Mitski’s 10 most poetic lyrics (2024)

In an increasingly rising sea of sad girls channelling their emotions into synths and guitars, Mitski rises above the rest. Her music is infused with unrelenting vulnerability and cathartic climaxes, charting everything from misplaced love to her American-Japanese identity.

Though her intimate soundscapes serve to elevate the themes she discusses, Mitski’s strength lies in her writing. She has a penchant for portraying emotions many would be unable to articulate or may not have even been able to pinpoint. They’re not only honest and moving, but they’re also endlessly poetic.

From imagery of forest fires to religious references, the singer-songwriter has an unmatched grasp of emotive lyricism. Whether it’s the idealism of young love as she depicts in ‘Pink in the Night’ or the self-aware destruction she details in ‘A Burning Hill’, Mitski writes her songs with all the literary prowess of a poet.

From ‘Lonesome Love’ to ‘Last Words of a Shooting Star’, we’ve collected ten of Mitski’s most poetic lyrics. Check out the full list below.

10. ‘Pink in the Night’

“I glow pink in the night in my room
I’ve been blossoming alone over you
and I hear my heart breaking tonight
I hear my heart breaking tonight
do you hear it too?”

‘Pink in the Night’ formed the tenth track of Mitski’s fifth studio album, Be the Cowboy. It’s slow and intimate, detailing the singer-songwriter’s blossoming feelings for a lover as she repeats the words “I love you” repeatedly. Mitski depicts her newfound love through mundane lines like, “I could stare at your back all day” and “I know I’ve kissed you before, but I didn’t do it right, can I try again?”

The track’s most poetic lyrics come at its opening, as Mitski describes herself as “pink in the night” and “blossoming” over her lover. Combining the glowing, flowering imagery with the increasingly loud sound of her heart beating, it’s a gorgeous image of early love. She tentatively asks, “Do you hear it too?” wondering if they feel the same way.

9. ‘Lonesome Love’

“Walk up in my high heels all high and mighty
and you say ‘Hello’, and I lose
cause nobody butters me up like you
and nobody f*cks me like me”.

‘Lonesome Love’, like ‘Pink in the Night’, featured on Be the Cowboy in 2018. Rather than depicting the soft intimacy of young love, though, ‘Lonesome Love’ follows Mitski’s protagonist as she tries, and fails, to one-up her lover. After spending an hour on her makeup and donning high heels, she still falters in their presence.

In the song’s best moment, Mitski dejectedly sings, “Nobody butters me up like you, and nobody f*cks me like me”. It’s a playful line that could have several meanings. While her partner retains a power over her, they can’t please her like she can herself. Alternatively, the phrase, “nobody f*cks me like me”, could reflect Mitski’s disappointment that she has, once again, given into temptation.

8. ‘Strawberry Blond’

“I love everybody because I love you
when you stood up, walked away, barefoot
and the grass where you lay left a bed in your shape
I looked over it and I ached”.

One of her earlier tracks, ‘Strawberry Blond’ featured on Mitski’s second album, Retired from Sad, New Career in Business, which she self-released in 2013. In the song, her protagonist’s love is devoted but unrequited. It begins optimistic, as she declares, “I love everybody because I love you”, a reflection of the idealistic worldview accompanying falling in love. This is reflected by the perky instrumentals that accompany the story.

Then, Mitski reveals the unrequited nature of her admiration with the devastating image of her lover walking away, leaving a shape in the grass where they lay. Looking down at it, she recalls, “I ached”. With just those two words, she changes the entire tone of the song, which becomes one of desperate yearning and disappointment.

7. ‘Bug Like An Angel’

“When I’m bent over, wishing it was over
making all variety of vows I’ll never keep
I try to remember the wrath of the devil was also given him by God”.

Forming the lead single to her newest full-length release, The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, ‘Bug Like an Angel’ depicts dependency on alcohol through devastating lines like, “Sometimes a drink feels like family”. Mitski delivers some of her most poetic and divine imagery between the choral moments and swelling instrumentals.

Towards the end of the track, she paints the image of her protagonist feeling the effects of her drinking dependency. Bent over a toilet, vowing that she won’t make the same mistakes again, she consoles herself with the reminder that “the wrath of the devil was also given him by God”. It’s an overwhelmingly potent image that compares her situation with religion, enhancing the gravitas of the moment.

6. ‘First Love / Late Spring’

“One word from you and I would jump off of this ledge I’m on
baby, tell me ‘Don’t’ so I can crawl back in”.

‘First Love / Late Spring’ was released in 2014 ahead of her third studio record, Bury Me at Makeout Creek. It’s destructively devotional, finding Mitski falling in love with someone she shouldn’t. She splices some of her most devastating lyrics between picturesque imagery of peach trees and night breezes.

After the breathless refrain that begs, “Please hurry leave me, I can’t breathe…”, Mitski begs, “One word from you and I would jump off of this ledge I’m on, baby, tell me, ‘Don’t’ so I can crawl back in”. The dramatic line is delivered with little concern despite the weight and devotion it holds.

5. ‘Washing Machine Heart’

“Toss your dirty shoes in my washing machine heart
baby, bang it up inside”.

‘Washing Machine Heart’ is one of Mitski’s biggest hits, released on Be the Cowboy in 2018. It features some of Mitski’s most playful lyrics and instrumentals but, true to form, is actually emotionally devastating. Over bleeping synths and beats, the track follows a narrator who is so desperate for love that she is willing to let it destroy her.

In the song’s opening moments, she begs, “Toss your dirty shoes in my washing machine heart, baby, bang it up inside”. The imagery is both visceral and mundane, perfectly encapsulating the feelings of her narrator, who is willing to hurt herself for her lover.

4. ‘Townie’

“And I want a love that falls as fast as a body from the balcony
and I want a kiss like my heart is hitting the ground”.

Featuring on Bury Me at Makeout Creek, ‘Townie’ contains one of Mitski’s most endlessly quoted and equally violent lyrics. Between youthful imagery of parties, parental disappointment, and the smell of smoke, Mitski boldly declares, “I want a love that falls as fast as a body from the balcony, and I want to kiss like my heart is hitting the ground”.

Like much of her lyricism, it’s devoted and destructive, shockingly violent in the name of love. It also contains all the vivid indestructibility of youth, begging to feel something real, even if it is hurt.

3. ‘Last Words of a Shooting Star’

“You wouldn’t leave til we’d loved in the morning
you’d learned from movies how love ought to be
and you’d say you love me and look in my eyes
but I know through mine you were looking in yours”.

The closing song to Bury Me at Makeout Creek, ‘Last Words of a Shooting Star’ is a soft guitar track over which Mitski sings of love, life and death. She shares her hopes to die clean and pretty, with her room kept tidy while reflecting on her love experience.

She reminisces about the rigidity and falsity of her lover, recalling, “You wouldn’t leave til we loved in the morning, you’d learned from movies how love ought to be”. In the track’s most beautiful yet tragic moment, she muses, “You’d say you love me and look in my eyes, but I know through mine you were looking in yours”.

2. ‘Me and My Husband’

“And I am the idiot with the painted face in the corner taking up space
but when he walks in, I am loved, I am loved”.

Another track from Be the Cowboy, the theatrical ‘Me and My Husband’ tells the story of a protagonist who seems to be losing her grasp on her own identity, instead clinging to her marriage. The opening words are a highlight, as Mitski laments, “I steal a few breaths from the world for a minute, and then I’ll be nothing forever”, but the song only gets more devastating in its imagery.

At the beginning of the second verse, Mitski pictures herself as “the idiot with the painted face in the corner taking up space”. Playing up to traditional roles, she diminishes and adjusts her appearance and intelligence, scolding herself for simply “taking up space”. Only when her husband arrives does she feel loved and worthy.

1. ‘A Burning Hill’

“I am a forest fire
and I am the fire and I am the forest
and I am a witness watching it
I stand in a valley watching it
and you’re not there at all”.

Mitski’s most poetic lyricism comes in the form of ‘A Burning Hill’, the cathartic concluding track to her 2016 album, Puberty 2. Worn down and tired, she considers herself to be a “forest fire” – both the fire and the forest, and a witness washing it.

At once, she is the object of destruction, the cause of it, and the observer. The image is one of Mitski’s most poignant and her most lonely, as she declares, “I stand in a valley watching it, and you’re not there at all”.

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