Round of 64: (2) Phoebe Bridgers - I Know the End vs. (63) Andrew McMahon - M4TG Bracket

Round one is here. 64 songs from 1960 to 2022. What song will come out on top? First few rounds will be posted in batches of four Mondays and Thursdays.

NOTICE: PLEASE DO NOT VOTE UNLESS YOU'VE HEARD BOTH SONGS. THEY'RE LIKE THREE MINUTES EACH IT ISN'T DIFFICULT.

For this matchup, we start with:

(2) Phoebe Bridgers - I Know the End

vs.

(63) Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness - Maps for the Getaway

 

not my favorite phoebe song and not the worst andrew song i've ever heard but it's still very easily phoebe here

 

“Maps” means way more to me. Such a moving song about the twists and turns of life and about cherishing the things that matter. Would have been harder if the Phoebe song was “Chinese Satellite.”

 

Phoebe very easily.

 

Phoebe all day

 

The end is here (for Andrew McMahon)

 

Woof, a ton of heavy hitter matchups and then this

 

Andrew McMahon. Just can't find my way into Bridgers no matter how many times i try to listen.

But also didn't realize this song out of all his others made it haha. Would have loved to see a different solo song or maybe a Jack's song make it.

 

Never heard these songs but now that I have I’m giving it to Phoebe, song gets pretty wild at the end.

 

Phoebe easily

Maps is one of those headscratchers for me as to how it made it in. I enjoy the song, but never saw it as more than an above-average entry in McMahon’s catalog.

 

Actually feel like "Maps" makes a lot of sense as the Andrew song. Maybe the best encapsulation of his story. When I wrote about that album for my best of the 2010s list, I focused mainly on that song.

TLDR, lol. I know this song is probably a lost cause, but it means a lot to me.

 

"Maps for the Getaway" is sort of a culmination of Andrew's career arc and a triumphant finding of himself under his own name. I was part of the votes that put it here, but "I Know the End" takes it for me. I wish it had been "Chinese Satellite", but I'll take it.

 

Pheobe

 

Maps probably isn't in my top five songs on that Andrew alum. Good song, but not on the level of I Know the End.

 

I mean, "I Know The End" is 1000 percent not in my top five on Punisher, if we're doing that kind of measurement.

 

I will not share my opinion on that song

 

It's an excellent song

 

There are just too many great lines in "I Know the End" to deny.

"I'm always pushing you away from me, but you come back with gravity. And when I call, you come home, a bird in your teeth"

"When the sirens sound, you'll hide under the floor. But I'm not gonna go down with my hometown in a tornado. I've got to chase it."

"Everyone's convinced it's a government drone or an alien spaceship; either way we're not alone"

She's just on a writing hot streak on all of Punisher that most artists never get on.

 

I don’t dislike it, but I think a lot of people found it comforting or weirdly apt during the pandemic, and I’ll just be honest and say that extremely bleak apocalyptic songs were not at all what I wanted to hear when that album came out, ha. I often skipped that track early on, and it still gives me a bitter taste in my mouth. Kind of a weird visceral reaction that I don’t have with a lot of songs. Versus “Maps” which I consider to be extremely comforting.

 

Maps for the Getaway for me for sure. Love that song, one of my favorite closers from any record.

 

i know the end only gets great at the rhythmic change for me

 

I Know The End feels like a cathartic release against how bad the last couple of years have been and how everything somehow maddeningly seems to be getting even worse. If the song is cut into two halves, the first is one of the most beautiful on Punisher, and the second is incredibly powerful and feels like the album has been leading up to it's climax.

It's really timely, and fucking rules.

 

See I find it genuinely cathartic. To look into this chaos and conclude "we're not alone" or be grateful that the person you love comes back to you even when you've been awful to them is a deeply open-hearted act. I texted my bandmate after my, like, 15th listen to the album and said "If I was still 22 and lost when this came out, it would have completely changed my life".

 

There are lots of songs from that time that are cathartic to me, including several on that album. This particular song is not one of them.

 

phoebe moves on with 74%