product is as sincere as any of her previous work. Her and Rogers’ voices delicately weave around each other, swinging back and forth between unison and harmony in a way that feels improvisatory. It sounds like they are figuring out the song in real time, finding their way through it individually without ever getting in the other’s way. They’re performing a righteous act: giving the song a chance; stripping it bit by bit of all the negative associations it’s accumulated over the past two decades.
Like me, Phoebe Bridgers and Maggie Rogers were also born in 1994. Unlike the indie artists of the late 90’s, they aren’t burdened with the idea that pop music is poison. In their moral contract is no mention of waging war against artists like Celine Dion or the Goo Goo Dolls. People my age have far too much to worry about right now to wage these kinds of wars.
And that’s what I hear when I listen to this version of “Iris”: two young people, at the cusp of a revolution, coming together to say “let’s leave the Goo Goo Dolls alone; we have bigger battles to fight.”
