Mitski: "Your Best American Girl"

Midway through one of her biggest “hits” to date, the hometown-party ode “Townie,” Mitski adds a telling sidenote: “I am not gonna be what my daddy wants me to be.” It wasn’t the first time the Brooklyn singer-songwriter had openly defied expectations in her lyrics, but it was one of her most resonant examples. With “Your Best American Girl,” the lead single from the forthcoming Puberty 2, Mitski offers another song about trying to live up to expectations, and ultimately making peace with not being anyone but exactly who she is.

Like many real-life instances of self-empowerment, this is not the “go girl” triumph of pop anthems, but rather a fraught conclusion reached after weeks, months, years of reflection. She openly wonders if she’s making the right choice—by letting “the one” go, because they’re just too different—and that’s part of what makes “Your Best American Girl” so real and so great. It’s a universal feeling tucked in a narrative that seems highly specific to Mitski’s own upbringing (she was born in Japan and lived all around the world). She sings in the chorus, “Your mother wouldn’t approve/ Of how my mother raised me/ But I do, I think I do/ And you’re an all-American boy/ I guess I couldn’t help/ Try to be/ Your best American girl.”

Musically, the anxiety of reaching these conclusions is echoed as the song grows from an acoustic strum with some twinkling dream pop synths, to sharp bursts of feedback that would fit right in on Weezer’s Pinkerton. Even as the song swells towards severity, Mitski’s delicate voice stays intact at the front of the mix, like a shelter amid total chaos. Mitski may have dubbed her latest Puberty 2, but by the sounds of “Your Best American Girl,” she’s making mature choices, both musically and personally. 

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