Reflections on SZA’s “Ghost in the Machine”
Her collab with Phoebe Bridgers is the song sad girls everywhere need
For those of us who like a bit of a dance beat backing our angst-filled anthems, “Ghost in the Machine,” by pop/R&B/rap sensation SZA, has us covered. It’s one of my favorite tracks on SZA’s sophomore album, SOS. And to cement its place in the indie sad girl space, it features a verse from the epitome of the genre, Phoebe Bridgers.
“Ghost in the Machine” depicts a disaffected, weary person caught between the shallow and superficial and a seemingly crumbling world around them. Both SZA and Bridgers have made their careers from mining their own (often sad and self-critical) emotions to fuel their music, and they have been rewarded for this introspection with fame and celebrity. On “Ghost in the Machine,” they describe being surrounded by people who maybe don’t care about them, or who they don’t care about, and the isolation they feel. “I don’t get existential, I just think about myself and look where that got me,” Bridgers claims in the third verse.
But “Ghost in the Machine” is quite existential — sharply illuminating some dark corners of modern times without sounding preachy or trite. Much of the song's musings disentangle the relationships between humans and technology, and the twisted, harmful ways modern technologies isolate us from each other and from ourselves.
The song starts with a plodding, slightly creepy guitar line that sounds like it could be the musical theme from a horror movie. SZA opens the song, rapping, “Everything disgusting/Conversation is so boring.” She describes a stale conversation, one that lacks empathy and real interest. Compared to the dynamic melodies of most of the songs on this album, the melody here is somewhat flat. It gives the impression of someone who is feeling stuck or tired.
The chorus continues with SZA looking to someone or something outside of her to help her get by. “Can you distract me from all the disaster? Can you touch on me and not call me after?,” she implores. It’s as if she’s poking at the person she’s in conversation with and trying anything to get a response.
In the second verse, SZA compares herself to technology and finds herself lacking. Robots sleep, they have heart, they have a future, she says, but she doesn’t. She craves humanity, but she doesn’t *have* humanity.
This verse puts one of my favorite lines from the chorus into a new light. “Can you lead me to the ark/What’s the password?”is the last question SZA poses to her conversation partner, and it captures this disillusionment with technology perfectly. Hearing this line, I picture someone boarding an ark as the world is ending, and, without looking up from their phone, asking for the ark’s WiFi password. When SZA sings this line it feels like she’s cracking a joke as she punches you in the gut. The breath that escapes is both painful and a relief.
Bridgers takes the third verse of the song, building on the idea of someone stuck in a shallow relationship. Her iconic vocal sound — somehow both raspy and bell-like, emotional and jaded — matches the weariness of the song. SZA tees her up with, “Y’all lack humanity, drowning in vanity,” and Bridgers replies: “You said all my friends are on the payroll/You’re not wrong, you’re an asshole.”
Bridgers brings the song to its climax with the lyrics, “Waiting to feel clean/It’s so fucking boring.” The raspiness in her voice is gone, replaced for a moment by more of an angry, edgy sound as she sings “It’s so fucking boring.” It’s an interesting place to end the song, with the idea that this shallow, superficial world is not only isolating, it’s also sterile and stifling.