Kyoto

Album: Punisher (2020)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • Titled after the Japanese city of Kyoto, Phoebe Bridgers wrote this wistful, brass-flecked tune after her first trip to Japan. Speaking about the song's backstory, she explained it's about impostor syndrome. "[it's] about being in Japan for the first time, somewhere I've always wanted to go, and playing my music to people who want to hear it, feeling like I'm living someone else's life," Bridgers said.
  • After originally writing "Kyoto" as a ballad, Bridgers decided she was tired of recording slow songs, so she turned it into a fuzzy, guitar-riffed folk rocker.
  • Phoebe Bridgers delivered a unique quarantine rendition of the track from her bathroom on the April 9, 2020 episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live. Dubbed by the host, "Phoebe Bridgers live from the lavatory," the pajama-clad songstress performed the tune in her tub, singing into a children's microphone taped to the stand while playing a synthesizer resting on her lap.
  • Phoebe Bridgers' father was a carpenter who built sets for film and television. According to an interview with GQ, he was abusive and had a "drug thing." When he divorced her mom when Phoebe was 20 it left the singer feeling angry.

    This song about their complicated, evolving relationship finds Bridgers fielding payphone calls from her father during her 2019 visit to Japan.
  • You called me from a payphone
    They still got pay phones
    It cost a dollar a minute
    To tell me you're getting sober
    And you wrote me a letter
    But I don't have to read it


    The lyric observing that Japan "still" has pay phones was made up by Bridgers. She told American Songwriter it was inspired by a This American Life episode where they reference a payphone in Japan right by where the 2011 tsunami happened. "People can come and talk to their deceased loved ones," she explained. "That stuck in my head."

    However, when Bridgers started doing Japanese phone interviews to promote the single release, someone told her, "You know, we do have payphones! They're old and gross, but it's funny that you noticed that." The singer thought to herself, "Woah, I guess they do still have them."

Comments: 1

  • Tavi from IdahoI live with Phoebe’s father, her mother told Phoebe and Jackson that he was doing drugs, those drugs were opioids that he had, and still does, take because of a motorcycle accident he got in now 17 years ago.
see more comments

Editor's Picks

Movie Stars In Music Videos

Movie Stars In Music VideosSong Writing

Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie, Mila Kunis and John Malkovich are just a few of the film stars who have moonlighted in music videos.

Band Names

Band NamesFact or Fiction

Was "Pearl" Eddie Vedder's grandmother, and did she really make a hallucinogenic jam? Did Journey have a contest to name the group? And what does KISS stand for anyway?

Song Cities

Song CitiesMusic Quiz

Nirvana, Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen are among those who wrote songs with cities that show up in this quiz.

90s Metal

90s MetalFact or Fiction

Test your metal - Priest, Maiden, and Beavis and Butt-head show up in this one.

Director Paul Rachman on "Hunger Strike," "Man in the Box," Kiss

Director Paul Rachman on "Hunger Strike," "Man in the Box," KissSong Writing

After cutting his teeth on hardcore punk videos, Paul defined the grunge look with his work on "Hunger Strike" and "Man in the Box."

Martin Page

Martin PageSongwriter Interviews

With Bernie Taupin, Martin co-wrote the #1 hits "We Built This City" and "These Dreams." After writing the Pretty Woman song for Go West, he had his own hit with "In the House of Stone and Light."