While most of us scrolled through Tik-Tok during mandated lockdowns and various COVID-19 protocols, comedian Bo Burnham took advantage of his time alone, single handedly writing, filming, and editing his fifth comedy special. 

“Bo Burnham: Inside,” was shot in a single room, demonstrating the true isolation and loneliness of the pandemic. This music documentary highlights dark humor, with a combination of amusing and emotional tracks, paired with various homemade scenes. After its release on Netflix in May of 2021, his descriptive lyrics and fast paced music created insightful songs, which quickly gained popularity on all social media platforms.

One of these songs, “That Funny Feeling,” is slow and melodic, soft guitar, campfire sparks, and crickets can be made out in the background. Injected with thought-provoking lyrics like “gift shop at the gun range, a mass shooting at the mall” and “a book on getting better hand delivered by a drone,” Burnham uncovers an honest and harsh reality of the world we live in, full of unnatural yet normalized concepts that exist like online school and campus robots delivering food. Along with his audience, this song caught the eye of Phoebe Bridgers, an alternative icon known for her sultry voice yet bold demeanor.

As a result, Bridgers released a cover of this song, which quickly gained more listens than the original version. Her admiration of this artist is conveyed in the album cover, which pays homage to Burnham’s special, a blue spotlight on a dark stage mimicking a different song, “All Eyes on Me.” Keeping the lyrics and baseline guitar the same, Bridgers implements various violin notes, voice layering, and succinct drum beats to truly reflect her style from previous albums, such as “Punisher” and “Stranger in the Alps.”

The similarity to former albums and the popularity of both “Bo Burnham: Inside” and Phoebe Bridgers’ version makes this meaningful, insightful song a fan favorite, combining two things on seemingly separate sides of the internet.