“Your Best American Girl”

A 3:32-long Song of Self-Retrospective

Preface
According to genius.com, “Your Best American Girl” is the lead single on Mitski’s fourth
album, Puberty 2. The song represents the turmoil one feels when one experiences a relationship
that brings them great joy but also must come to terms with the fact that they are different from
their new partner on a multitude of levels and are likely committing to a fantasy.
I am aware of this, yet this paper tackles my interpretation of the song as it has resonated
with me through tough times, and as Mitski says, "When you listen to an album (song), it's yours.
It's no longer the artist's, so you can do what you want with it."

I have been a long-time fan of Mitski for four years; I resonate a lot with her albums and
the songs within them, but this song, in particular, is my favorite one out of them all; not “I Bet on
Losing Dogs”, “Class of 2013”, or “Once More to See You” but an indie-rock song about being too
different from a person you really like, thus why you can’t bond with them, is what I consider her
“Magnum Opus”.

PS: This song is about a boy I like, platonically.

Chapter One: Instrumental and Vocal

The instrumental begins in a sweet tone, perhaps to show the surface of myself to other
people I meet with every day, specifically when it comes to this certain boy, but as the song
progresses as it narrates the singer’s wishes, the instrumental rocks down to a hard rock tone paired
with Mitski’s soft voice and riffs of electric guitars. I interpret it as myself if “he” finds out who I
truly am beneath my actions of normality and behind the scenes of my crumbling identity.
The hard-rock part of the instrumental climaxes on the choruses, yet despite it getting
more and more brutal, it remains calm and relaxing, especially with the voice of Mitski getting
more and more desperate, longing for the person she’s speaking to, perhaps a reflection of myself,
slowly wilting apart inside, yet my voice and acting still remain unbothered despite my mental and
emotional aspects about to break apart deep inside.
In the final seconds of the song, it returns to the one it began with, as if out of a depressing
mental breakdown, or having to act fine when guests come to your house as if your mom didn’t beat
you up prior. I resonate with this as it represents my acceptance of something I’ll talk about later.
 Chapter 2: Lyrics
Verse One: Two Different People
1. If I could, I'd be your little spoon.
I hate physical affection. I’m too skinny in comparison to people my age, let alone hug or be
hugged. Hugging gets uncomfortable, and it gives me the feeling that I just want to get out of their
arms directly.
I guess this is what happened when I never received them as a child: I get words of
affirmation for my victories rather than a hug as a reward from my dad, nor do I get kisses from my
mom, just money or anything tangible.
Yet for some reason, whenever I see him, I want to be given those things I have never
received out of him or be his “little spoon” to his big one; it’s like wanting to be the Watson to his
Sherlock, but I do not act, let alone feel human enough to be a doctor, nor can he be a Sherlock
when he is no analytical genius; it’s the other way around, but I feel inferior to him despite his
many flaws, yet I’d still choose to kiss his fingers forevermore if I could.

2. But, big spoon, you have so much to do.

We’re a bit alike. For 8th graders, we’re too busy. As members of the same religion, we’re
too occupied by our duties, despite them being the same, yet something we differ from is a social life
outside those sects.
There is him, the youngest of three, who has friends and the ability to talk to other people;
some might say he is a poet, singing hymns and telling stories to those who’ll lend their ears; he can
slack around and enjoy his teen life with karaoke; he has a brother that’s older than him and lives
with the noises out of joy.
which are some things I can’t have or do that he can.
While there is me, the eldest of five, there is also a friend that constantly floats from one
friend to another. I want to be the one approached, but in reality, it is the other way around; I can’t
talk to anyone because all I ramble about are topics not of this normality, like old rock bands and
video games none of my friends play; sometimes I pretend to like what they like, all for the sake of
wanting someone to just talk to me; I’m more of a queen; I can only observe, yet possess no power
to do anything to change the people’s minds, while I live with such silence that is loud enough to be
noticed.
I have a mind that can easily make problems go away, but he has a heart that I don’t have.
My high school grades have given me fame, but I feel like I truly have nothing ahead of me, no
matter what praise the audience gives me, as I have longed for something out of his mouth to say
something positive about them to me, but I guess he really doesn’t care at all.
Verse Two: Counterparted Parralels
1. He’s the sun that has never seen the night.
He is an eclipse in the guise of being a sun; he is cold and serious, yet he has childishness
when he smiles, or maybe he is a sun only to those whom he lets see his true nature. I am just an
observer who can’t talk to anyone new in my life.
He has never seen who I am, only through my faulty act of being a “high honors student,”
which is there every time he is in church every week, for I am an empty night with no stars and only
clouds covering the skies (a boring person who'd rather cover up her secrets as she shows no light
when others wish to possess such a thing) to those who wish to know who I am.
It can also mean to me that he, of all people, may not truly know the darkness of human
cruelty. He knows the violence people can cause physically through wars, famines, and crimes, but
the psychological trauma of people you trusted with so much just breaking it may not be something
he's experienced, yet it's one I know a little too well. One of the reasons I can't talk to him is that I
don't want to be judged, no matter how small my actions are.

Boring as it is, I am glad he has never seen who I really am for the time being.

2. But he hears its songs from the morning birds.

“The sun and the night sky never meet, yet birds in the morning talk about how gloomy the
night can be.”
Regardless of whether we ever really interact, there are those who talk about me to him and
vice versa; the morning birds or those older than me (e.g., his mother, my grandma) are one of the
only ones I get along with at church, not the peers my age or younger.
3. Well, I'm not the moon; I'm not even a star.
I’m not a moon, a ball in space that illuminates the night, nor am I a ray of sunshine that
can make anyone smile, or even a star girl full of energy who can actually speak her mind or
someone else’s.
I am only a physically ostracized girl; unlike anyone my age, if I show who I really am, no one talks
when I say something unless it is the elder members in either the classroom, my friend group, or the
church. I don’t have that much interaction with anyone at all.
It’s pathetic how I really was born in the wrong generation with my views on this world, yet
I still managed to like someone who belonged there despite my hatred for it.

4. But when I'm awake at night, I’ll be singing to the birds.

As I can never really form a bond myself, I’ll just let my so-called “talents” and “honors”
do the job by making it more aware to the more mature people that he lives to have exposure to me;
“In that way, he’ll be curious.” Even though I am lying to myself because I know he won’t ever
care for my existence, every time I get new information about him, if someone mentions him by
name or nickname, or if I get one glance at him even for just a second, I squeal a little inside as if a
mouse had found a grain of rice in a house full of cats.

I constantly ask myself, "Would I be better off having to be delusional, thinking he would
start talking to me all because I’m smart?” I’m not pretty, nor am I his type; it’s obvious that I’m
not, especially after my own mother told him twice that I like him. The tides have turned against
me; I’ve seen this film before, and the rejector was rejected, and despite the side being supportive of
the person who likes them, they still did not like the one pursuing their affection.
The songs I sing to the morning birds reach the sun’s, yet he does not respond at all to how
bright he glows.

”Don’t wait for me; I can’t come.”

Of course, I couldn’t. In the future, my dreams are too high to be realized; he’ll meet new
people and maybe even someone he’ll be with forever. I’m not rushing the tides of time, but I have
come to accept the terms that he won’t ever like me back, as my dreams contradict his, and I can’t
fit the standards he wants that I know I can’t fulfill.
In the future, I know that I’ll only be a fragment of his past, but I’ll never be in the future.
I know I am too young to want him to treat me as a friend, but I don’t want time to constantly
change, as I am still stuck in the past because someone won’t acknowledge my existence or try to
interact with me.
I mean, he isn’t waiting for me; what’s the point?

Chorus (repeated two times after the bridge)

1. Your mother wouldn't approve of how my mother raised me.
But I do; I think I do.
His mother knows that I can’t interact that much because of secluded trauma and being
banned from ever interacting with anyone at a young age, but I wonder every night I walk home
with them: does he ever listen or subconsciously care in the back of his mind to connect the dots as
to why I’m the way I am? Maybe because he doesn’t understand on an emotional level why, but I
can only assume he does not really care or is too shy like me to speak his mind about it.

2. And you're an all-American boy.

This means two things:
2.1. Facade:
The lyric means that he has every quality that I would personally want in an acquaintance, yet even
I know that I cannot possess such a person because of circumstances that make our backgrounds too
different from one another.
I feel inferior to him despite having more academic accomplishments, as he can still see the
joy in this world while living, while I can barely put up a smile when I get a 97 for a quarterly
average. Thus, I put up a facade of normality when I talk or act to look approachable when in
reality I’m not, so he can get the idea that I’m like everyone else and get to know me better, even
when both of us don’t make the effort to know ourselves.

Or
2.3 Hyperfixation
To see him as an all-American boy as a way to act like a normally mediocre person is a mere
understatement; I can go as far as to say, he really does act as an escape; a way to forget the
problems I don’t want to face for now due to procrastination and the instability to do so as he,
school, hard rock music, and other duties keep me occupied from unresolved trauma.
I just like getting information on the little things he does as a pastime; he keeps me, well,
“busy” so that my past trauma won’t easily come up again and to know him more without coming to
him directly because I’m too shy to do so.

3. I guess I couldn't help trying to be your best American girl.

I really hate that I still continue to act the best way I can publicly and tell more about my
personality to people not in my age group and to anyone but him, maybe because it’s the only way I
can keep up as someone he would want to be friends with or end up with, even though it’s not who I
really am deep inside, so I won’t look miserable directly or be someone no one would want, because
even my intelligence can’t cover for the expenses of my twisted worldview and damaged mind.
I want him to notice me even if both of us are too shy or occupied with work to even have a
conversation, as we only see each other three times a week, or at best, treat me as a friend.
I feel like a ghost in every place I enter, especially when he’s in the room. I feel ignored and
useless every time I'm in something that doesn’t give me a purpose, but when he’s around, I get
something to be busy with, which is why I still strive to be a completely normal human being in
front of the world and be a “star” when it’s far from the truth, so I can be what he or others want
me to be, even though I really can’t give it to them.
Because of my constant emotional constipation and unhealthy habit of repressing my
emotions every time guilt enters my mind or I am wronged and someone doesn't apologize, I am
unable to take the initiative and present myself as the best candidate when there is no competition.
As a result, I continue to strive to be the best candidate even when there is no competition for him.
Bridge:
“You're the one."
You're all I ever wanted.
“I think I'll regret this.”
I feel like I will regret finally being his friend in the end. I feel like I will regret going to
such lengths. I feel like he’ll just get closer to me in circumstances I did not expect, and all my
pretending is going to be futile in the end, yet one can say that it is only an assumption; a hypothesis
to a much bigger question, but I assume it is the most likely outcome.

(The outro has no actual meaning if I have to repeat it due to the fact that it is merely a repetition
of the two opening lines of the chorus.)
Chapter 3: Closing Statements and Puppet Design
Thanks for reading.
ヾ(≧▽≦*)o
References:
https://genius.com/Mitski-your-best-american-girl-lyrics
Images are made via ibispaintx by me.
The whole document: my brain

Puppet 1: Facade
This is the facade I show “him” and the people I live
with; as the image and its name suggest, it is only a
facade. The clothing also suggests that I am a neat yet
somewhat bland person; I wear no accessories to
complement my outfit, but no one else does, so I follow
suit as well. I keep following what other people do, so I
feel fit in, even though it really isn't me deep inside. It's
only a decoy for me to keep pretending on pretending to
be a functioning human full of good and kindness in her soul when in reality I'm but a teenager
filled with intrusive thoughts and wishes for some people to perish or die in ways only those in the
8th circle of hell can think of.

Puppet 2: “Self”
It's twisted and riddled
with TV static, as you can see. I
believe this is me; the song's
lyrics claim I am not even a star,
a reflection of my self-loathing
and impostor syndrome, but
there is a star in my puppet to
represent myself,
It’s a type of irony that
individuals I meet regard me as
a genius due to my academic
performance when I think of myself as the opposite. There may be a
star, but the color of the star is somewhat dark, or "burnt out,"
something a star should never be, as they are supposed to shine with
the stored gases in their celestial bodies. not because I'm burned out
from scholastic activities, but because I'm trapped in an eternal cycle
of constantly feeling inferior and "not likable," especially to "him,"
despite my achievements and being deemed academically
unparalleled by people; I look deformed, and the shape is like a
ghost's, to further demonstrate my mental and emotional instability
if I open up to someone, and how I don't ever feel accepted or if I
was a part of anything I join in.
As a local Terraria player we'll name "D," he stated, "If I
beat you up, I would either not exist anymore or just distort into
nothingness." This simply goes to show how terrible I imagine my
fractured mind to be.