Sound and sociology: The art of storytelling pt. 3

This one goes out to all the alternative girls and gays that yearn for unattainable standards of romance.

There is no doubt that Mitski has made a lasting impression on the indie/alternative music scenes over the past few years. With unforgettable tracks such as “I Bet on Losing Dogs” and “Washing Machine Heart,” Mitski managed to bring to life a dormant feeling inside millions of people from all over the world: the feeling of yearning.

In a similar manner to Kendrick Lamar and Frank Ocean, Mitski is a master at painting pictures with her music. Unlike the former two however, her storytelling is heavily reliant on her lyrics rather than the production, album sequencing or a combination of all three.

Whether she’s using metaphors and analogies or flat-out describing her feelings, Mitski’s lyrics are filled with vivid imagery that perfectly captures the thoughts that she’s trying to convey.  

With a sound that ranges from orchestral, to grunge, to dance and even folk, Mitski’s music has fundamentally changed the way I view songwriting as a medium for artistic expression.

Across her discography, Mitski touches on a multitude of topics. The most frequent of these topics revolve around unrequited love, insecurity, hopelessness and dysfunctional relationships. In ballads like “Class of 2013,” she captures the insurmountable fear that nearly every young adult has regarding their life and career goals and the uncertainty that lies within their future.  

“Your Best American Girl” speaks to women of color all across the country who have never been anyone’s first choice — shedding light on the ways in which our otherness often leaves us undesirable within the dating pool. Mitski’s music never fails to bring tears to my eyes, and she is my go-to artist for a good majority of my late night crying sessions.

While her most popular songs are still amazing — and deserving of the attention and praise they receive — I wanted to shed light on a few of her lesser-known tracks and how the lyrics resonate with me in a way that only Mitski has managed to achieve thus far.

The first song I want to discuss is “Happy.” Featured on her fourth studio album “Puberty 2,” “Happy” is one of the more underplayed tracks on the album and — in my opinion — the most underrated. It’s been my favorite Mitski song for quite some time now, and has a rather unconventional grunge sound that’s reminiscent of her previous album “Bury Me At Makeout Creek.”  

The instrumentation and vibrant energy of the second half was what hooked me in initially, but the story and imagery painted with the lyrics caused me to stay. The track opens with the narrator recounting an evening spent with a man named Happy — someone who seemingly leaves the narrator emotionally drained after their nights together.

One of the lyrics that always stood out to me was in the opening four bars: “Happy came to visit me, he bought cookies on the way. I poured him tea, and he told me, “It’ll all be okay.” Well, I told him I’d do anything to have him stay with me. So he laid me down, and I felt happy come inside of me. He laid me down, and I felt happy.”

I think this opening verse perfectly sums up the themes of the song. Mitski choosing to keep this man around for the sole purpose of not feeling lonely, damages her psyche and self-image. The word “happy” serves as a double entendre, with the first meaning being the man’s name and the second meaning being the way his presence brings her happiness — even if she suffers from the relationship more than she benefits from it.

This is solidified by the line in the chorus that goes “When you go and take this heart, I’ll make no more use of it when there’s no more you.”

Her happiness is relative to the man that she’s formed a dependency on, and because of that, she’s expressing how her heart and feelings have no value whenever he’s not around. Happy’s absence often leaves the narrator with the broken eggshells of her warped perception of love, which increases her reliance on him for security and emotional stability.

As far as album openers go, it is by far one of my favorites, right alongside Kendrick Lamar’s “Wesley’s Theory” and Frank Ocean's “Nikes.”

The feeling of true loneliness is dreadful in almost every sense of the word. There have been countless times when I’ve sacrificed elements of my own dignity and self-respect for the sole purpose of having someone to spend a few meaningless moments with. The constant search for companionship has only led me to places that further increased my self-doubts and insecurities, yet that never stopped me from seeking out partnership.

“Happy” embodies the reality of overreliance within relationships in a way that doesn’t romanticize them like most songs do, and it displays the consequences that come with giving up pieces of yourself for someone who couldn’t care less.

The second song I wanted to focus on had faded into obscurity in the wake of “Brand New City” and “Liquid Smooth” gaining virality over the past few years. From the same album — “Lush” — one of the songs that always stuck with me from the moment I first listened to it was “Bag Of Bones.”

“Bag Of Bones” is a slow piano track that exemplifies the “sad girl” aesthetic that Mitski’s fanbase heavily associates her with. While the somber sound of the song fills me with a sense of existentialism that leaves me a bit too rattled for comfort, it's the lyrics that have always stuck out to me.

Much like “Happy,” “Bag of Bones” deals a lot with the concept of seeking out intimacy as a means of dealing with insecurity. However, “Bag of Bones” places more emphasis on the idea of using sexual intimacy as a measure of self-worth and value.

This is most clear in the second verse of the song: “I know my room is a mess. Over and Over again I tell myself I’ll clean tomorrow. Just move the stuff up off the bed and do what you came here to do. But first open up a window for me. And let the cool air in, feel the night slip in as it softly glides along your back, and hope you leave right before the sun comes up so I can watch it alone.”

The narrator's room is a reflection of her deteriorated mental state, with messy rooms sometimes being an indicator of depression. In an attempt to rid herself of those feelings, she invites someone over to have sex, only to discard them once the moment they shared is over.

The person’s sole purpose was to provide her with the smallest bit of validation and reaffirm the narrator’s desire to be desired by others. However, these encounters only leave her feeling empty inside, giving her a few moments of bliss before thrusting her back into the cruel reality of her depressive state.

I crave validation as much as anyone else — it’s only human of me — and I am no stranger to seeking out intimacy with others as a means of reaffirming that I have worth as a person. It’s almost shameful how much I can relate to this song, and I felt like writing an article without giving it the attention it deserves would’ve done it a huge disservice.

Mitski’s music is like a portal to another dimension, one that is crafted via the building blocks that are her poetry. Each time I put in my headphones, I become enraptured by the words that leave her lips, teleporting me from my world to hers. Mitski has been my number one artist for quite some time now, and even after years of being a fan, her music never ceases to amaze me.