Interview: Mitski

We begin with Westmore, a rising star in the Democratic Party.

“You know, you're never going to win long-term on anger.”

Westmore, Maryland, on the midterms and beyond, you got to be able to show what an alternative looks like. That's this week on NPR's Newsmakers. Listen or watch the program on NPR's YouTube channel.

Hey everybody, it's Robin Hilton from all songs considered with something special for your

weekend. An interview with Mitsky, with the singer Mitsky.

“Mitsky just put out one of the best albums I think so far.”

It's called Nothing's About to Happen to Me. You might have heard us talk about it on a recent episode of New Music Friday with World Cafe host Raina Durus. World Cafe, the podcast, the radio show, has tons of live performances and interviews. Every month, including recent ones with rat boys, Sam Bean of Iron and Wine, and this

one that we're sharing here with Mitsky. Raina spoke with Mitsky at the power station in New York City where they talked about the new album about the pressures Mitsky felt while making the record and some of the unintentional left turns she took while recording it. Mitsky also performed four songs live for this episode and that's where we're going to

start. We begin with a live performance of the song "Where's My Phone?" Again from the album, Nothing's About to Happen to Me.

“And if you want to know more about World Cafe, we've got a link you can check out in the”

notes for this episode in your feed.

The moment always on the street, call me a bitch, a digital mama, she said, "I just

want my mind to be a pre-versed pre-versed with nothing in my head." I'd be thinking, "Surely, somebody will say, hey, every child I've earned and no one will." I just want my mind to be a pre-versed pre-versed with nothing in my head, where I go, where I go, where I go, where I go, where I go, where I go, where I go, now. I'd be thinking, "Surely, somebody will say, hey, every child I've earned and no one will.

I don't want to be a pre-versed pre-versed pre-versed pre-versed with nothing in my head, where I go, where I go, now I'm going to be a girl. I just want my mind to be a pre-versed pre-versed pre-versed pre-versed pre-versed with nothing in my head, where I go, now I'm going to be a girl. I just want my mind to be a pre-versed pre-versed pre-versed pre-versed pre-versed pre-versed with nothing in my head, where I go, now I'm going to be a girl. Before I'm live by Mitsky for World Café, that is where's my phone, it's from her new album, nothing's about to happen to me.

My name is Reina Duras, and Mitsky is my guest today on World Café, Mitsky, welcome back to the World Café. Hi, last time it was in Philly, wasn't it? It was, yeah, it was bright, and here we are in New York City, the big apple. Where's my phone as a sentence I have uttered, probably, like a humiliating number of times in my life?

There's a lot going on, what kind of scene were you visualizing when you wrote this one?

So, actually, the song writing started just with where's my phone, because I was saying it too. I was saying it over and over where's my phone, and I just started humming a melody, and it just became like I just started singing it to myself. I decided to keep it, record it, once I found my phone, and I think once I had that snippet, I was like, I wonder what I could do with it. And I think what I wanted to express was the sense of, I tend to disassociate a lot, and the sense of wanting to disassociate, not wanting to be here, everything being overwhelming.

And sort of like going, where's my phone, and like everything is too much. And I just want to, I want to like leave my brain, I want to go into my phone, I want to just like not be here.

“So that's kind of the general feeling, and I think that's why there's such cacophony in the track, because I wanted to express how much, express the overwhelm that I was trying to get out of and get away from.”

Right, I think the guitars, the first few times I listened to this song, I was like, oh my speaker's broken.

And that also disassociated. Oh my headphones are also broken. That's what we want to do. That reminds us of first. And those guitars, they show up throughout the album. They're also joined by the orchestra. I know originally guitars were supposed to be more front and center. What was the original motivation for wanting to strip things down to kind of a rock band sound at the beginning?

I don't, maybe it's incorrect to say this. The first word that comes to mind is like, I think I was having a bit of like a musical midlife crisis where I was just like, I want to get back to basics.

“I want to get back to my roots. I want to get back to like the feeling I had of like playing DIY shows, punk shows.”

And I was just trying to channel that. And I was really, I really wanted it to be this like stripped down just band instrument, just guitar based drums and voice.

And showcase the songwriting and have it feel rough. And then we demoed it and the song said no. The songs were like, we don't care what you want this to be. This is what we actually are. We're going to hear the song you're going to perform the song in a lake. But you don't have the orchestra here right now.

We could play a bit of that from the album. So we can hear the orchestra. I'll play a clip of that right now. Here's in a lake. But in a lake you can backstroke forever. The sky before you and the dark behind you. And the big city can start over.

The lights all around you, the dark safely side. You're the big city can start over. So that's a bit of in a lake from your new album. And we can hear the orchestra in there. And so what do you think it is about these songs that

“made it feel right to put them on? What do you say they're asking for orchestra?”

I don't want to sound woo woo. But I really do believe that like songs all have their own life. And you can try to like shoehorn them into what you want them to be. But at a certain point, they just sort of reveal themselves. And they tell you how best to make them sound.

For example, in a lake, which we just played, I think it started more as like just guitar song. And the recording also starts just kind of as like a guitar band song. It was very much influenced by being a national. You know, it's a very country music city pop country.

And there's a lot of songs about like. Living in a small town, small towns are the best. I love my small town and that's nice for you. But for people who don't fit in, sometimes tiny communities can be really terrible to live in.

or can't seem to understand why those are the rules. So anyway, all to say, it started out just as more like a, almost like a, Americana like folk song with just guitar and some, you know, again, stripped down. But then we thought, well, in a big city, like what if there's like a sound scape,

where once the protagonist enters the big city that's being talked about, we hear all the people in the noise and like everything that comes with living in a big city being surrounded by people no longer being in your tiny community. You can like be anonymous, but in a good way, you know,

especially when you're someone who always stuck out.

You love, I shouldn't say you. I remember coming to New York and being like, wow, I'm anonymous and that was amazing.

“And I think the orchestra, all the various instruments that we got,”

like, just helps to illustrate that story better. And I think that's kind of what happened with a lot of the songs where it's just like, it just doesn't feel right. It feels like something's missing. It feels like we're not painting the whole picture.

And it, and it just ended up needing a full orchestra. What can I say? Yeah. Yeah. Well, now we're going to hear you without the orchestra.

Yes. It's also very good. This is in a lake. It's live for real cafe. This is Missy. [MUSIC]

♪ I'd never live in a small town ♪ ♪ I've made too many mistakes ♪

“♪ For you got to write your book early ♪”

♪ Oh, it gets written up in your place ♪

♪ Where you never get away from your first love ♪

♪ It's like one brand of soap sold in town ♪ ♪ Anyone you can get close to ♪ ♪ Smiles like your first time around ♪ ♪ But in a lake you can backstroke forever ♪ ♪ The sky before you ♪

♪ The dark right behind ♪ ♪ The big city you can start over ♪ [MUSIC] ♪ And everywhere you go makes your heartache ♪ ♪ Where you've done enough walks of shame ♪

♪ Some days you just go the long way ♪ ♪ To stay off of memory lane ♪

♪ So I'd never live in a small town ♪

♪ I'm slow to learn all the rules ♪ ♪ I've tried very hard to be good ♪

“♪ But when they think you're bad people act worse ♪”

[MUSIC] ♪ But in a lake you can backstroke forever ♪ ♪ The sky before you ♪ ♪ And everywhere you go ♪ ♪ And everywhere you go ♪

♪ The light's all around you ♪ ♪ The dark safe inside ♪ ♪ In a big city you can start over ♪ [MUSIC] So when I heard that your new album was influenced by Shirley Jackson's novel,

we have always lived in the castle, I had never read it, I went out, I got it, I really did. And I haven't stopped thinking about it since I read it a couple weeks ago. I guess maybe really quickly for people who have not read it. I'm going to try to summarize this. It's about two sisters whose family have died in a mysterious poisoning.

The villagers think the sisters did it. So they're outcasts. They live in this big house where they're isolated, and it's narrated by the younger sister, Mary Cat.

I'm wondering, what was it about this story and that character

“or those characters that captured your imagination?”

Well, I think, and these are all like very much Shirley Jackson themes too. Shirley Jackson is my favorite author. She has a lot of themes about distrust of groups of people. She was the one who wrote The Lottery, which some people might have read in school. I think she has a lot of characters who are very much in their minds

and don't fit in.

And if you've read, we have always lived in the castle.

You might side eye me for saying this, but I really did relate to Mary Cat. No, but I don't think that's that's that. But in a way, I think she, there is something relatable about her. She's got this interior life that is very rich,

and you are kind of along for the ride with her. Yeah, and she is an outcast. And in the book, there's a lot about ritual. She has these rituals to make sure that things go okay, and it's very compulsive.

She, you know, ritualistically bury something in the yard, and that and says certain string of words.

And that means that this won't happen.

That means that our, my family will be okay. And I feel like I relate to that kind of like anxiety. And just like being suspicious of groups of outsiders who don't like you, and who are trying to encroach on your space, and just trying to like protect yourself and your family in your home.

And there's a lot of themes that I just like related to broadly, and I don't know what this says about me, but yeah. But I think also that ritual thing. It's like there's a bit of, I wish I could kind of control what is happening. Yeah, that's a good point.

“There's so much about like, and I think this is a theme for me,”

and therefore, my music of just like not feeling in control, and therefore trying to find control where I can. Yeah. And inevitably failing because so much about life, you just can't, it's out of your control and you just have to go with it.

But it's, it's really difficult when, when you're someone who just like, who needs things to be a certain way, who has anxiety, who, you know, wants, wants to know what's going to happen. Yes. Yes. She does, Mary Cat has one confidante kind of, is her cat, Jonas,

and cats appear all over this new album. There's the song Cats. There's that white cat. There's also the visuals for this record, which include a white cat with one blue eye and one brown eye. Or like, I think they call those odd eye cats. For you, what does the cat represent? Why did you want to include that?

I mean, on a very surface level, I just love them.

“On a deeper level, I think I kind of made cats the mascot of this album,”

because I think cats are very feminized creatures. I think people think of dogs as boys and cats as girls. Absolutely. I don't know where that comes from, but in addition to that, people think of dogs as good and cats as evil.

It's very interesting what we're doing here with like symbolism of dogs and cats. I think the reason why a lot of people love dogs, but hate cats or demonized cats is because dogs, dogs can learn obedience. Dogs follow a chain of command. Dogs are pack animals. They have various hierarchies.

They do have boundaries, but they don't express them in the same way that cats do. Cats don't know anything about obedience. It's not in their vocabulary. Cats just say, "Okay, if I do this for you, what's in it for me?" Like, will I enjoy this?

If I won't, I'm not going to do it. If I enjoy it, yeah, let's do it. It's not that they're cold. It's not that they don't like people. It's just that they have boundaries.

I know from experience. Cats love you wholeheartedly. Cats like being around people and other cats sometimes depending on the cat. But they're red.

I think people read them like they would read dogs and then cats ultimately come up short.

When you try to impose dog law. Sure. On to cats. I fell asleep with my cat on my belly last night.

Yes.

“I feel like there's something there to cats being feminized.”

Cats being considered to be girls.

And also being hated or demonized for not being obedient. Right. I just felt like there was something there. There's the medically something there for the album. It goes back to that sort of outsiders.

Yes. And not being the right kind of quote unquote woman. Sure. Yeah. Back to that interior life.

The next song that we're going to hear you play is if I leave. We're the narrator seems to hold a secret that no one knows. There's this imagery of a dark tunnel.

And we've been talking about the influence of we've always lived in the castle.

This song does seem like it could tie into it.

“But for you, where does this song find a character in the story that you are telling with this album?”

I think it's based in anxiety. The song broadly. I mean, I hate to be prescriptive about about what songs are about. Because I do want people listening to make their own meaning out of songs. I think that's the best part about music.

But with that said, if you are okay with hearing my intention. It's broadly about holding on to somebody so tight. Because that one person has seemed to have accepted you. Seems to have supported you. And feeling like still being your mentally ill self.

Still having all the trouble you have in thinking.

Maybe it's better if I leave this person alone. If I go away. But I can't because then if I do, I lose my person. But also, what am I doing to this person that I'm clinging onto them so tight?

“Is this really an equal relationship or is this codependent?”

Like all of these different thoughts about. If I leave this person, what'll happen to me? What'll happen to them? And I think there's a sense of anxiety that permeates the rest of the album too. There's something wrong with me.

The world knows it and the world tells me there's something wrong with me. And in this song it says, well, there's this one person who seems to accept me. What happens if I lose this person? And would it be better if they lost me? So that's kind of broadly.

It's all underlined by those sort of like the grungy guitars that come back in. That are kind of anxiety provoking when you hear them. We're going to hear your performance before we do. I just want to compliment you on being able to put the word colleagues into a song. And they get sound so beautiful.

You're speaking for forming if I leave live for World Cafe. If I leave, somebody else will love you. But nobody else could forgive me cause of an ensue. No one on this street knows no one in the smallest. No one in this phone knows.

And none of my friends know surely none of my colleagues more to my voice. But nobody else could forgive me cause of an ensue. But nobody else could forgive me cause of an ensue. But nobody else could forgive me cause of an ensue. But nobody else could forgive me cause of an ensue.

But nobody else could forgive me cause of an ensue. But nobody else could forgive me cause of an ensue. But nobody else could forgive me cause of an ensue. But nobody else could forgive me cause of an ensue. But nobody else could forgive me cause of an ensue.

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So much on this album and in the book that we were talking about, you know, involves isolation having a secret safe world. The outside world seeing you differently. And it has me wondering, you know,

everyone has their personal self and their public self.

But as a person in the public eye, this space between those two selves might feel a little bit thicker. Maybe a little bit more fragmented.

“How much energy does it take to cultivate the public self?”

Thank you so much. Wow, what a question. It takes a lot of energy. I don't. I'm introverted.

So it's it's kind of just like. Who you are when you go to a party. But times 1000s like who you make yourself to be around other people. But the other people are the entire world. So that's kind of how it feels.

And the thing is I don't think I am like being somebody else in public. But again, it goes back to like the who you are at a party kind of situation where it's just like, you are still yourself. You're not pretending to be somebody else. But you're kind of heightening a certain aspects of yourself so that they can navigate.

Being among all these different people. Yeah. And then you go home and you take all your clothes off. And unwind and stare at a wall for a while. Yeah.

Yeah. Recently I talked to Florence Welch, a voice machine. Who you worked on when her latest album. And she talks about that feeling of being devoured as a woman and as a performer. And especially when she was younger. And I thought back to that conversation as soon as I heard your song dead women on this album.

I want to play a clip of that song. Is there any insight you could give us into writing it? I wrote it in an anger. I know it doesn't sound like an angry song. But there's a sort of like resigned anger, I think.

Again, you can take whatever you want from this song. But when I was writing it, it just felt like the world was telling me the only good woman is a dead one. We want you dead. We want you dead on the inside. We don't want you to be a whole person.

We want you to be a baby-making servant. You have no other purpose. You can't have dreams. You can't have volition of your own. You exist to serve. And if you have an inner life, well, don't have it. Be dead inside.

“And that's what the world seems to want of women.”

And I was also reflecting on the glee with which people consume. It's dark, but like true crime, the glee with which people consume dead women. Yeah. The fetishization of dead women. And I was thinking about, especially public figures like Marilyn Monroe,

or going back to even like Sylvia Plath, for example. When I learned that Sylvia Plath's after she died, her husband, who was abusive, was in charge of compiling all her poems for a certain collection, a posthumous collection. And he decided to take out all the poems that are about how he's terrible, and just include the parts that make her sound crazy,

and put it in a compilation. I forgot with the name of the book. But when I learned that, and then I looked more into their relationship.

where it's just like, my God, you don't want women to be full,

complex human beings. You don't want us to have inner lives.

“You don't want us to be dead women serving you.”

You just want to take cherry-pick the poems that we have, that you put it in a compilation, and go, see how pleasing she was. It's a lot. It's a lot of things I tried to put in this one song. Once they're dead, you can control their image.

Exactly. Exactly. And you get to like, I don't know if he's still in turn to their, the man who asked to be buried on top of Marilyn Monroe. Do you know about that?

No. So she's in, I forgot what they're calling them. I don't know the term for that. But they're like, you know, stacked up. And he asked to be buried on top of her and facing down.

And so that even in her death, she cannot get away from a man being on top of her against her will. It's just, and that, those stories over and over and over and over again, just complete, keep reinforcing that like, okay, you don't want us to be people. You just want us to be fmbots that serve you. I'm going to play some of the song.

It's called Dead Women. This is Missky. Happy. "Would you have liked me better if I'd died?" "So you could tell my story the way it ought to be?"

"You'd find my parents and ask to see my things."

"Wry for third all, fill the blinds with what you need."

"Dude,ude,ude,ude,ude,ude,ude." That was a bit of dead women from Missky's latest album. Nothing's about to happen to me on World Cafe. You're live show. When I saw you touring your last album, The Lannas in Hospital in Saraway,

very meticulously planned as very choreographed. It was beautiful. I saw it at a venue in Philly called The Met. It's a big theater on this tour. You're playing some different kinds of venues, including Hollywood High School and L.A.

Which is a literal high school.

“What were you looking for as far as venues for this tour?”

Well, it goes back to my very first intentions for this album,

even though we ended up adding a whole bunch of orchestra and other instruments at its core, the intention was I want to get back to the feeling that I had 10 years ago or earlier 15 years ago, where I felt like I was in a room with a few people and we were really connecting and it felt more raw and it felt more,

you know, right down to basics, both in terms of performance and gear and everything, but also like the basics of human interaction, just like being in the room with someone connecting. And I was trying to recreate that feeling using the various places we're performing. I wanted it to feel special.

I wanted it to feel like an experience. I wanted to recreate even the feeling that I had going to show is going to DIY shows, punks shows, where I was like this. I feel like I'm getting something. I feel like I'm experiencing something really important for myself.

I think I'm experiencing something that is not like anything else and I'm going to remember, you know, like going to an abandoned firehouse and watching a band, you know, and I kind of, you know, obviously the scale is different but I wanted to recreate that feeling of like I'm, I feel like I'm having an experience. Well, I'm curious about that.

I don't, I don't want you to give anything away. But what are the logistics like when you're trying to do something at this scale but in a place like a high school?

“I think you should ask my manager for that because it seemed terrible.”

I feel really bad actually. God bless them. I'll ask them more done here. The last song that we're going to hear you perform is called "I'll change for you." It has a line I really love.

Bars such magic places. You can view with other people without having anyone at all. I think there are some people out there who might think, "Oh, it's sad to go drown your sorrows out of bar." But I also think there's kind of a deliciousness to wallowing.

Thank you for saying that.

There is a deliciousness to wallowing. There really is. I mean, that's kind of why I wrote the song because... Listen, we have songs that encourage you in your down. You know, pick yourself up.

It's going to be okay. And those songs really serve an important purpose. But I feel like when I'm really self-pitting and I'm feeling down, what I want is a song that goes poor me. You know, poor me.

How terrible is this? I'm having a terrible time. I'm heartbroken. Like in those moments, I feel like there should be songs for being pitiful and pathetic. Because those are real things that people experience and that's okay.

And it's not like you're going to be there forever.

“But when you're in that, why not fully experience it?”

So that's kind of... I was writing for if nothing else myself in those moments. Yeah. I also think there's something kind of refreshing about hearing a woman's thing about that. Because...

And this is kind of a through line through this conversation. But the expectations are different. A man wallowing and drinking ways sorrows out of bar is sort of romanticized. It's because you're saddled with lady. You go home.

You eat your fight of ice cream in front of the TV. You watch a rom-com and you cry. And I don't do that necessarily true for everybody. Yeah, which by the way, speaking of rom-coms,

I remember even being a kid watching rom-coms from like the early 2000s.

And there was this like... You have to... I was like, you really have to pick yourself up real fast. Because like, they would... The woman would get broken up with.

They would get broken up with that. They would get broken up with that. And they would get broken up with that. And they would get broken up with that. And they would get broken up with that.

And they would get broken up with that. And they would get broken up with that. And they would get broken up with that. And they would get broken up with that. And they would get broken up with that.

And they would get broken up with that. And they would get broken up with that. And they would get broken up with that. And they would get broken up with that. And they would get broken up with that.

And they would get broken up with that. And they would get broken up with that. And they would get broken up with that. And they would get broken up with that. And they would get broken up with that.

And they would get broken up with that. And they would get broken up with that. And they would get broken up with that. And they would get broken up with that. And they would get broken up with that.

And they would get broken up with that. And they would get broken up with that. And they would get broken up with that. And they would get broken up with that. And they would get broken up with that.

And you're kind of swaying. And you're like, you know, this sadness feels really nice. And being among people and just kind of like, weirdly enjoying your depression in a nice place. And so that kind of like woozy, nice feeling.

I wanted to add to this long. If you're listening, whether you're sad or not. You can swallow it right now. This is Mitsky with Alchanged for you. Perform live for World Cafe.

[MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] How? To I let all love die?

“When you're with you, only look the keeper of my most precious memory?”

Yeah. I've been drinking. Why is that got to mean? I can't call you about you and me. Cuz I'll do well and it's been for you to love me again.

If you don't like me now, I will change for you. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING]

[MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] Such magic places. [MUSIC PLAYING]

You can be with all the people without heaven.

[MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] Live for World Cafe.

Mitsky, I'll change for you.

It's a song for her new album.

Nothing's about to happen to me.

Mitsky is my guest today.

It's been so much fun talking to you.

“Thank you so much for being on the show.”

Thank you for having me. It was so fun. I love it. Thank you.