Scott Street

Album: Stranger In The Alps (2017)
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Songfacts®:

  • "Scott Street" is a collaborative effort between Phoebe Bridgers and her touring drummer and then-boyfriend, Marshall Vore.

    The titular road is a quaint residential street in Echo Park, Los Angeles. It's a few blocks away from Bedrock LA, the rehearsal space Bridgers and Vore shared during the creation of Stranger in the Alps. For Vore, Scott Street became a familiar haunt for daily cigarette runs, but for Bridgers it unwittingly sparked a powerful reflection on a past relationship.

    "'Scott Street' is about being really lonely," Bridgers reflected to Bandcamp. "Sometimes I want to cop out and say it's about a lot of different things, but really it's all there. It's just a diary."
  • While Bridgers initially offered a personal interpretation of the song, in a 2019 interview with Song Exploder she and Vore revealed another layer. "Scott Street," while drawing on the universal ache of lost love, also explores the complexities of a past relationship he was in, one he described as "manipulative."
  • The chorus describes a period when Vore was stuck at home recovering from a broken leg, and his partner restricted his access to friends, claiming they weren't truly supportive.

    Do you feel ashamed
    When you hear my name?


    This is when Vore recognizes her manipulative behavior, a delayed awakening long after the relationship ended. "This person did love me, but they were also working against me," he told Song Exploder. "So I wonder if they're ashamed of that kind of thing, and if they've grown up."
  • "Scott Street" is the fifth track on Phoebe Bridgers' debut album, Stranger in the Alps. Produced by Tony Berg and Ethan Gruska, the record took shape piece by piece in Berg's studio in Brentwood, Los Angeles, during Bridgers' touring breaks.
  • The album's title, Stranger In The Alps, is a quirky reference to the TV edit of The Big Lebowski where a line is sanitized for broadcast. Bridgers found a strange beauty in the accidental poetry of that mangled phrase ("Do you see what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps?").
  • In the spring of 2024, a slowed-down version of "Scott Street" went viral on TikTok. It was used to soundtrack clips of reunions, a chapter in someone's life closing, and other emotional moments.

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