Lyrically Speaking: The wildness of falling in love with Mitski’s ‘First Love / Late Spring’
To fall in love is to be vulnerable, to allow yourself to trust in someone else, and to open yourself up to happiness, heartbreak and hurt all at once. To fall in love for the very first time can be a terrifying endeavour, one that has provided a muse to lyricists for decades, but few have nailed it quite like Mitski did with ‘First Love / Late Spring’.
Love – and the loss or lack of it – is one of the most well-charted themes in Mitski’s ever-growing catalogue. The vulnerability and violence of the emotion have always bled into her poetic lyrics and the swelling instrumentation she surrounds them with. From dependency and ownership to truly selfless love, she has ventured into the best and worst experiences the emotion has to offer.
This preoccupation with love has been obvious ever since she made her debut with ‘First Love / Late Spring’. Released in 2014 as a precursor to the beloved Bury Me at Makeout Creek, the track was entirely true to its title. Charting first love in its content, the piece was a fitting choice for her lead single, marking the first love song of many. As if distilling Mitski’s future catalogue into four minutes and 38 seconds, ‘First Love / Late Spring’ contains all the beauty, excitement and terror that comes with first love.
In the opening moments of the song, Mitski paints us a picture of “the black hole of the window where you sleep.” Perhaps she is apart from her lover, staring longingly at the space in which they would usually rest, or perhaps she is envisioning the potential to lose them, the threat of impending heartbreak that accompanies the first fall. She’s brought back, though, by the night breeze and a peach tree.
This gorgeous, natural imagery returns Mitski to the lighter side of love, the joy of the fall, the sweetness of it all. “Wild women don’t get the blues,” she affirms. But she’s not entirely a wild woman. In the throes of this new emotion, in presently uncharted territory, she cries more like a “tall child.” She may look like a fully grown adult, but as she grapples with love, she feels as directionless and overwhelmed as an infant.
These feelings intensify as Mitski reaches the chorus. “Please, hurry, leave me,” she begs, “I can’t breathe, please don’t say you love me.” It’s as if she’s ushering in the heartbreak, willing it to happen before its time, for it to be over as soon as possible. It’s an attempt to stop even those good feelings out of fear of the bad.
Wrestling with her new-found adoration for this person, she even finds herself reverting back to her first language, back to her child-like self. “My chest is about to burst,” she admits in Japanese before proclaiming that she would jump from a ledge for her lover. It’s a statement about the intensity of her emotions, at once showing her compulsion to give in to love and her fear of what it might lead to. Only her lover, whom she begs to allow her to “crawl back in,” can save her from this fate.
Again, Mitski can’t help but revert to her youth as she attempts to wrap her head around these all-consuming feelings. “And I was so young when I behaved 25,” she sings, “Yet now, I find I’ve grown into a tall child.” It’s an interesting metaphor to sprinkle throughout the song, one that both seems to represent the innocence of early love and the clueless, child-like state it induces in us.
Before Mitski fell in love, before she exposed herself to heartbreak at the hands of another, she maintained a sense of maturity. Now, presented with this new and all-consuming emotion, she can’t help but revert back to a younger self.
Mitski’s words of violence and vulnerability continue throughout the duration of the song, as she hangs from the ledge at her lover’s will and begs them not to make declarations of love, each and every word soaked in fear and feeling. But, through it all, there’s a willingness to dive in. “I don’t wanna go home yet,” she sings, “Let me walk to the top of the big night sky.”
The imagery of skies and stars would continue to find their place in Mitski’s discography, often coupled with themes of love – for herself or for others. Perhaps if she allows herself to fall, the “big night sky” will open up for her.
