Jonathan Bernstein
View all posts by Jonathan Bernstein July 16, 2026
Todd Owyoung/NBC When Phoebe Bridgers returned to The Tonight Show on July 15 to perform a stripped-down version of “Lost Boys” (the same song she’d performed with an all-kids band the day before), the camera eventually zoomed out to reveal she was singing alongside a 70-something man who looked like someone you might see at the post office, wearing a white “New York” baseball cap, jeans, and a black T-shirt.
The man singing with Bridgers was, in fact, Dan Reeder, an oddball folk singer-songwriter, longtime visual artist, and instrument maker who’s developed a cult following for his beautifully simple songs about butterflies and beachballs and brains. (David Grier and J.T. Thomas were among the other distinguished musicians who performed on TV with him and Bridgers.)
Since 2004, Reeder has been releasing albums on the late John Prine’s Oh Boy Records, including songs with titles like “Food and Pussy” and “Bitch Nation.” Reeder has said he “broke down and cried” when he first found out that Prine loved his songs after he mailed in a cassette out of the blue. His music often transforms a nonsense line or a passing thought into something profound. Perhaps his greatest tune is just one line, sung again and again until it sounds like wisdom: “Born a worm/Spins a coccoon/Goes to sleep/Wakes up a butterfly/What the fuck is that about?”
Another, called “Work Song,” simply repeats the line “I got all the fuckin’ work I need.”
In recent years, Reeder’s music has become less and less of a well-kept secret. Bridgers had already outed herself as a fan when her group boygenius covered Reeder’s song “Stay Down, Man” in 2023. Last year, Jack Antonoff referred to Reeder as “one of my all-time favorite songwriters” before performing his song “Maybe” with Waxahatchee, Weyes Blood, and Reeder himself. Jason Isbell has said he “loves him so much.” Actor and musician Whitmer Thomas also counts himself as a big fan, and recruited Reeder for his 2022 song “South Florida.”
