Mitski- Be the Cowboy

At thirty two minutes, this is a short little album. Normally, I’d want a short album like this to hit like a punch to the gut, making every minute as energetic and charged as possible. Instead this album is more of a petit four: small, sweet, but just rich enough so that you feel satisfied.

The big hit off this album is “Nobody,” I expect because it sounds like “The Girl from Ipanema,” which everyone loves, or at least likes. What’s remarkable is that this is actually a brutal song with an even more brutal origin. It came after Mitski had a breakdown due to loneliness and ended up lying on the floor saying “nobody” over and over again. There are also hints of Mitski’s own body issues “nobody” becoming “no body.” The lyrics are desperate, while the music is a combination of sad and listless. I think it’s this combination of moods that make people come back to this song in particular.

Not that this song is alone in terms of complex emotion. Every song on the album can be analyzed like this because their lyrics point toward something emotional and beyond words, like the feeling of meeting an ex without telling your current partner on “Old Friend,” or the feeling of not being able to connect because you’ve fallen in love with your own trauma “A Pearl.”

I’m especially fond of the latter, because it’s a feeling I know well that I not only hear articulated, but in a new way. She compares her trauma to a pearl and she “rolls it around/ every night, just to watch it glow.” Sometimes you hold onto trauma or bad feelings, as strange as that sounds, and “roll” them around in your head, even if it’s no good. I also like the lines “I fell in love with a war/ Nobody told me it ended.” For a lot of people who’ve gone through a traumatic experience, or who have just gotten used to a negative environment, you hold onto it, even after it’s gone. Because you’ve gotten used to it and, in a sense, fallen in love with it.

Again, every song on this album can be analyzed like this. It’s an album about emotion, not about ideas or thoughts or melody, though Mitski has a lovely rich and emotional singing voice, and the music backs her up. It’s an album you have to open yourself up to, it requires a little bit of work on your part. To return to the petit four metaphor, it requires some chewing and some digestion.

4.5/5 This is a quick listen, so there’s really no excuse not to check it out.