The song Mitski wrote when she “fucking broke down”
Mitski is no stranger to devastation. Across her discography, her lyricism regularly dives deep into dark, emotional waters, managing to articulate the most gut-wrenching sentiments with ease. Hitting hard when least expected, Mitski has become one of the leaders of the ‘sad girl’ genre takeover, never shying away from grappling with difficult feelings. But one song in particular was hard for Mitski to even write.
When looking back at Mitski’s discography, there are a whole host of songs that feel painfully vulnerable and tender. From ‘I Bet On Losing Dogs’ to the recent album track ‘I’m Your Man’, it’s hard to pick the most emotional. But Mitski’s choice for the most difficult track is surprising.
Even as perhaps one of her most upbeat songs instrumentally, ‘Nobody’, stands out as a particularly emotional one for the singer. Off her 2018 album Be The Cowboy, ‘Nobody’ is a simple and even dancey take on loneliness and insignificance.
After a tour of Asia, Mitski decided to stay in her childhood home of Malaysia, rather than flying home to join her family for Christmas. “I thought it would be great, like finally get to decompress,” she explained to Genius, “except I didn’t prepare for how fricking lonely it would be to just be all alone in a country where no one knows me, while everyone else I know is having holiday’s with their family and friends.”
“I was also really tired, and just the idea of everybody I know being at a different time zone and having holidays without me–it was just a combination of a lot of things,” she added before admitting the song came from the moment that she “fucking broke down.”
Allowing her a place to put all the chaotic, messy emotions she admits she wouldn’t usually reveal, the track came from a raw place; “I am too proud to be hysterical to other people, but the chorus ‘Nobody’ was literally me in a semi-fugue state on my hands and knees on the floor just crying and just repeating the word, ‘nobody.'”
Deciding to channel all the loneliness and upset into a song, the result was ‘Nobody’ as she jokes, “And then I don’t know. I was like, ‘Let me use this pain and exploit it for my money.”
Going on to become one of her most popular and defining tracks, Mitski fans get to join her in that expelling of messy, “semi-fugue” feelings as they sing “nobody, nobody, nobody” over and over with the song.
