Phoebe Bridgers
If you’ve ever cried into your iced coffee listening to Phoebe Bridgers or Maggie Rogers, you’re halfway to being a country fan. Seriously. Country and indie aren’t opposites — they’re just cousins who shop at slightly different thrift stores.
Both genres thrive on vulnerability. Country music doesn’t hide the mess — neither does indie. It’s all heartbreak, longing, and existential spirals. Sound familiar? They’re both rooted in confessional storytelling, with sparse instrumentation that leaves room for the listener’s own feelings and imagination to fill in the space. Whether it’s a banjo or a fuzzed-out Stratocaster, the music serves the story — and that story is usually about longing, loss, growth, or just trying to dream through the day.
Take Kacey Musgraves, for example. Her Grammy-winning album Golden Hour lives in the overlap. The lush harmonies, the acoustic warmth, the emotional gut-punches? Country through and through. But her lyrics could easily sit next to Lucy Dacus or Big Thief on your “Sad Girl Autumn” playlist.
And boy oh boy, this song: “Slow Burn“
Or Zach Bryan, a Navy veteran turned indie-folk hero who blew up on TikTok. His lo-fi, no-frills recordings (often just him and a guitar) pull you in with raw honesty. He sounds like someone who might’ve grown up on Townes Van Zandt but listens to Bon Iver on long drives. His song “Something in the Orange” is so devastating, it should come with tissues.
He sings: Something in the orange tells me we’re not done
This is indie-folk at its rawest. The phrase is open-ended, poetic, and emotionally ambiguous — classic indie storytelling. What is “the orange”? A sunset? A color in her jacket? A moment? It’s abstract, yet somehow it guts you. Zach’s delivery is rough, unfiltered, and confessional — qualities more often associated with indie lo-fi than slick Nashville production.
We can’t do a post on storytellers without talking about Stephen Wilson Jr. and his song “I’m A Song”. Haunting guitar like it’s Bon Iver but with that classic country vocal delivery! And man those lyrics…
That’ll get you where you’re going
So you never go there alone
I’m the melody glued to the memory
That you can’t shake when it comes on
I’m the part of you that you listen to
Riding in the radio all night long
I’m a song
How can you not feel that!
Stephen Wilson Jr. — “I’m A Song” (Live at the Print Shop)
So if you love a lyric that punches you in the throat and a melody that sounds like longing, welcome. Country music is calling. Bring your flannel — and your feelings.
Country music is no longer about where you’re from, but about the stories you’re brave enough to tell.
Stay Wild. Stay Storytellers. Stay Country.
