{"id":26649,"date":"2019-01-03T15:30:55","date_gmt":"2019-01-03T20:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/?p=26649"},"modified":"2019-01-10T17:19:23","modified_gmt":"2019-01-10T22:19:23","slug":"af2018-mitski-be-the-cowboy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/af2018-mitski-be-the-cowboy\/","title":{"rendered":"AF 2018 IN REVIEW: How Mitski Used Performance to Make One of the Year’s Best Records"},"content":{"rendered":"
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photo by Bao Ngo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Since hitting her stride with 2014’s\u00a0Bury Me at Makeout Creek<\/i>\u00a0and its critically acclaimed follow-up\u00a0Puberty 2<\/i>\u00a0(2016), Mitski’s audience has tended to project onto her as a symbol of their sadness, a microphone of sad-girl feelings. But Mitski does not want to be remembered this way, a position she asserted clearly this year with her much-lauded album\u00a0Be The Cowboy.<\/em>\u00a0The songs here are largely fictional, more like a short story collection than they are a memoir. When Mitski discusses<\/a> what \u201cBe The Cowboy\u201d means, as a phrase, she talks about adopting the swagger of the American Western as her own. The cowboy is one of many characters\u00a0that Mitski embodies in the live performances of her breakout record, and she uses performance itself to elevate their meanings at every turn.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Be The Cowboy<\/em> tour\u00a0is the first tour where Mitski isn’t playing an instrument consistently during the show. Instead,\u00a0the show\u00a0involves a dance piece, where Mitski sings and performs choreography by Monica Mirabile. It is a choreography conscious of its own performance: both natural and premeditated. It begins with something as simple as the pantomime of holding a cigarette and taking a drag as she’s singing “I Don’t Smoke,” from Bury Me At Makeout Creek<\/em>, but by the time she sings \u201cIf you need to be mean, be mean to me \/ I can take it and put it inside of me,\u201d she’s throwing something invisible across the stage, perhaps the lyrics’ “trinkets in your room.”\u00a0Over the course of the show, the dance evolves: a seduction for \u201cMe and My Husband,\u201d a baby bird desperate to fly at the top of \u201cI Will.\u201d On \u201cDrunk Walk Home,\u201d Mitski The Performer interrupts the choreography\u2019s drunken hands to curtsy: \u201cI wore this dress for you.\u201d <\/p>\n

To the audience, the Performer\u2019s function is to entertain. The Performer is someone the audience takes for granted; it is demanding, exhausting, to be the Performer. At the December 1st Brooklyn Steel show, the set began with “Remember My Name.” For the duration of the song, she is completely still. In its lyrics, Mitski confesses: \u201cI gave too much of my heart tonight,\u201d and asks her audience (real or imagined) to provide some love she can \u201csave till tomorrow\u2019s show.\u201d It is a plea for the audience to remember there is a person behind the songs.<\/p>\n

Performance on Be The Cowboy<\/i> is the show you put on for others – whether it’s literal nightly performances as a touring musician, the catharsis in embodying someone else, or even a faked smile flashed for someone whose presence you can’t stand. In an interview with Paper Mag<\/a>, Mitski talks about writing songs from the perspective of fictional people, rather than strict autobiographical experiences:\u00a0\u201cI find using a character or using a narrative that didn’t happen to you is better equipped in telling your story and expressing your feelings than what actually happened in your life.\u201d\u00a0Be The Cowboy <\/i>is full of fictional characters, each played by Mitski with the confidence of the aforementioned cowboy. As she plays the characters, she explores the role of performance in their lives, and her own.<\/p>\n

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photo by Bao Ngo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cMe and My Husband\u201d begins with a heavy sigh. \u201cMe and my husband, we are doing better,\u201d the speaker insists, but the tense chord movement states otherwise. The idea of \u201csticking together\u201d is not romanticized\u2013it\u2019s just an inevitability. She goes on to call herself \u201cThe idiot with the painted face \/ in the corner, taking up space.\u201d The word \u201cpainted\u201d evokes not just the character\u2019s makeup, but a strained, vague smile worn like a mask. Though the song is short, each verse adds instruments\u2013a keyboard, brass, heavier bass, building tension. What she\u2019s saying is one thing, but what she means is in the progression; on the last repetition of \u201cSo I bet all I have on that furrowed brow,\u201d the brass climbs chromatically.<\/p>\n

Mitski sings again about being an object on \u201cWashing Machine Heart.\u201d It\u2019s never \u201cobject\u201d in the way \u201cobjectified\u201d hints at sexualization. It\u2019s something sadder and more everyday\u2013being something of function to another person, and losing yourself in that process. Rhythmic synths bang like the aforementioned appliance, strings sound otherworldly. Here, she’s a receptacle for dirty shoes, or maybe the other half\u2019s emotional crutch. Again the movement of the vocals and strings betray a tension that is only hinted at in the lyrics (\u201cI know who you pretend I am\u201d).<\/p>\n