Mitski recently released “Nobody” – her latest track off of her upcoming “Be the Cowboy” album.
In this surrealist, maybe even magical realist Peewee’s Playhouse of loneliness, Mitski explores her loneliness as the apparently sole character of the world. It’s a playful sad girl’s Un Chien Andalou (there’s even the damn orange that Bunuel and Dali are so in love with) – or even a cousin of Yelle’s style a la Safari Disco Club.
The track itself evokes light influences of 70s French space disco sound through cosmic synths, staccato guitar riffs but it’s all layered on top of the lead of the, in fact possibly even the forcefulness created, by mid-range piano chords.
You want to cry but you want to dance.
The track begins with staccato high-hats that lead in the steady piano chords, setting the stage for the anxious but heavy loneliness with the first lines of “My god, I’m so lonely, so I open the window to hear sounds of people, to hear sounds of people.”
The guitar riff comes in, adding to the fun of the song but also layering on more anxiety, particularly as Mitski admits “I don’t want your pity; I just want somebody near me. Guess I’m a coward. I just want to feel all right.”
Then the cosmic synths introduce the chorus of “Nobody”s – a single word repeated and given more depth, more strength, more fullness, more of that heavy ache in your chest right at the moment with the most layers of sounds (so far).
When Mitski sings of having “been big and small and big and small and big and small again and still nobody wants me,” you wonder if this oscillating of roles has resulted in or is the result of her feelings that “I was so young when I behaved twenty five, Yet now I find I’ve grown into a tall child” in “First Love / Late Spring” of 2014’s Bury Me At Makeout Creek. And overall – is that just the anxious attachment speaking that continues its soft pleading in the next lines: “And I know no one will save me; I’m just asking for a kiss. Give me one movie kiss, and I’ll be all right,” possibly influenced by the romanticism from films we’ve all grown up with.
The second set of repeated “nobody”s are the most catchy and at the loudest, most layered (in total) portion of the song but also act as a reminder of the loneliness that can then, 2 minutes and 40-seconds into the track, turn into a dreamy echo. Is it acceptance? Is it falling into a depression nap?