For 2016’s Lost Ark Studio Compilation – Vol. 08, Phoebe Bridgers contributed “Waiting Room,” a vulnerable track she wrote as a teenager. It’s become a bit of a fan favorite, so it was unfortunate when the project, and therefore “Waiting Room,” were removed from Spotify earlier this year (as Consequence notes). Now, though, the track is back in the name of charity.
Bridgers shared the song on her Bandcamp page, and proceeds from name-your-price sales will benefit the charity Music Will. The Bandcamp description says of the nonprofit, “Music Will is the largest nonprofit music program in the United States providing teacher training, musical instruments, and music education resources to schools across the country impacting over 1.2 million students in the last 20 years.”
In 2020, Bridgers told NPR of the song, “I think, actually, I’m afraid of accidentally conveying my own privilege and brattiness. I’m afraid of putting my genuine soul into a song and then having someone be like, ‘What’s her problem? Like, are you kidding me?’ And I hear that in, like, some of my earlier music. […] I have, like, a really old song called ‘Waiting Room,’ where — yeah, I wrote it when I was, like, 16. And people find it every once in a while and tag me in it or whatever. And I think I’m just — one, it’s super sincere, and I meant everything. But it’s so emotionally raw, and I’m so pining for someone.”
Listen to “Waiting Room” above and download it here.
