Mitski - Your Best American Girl

0:00Patrick Hyland:You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishikesh Hirwe.

0:13Patrick Hyland:In 2016, Mitski did an episode of Song Exploder about her song, Your Best American Girl. She had just released her second album, Puberty 2. Later, Pitchfork named Your Best American Girl one of the top 10 best songs of the past decade, and Billboard named it as one of the songs that defined the decade. This year is the 10th anniversary of the album. There's a new deluxe version that's already out digitally, and a limited edition vinyl is coming in October. So I thought this would be a good time to revisit Mitski's episode, where she and her collaborator Patrick Hyland break down how Your Best American Girl was made.

1:00And you're an American boy I guess I couldn't help trying to be Your best American man

1:21Mitski:My name's Mitski. My full name is Mitski Miyawaki. I never grew up with musical instruments or with equipment to record The way I learned to write was just writing things down on paper And hearing it in my head and kind of hoping for the best And I don't work in a band, so I'm alone in my own head So the lyrics and the vocal melody are king in my songs They always come first If I could, I'd be your little spoon and kiss your fingers forevermore. But big spoon, you have so much to do and I have nothing ahead of me. The chorus came first. I was on a bed and I wrote down the words, your mother wouldn't approve of how my mother raised me, but I do.

2:32Mitski:I think I do. And you're an all-American boy. I guess I couldn't help trying to be your best American girl.

2:53Mitski:And you're an old American boy. I guess I couldn't help trying to be your best American girl.

3:09Mitski:I was in love with somebody, but I just felt like our backgrounds or the places we come from or how we were raised were just so completely different. and it felt like something that couldn't be overcome by love. I grew up very nomadically. I grew up moving around a whole lot and not just in the U.S., but abroad. And my mother is Japanese and my father's American. And so I never grew up with a sense of community. My sense of family is very different. I think I grew up more with a sense of everything will be lost at some point. You have to prepare yourself to let go at all times because I just kept moving so much.

3:55Mitski:And I kept, you know, you can only say goodbye so many times before you start to like automatically prepare yourself for that. So my upbringing was just very, very different from the average Americans.

4:33Mitski:I wanted to be accepted by an environment or a family situation where, you know, people lived in the same place all their lives and knew the same people. and know where they're from and know their place in the world. That was very foreign to me, and I didn't feel like I could learn how to be part of that.

4:59Mitski:The next thing is the bass line, so it's not even the chords, it's just kind of the roots. And then I kind of build off of that.

5:13Mitski:I picked up guitar in college, you know, so I just was too lazy to actually learn all the finger formations. And so what I do is actually just tune the guitar to a D major chord so that if you strum the guitar, just a D major chord immediately rings out. So I could just pick up the guitar and play simple chord progressions without thinking about it.

5:42Mitski:I make things really loud in my headphones, and I think I was crouching over my guitar, so basically you can hear the click if you listen really closely.

5:55Mitski:Patrick is really good at layering.

6:16Mitski:Hi, I'm Patrick Hyland, and I produced and recorded and played instruments on the song.

6:38Mitski:Those synths that come in right before it hits, that was the most spontaneous thing in the song. The song was pretty much mixed and almost totally done, and then I just thought the transition from the verse to the chorus was too abrupt. And so I thought to myself, how can I turn this awkward moment into its own event and make it a special thing? So with what the chords do there, this could sort of bloom into a big lush thing right before the whole song explodes.

7:17She sung that vocal, and then I'm manipulating the timbre.

7:23Mitski:It's a formant shifter. I don't even think of it as a voice. I think of it as an instrument. Don't wait for me. I can't go

7:44Mitski:If you had to boil the song down to one moment, I would say it's when the first chorus hits, the intensity of that.

8:09Mitski:For most of my quote-unquote career of playing music and performing it, I've been doing it solo with either a piano or a guitar. So with literally just your voice and one instrument, your biggest asset is volume change. So from the beginning, I would use drastic changes in volume, changes in tone to keep the audience's interest and keep the music going. So those things kind of become your band members.

8:57Mitski:This is a Hallmark card, but really you always want what you can't have. And that all American thing, like from the day I was born, I could not enter that. how hard I tried, I could never enter that dream, that all-American white culture is something that is inherited instead of attained. And so, yes, it's a sad song, but I wanted to make sure that it reflected all of the contrasting feelings. Like you can be heartbroken about a relationship, but also from it, realize that you are you and you're okay with who you are, or you're okay about where you came from.

9:44Patrick Hyland:Coming up, you'll hear how all of this came together in the final song. We're also doing a giveaway of some Mitski merch. And after the song plays, I'll tell you how you can win a Mitski shirt or vinyl. And now, here's Your Best American Girl by Mitski in its entirety.

10:16If I could, I'd be your little spoon

10:22Mitski:And kiss your fingers forevermore But big spoon, you have so much to do And I have nothing ahead of me

10:47Mitski:You're the sun You've never seen the night But you hear it sung from the morning birds Well, I'm not the moon I'm not even a star but awake At night I'll be singing to the birds Don't wait for me I can't go No mother, no approval How my mother raised me But I do, I think I do And you're an American boy I guess I couldn't help trying to be Your best American man

12:04You're the one, you're all I ever wanted I think I'll regret this

12:25You're a mother, wonderful How my mother raised me But I do, I finally do You're an American boy

12:42Mitski:I guess I couldn't help try to be the best American girl I won't be in your proof of how my love is raising But I do, I think I do

13:33Patrick Hyland:For a chance to win a deluxe LP version of Mitski's newest album, Nothing's Gonna Happen to Me, share a link to this episode on social media and tag at SongExploder, at MitskiLeaks, and at TheMitskiVerse. Plus, three people have the chance to win a Mitski t-shirt. Again, just post the link and tag us in your post. And visit SongExploder.net slash Mitski to learn more about Mitski and to watch the music video for your best American girl. By the way, you might also like the SongExploder episode with Son Lux about This Is A Life, the Oscar-nominated song from the film Everything, Everywhere, All At Once, which features Mitski and David Byrne on vocals.

14:12Patrick Hyland:It's episode 245, which came out in December, 2022. Song Exploder is produced by me, Craig Ely, Kathleen Smith, Mary Dolan, and Tiger Biscop. The episode artwork is by Carlos Lerma, and I made the show's theme music and logo. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts. You can learn more about our shows at radiotopia.fm. I'm Rishi Keish Hirwe. Thanks for listening.

14:50Patrick Hyland:Radiotopia.

14:53Mitski:From PRX.

14:58Patrick Hyland:One of the best podcasts out there is Normal Gossip, and they're back for a new season, season 10. It's another show from Radiotopia and also from Defector Media. In every episode, they talk to a guest about a piece of gossip from the real world, a story that was sent in by a listener. And then they anonymize it and retell the story to a guest who reacts and gets to say what they would do if they were in the position. It's really, really fun. I've actually been a guest on the show before. And actually for the new season, they have a new theme song, which I made. And also this season, they're doing video.

15:33Patrick Hyland:So if you like to watch and listen, you can find the episodes on YouTube. New episodes of Normal Gossip come out every Wednesday, all summer long.