“Savior Complex” – Phoebe Bridgers

“Savior Complex” by Phoebe Bridgers happens to be my most-played song ever. Its haunting yet entrancing instrumental catches the listener in a gaze, and Bridgers’ vocals on the track are as smooth as butter. For that reason, I feel that it is only fair I choose it to be the first song in my catalog that I discuss.

For those who do not know, Phoebe Bridgers is an American singer-songwriter who usually releases indie rock/pop music. She has so far released two albums in her solo career, which were highly praised by critics and music enthusiasts alike. Although Bridgers is not the most commercially successful compared to immensely popular singers such as Taylor Swift and Bruno Mars, she still has found a way to leave her mark on the music industry. Bridgers launched her independent record label called Saddest Factory Records, where she signs and gives up-and-coming artists the chance to flourish in the industry. From her label, she was coined as a “marketing genius” and helped launch the career of several indie artists by helping them release their debut albums and reach commercial success.

Phoebe Bridgers for the “Savior Complex” music video.

“Savior Complex” was released on December 7, 2020, as the fifth and final single from Bridgers’ most recent album “Punisher” (one of my favorite albums of all time!). When someone has a savior complex, they feel their job is to sacrifice their well-being to reach out and help others. Throughout the track, Bridgers discusses how her savior complex affects her romantic relationships. The song opens with a beautiful string solo that automatically creates a fuzzy, dream-like atmosphere for the listener. Ironically, Bridgers actually wrote the song’s melody while she was dreaming which may help explain the atmosphere created. Then, in the first verse, Bridgers begins by admitting that she would like to smoke in a car with her partner and roll the windows up. In doing this, Bridgers wants to induce her partner more sadness and pain, giving her more initiative to enact her savior complex which she feeds off of. A central point that is brought up in this verse is people who have a savior complex are attempting to avoid their problems by focusing on other people’s problems, which creates an unhealthy relationship with one’s self-being. In Bridgers’ case, she is conspiring additional problems within her partner so she does not have to concentrate on the problems that fill her life.

Someone with a savior complex could be perceived as a kind of guardian angel. Source

Then, in the chorus, Bridgers begins to open up about the toxicity in her relationship by saying how she and her partner would start a “big fire” in their apartment when they woke up, referring to petty arguments they would have. She then exclaims how she is too tired to put out the flames of these arguments, and even though they may argue, in the end, Bridgers wants her partner to feel comfortable in sharing their emotional baggage with her, once again referring to how she wants to fuel her savior complex further. In the chorus, she refers to emotional baggage as “dreams” at first but then refers to it as “skeletons”, which may imply that not only does she want to see her partner vulnerable emotionally, but physically as well.