lush in retrospective
hi everyone! i know i’m not supposed to post anything until next year, but surprise ! ~2 years ago i wrote this essay on mitski’s first album (with the intent to film it and release said video on the 10 year anniversary of this album) but never did anything with it. i was going through old shit in my google drive and found this and while i think this is not good AT ALL, it felt silly for me to have something that i put so much effort into, just sitting unread by anyone but myself. so enjoy my unpolished and insecure [essay] on lush (2012) ! and a very merry christmas if you celebrate !
lush: very rich and providing great sensory pleasure; sexually attractive
lush is the debut studio album of indie pop-rock sensation mitski miyawaki. it was released ten years ago on this day, january 31, 2012. mitski self-released this album while studying at purchase college’s conservatory of music1. the album has 9 songs and a run time 25 minutes. and this [essay] will be an analysis of the all the songs and underlying themes in lush. but more importantly it will be a passionate look at the album that started the indie legends career.
mitski was 18 when she wrote her first song. that song, which would eventually become the 7th song on lush, is titled “bag of bones” and it is where this analysis will begin
{all of these are my own interpretations}
bag of bones
the song starts with a harmonica motif that will show its face several times throughout the song. the song is simple in terms of instrumentals, it’s just the harmonica and a very simple piano melody that gives it a haunting quality. the first line states, “i’m all used up, pretty boy / over and over again, my nail colors are wearing off” this song gives a look at a hollow, empty relationship; this line gives the feeling of trying over and over again to fill oneself up with sex, but never getting the feelings of satisfaction that you crave. in a 2016 interview with loud and quiet mitski states:
“When I was a teenager it was all about experiencing everything. I was a junkie for emotion and I wanted it all.”2
in the chorus she sings:
“fluorescent store lights, you shine through the night / illuminate my pores and you tear me apart”3
in another interview with the new yorker, she states
“I spent all my teen-age years being obsessed with beauty, and I’m very resentful about it.”
these interviews in conjunction with this line from the chorus exemplify that feeling of insecurity, being “torn apart” because what one perceives as flaws are “illuminated.” the song ends with the line
“and i can take a little bit more / let’s shake this poet out of the beast”
by this point, she has resolved that she can take the feelings of emptiness for “just a little bit more” because she believes that if she does she can “shake the poet out of the beast” or get beauty out of the pain she subjects herself to. this song is about a superficial relationship, a relationship that does not satisfy. the titular line reads,
“you can hear my high heels walking on / clickety-clacking through the night / i’m carrying my bag of bones”
the bag of bones is a visceral image of the singer’s body. she’s worn down, walking away but the inclusion of the high heels, very uncomfortable shoes, leave the listener with the hook, she is subjecting herself to pain for superficial beauty.
Eric
this song is about sex. but it’s also about the unhealthy relationship; being perceived as only an object in sex, instead of a partner. it’s about love. musically it’s very complex, with multiple layers of mitski singing in harmony and a whole orchestral arrangement accompanying. the first verse opens,
“you like control, well, i do too / take off my clothes and watch me move / you can come closer, i’ll let you hurt me / how you choose”
as an opening line it certainly catches one’s attention. it immediately clues the listener in on the dynamics of this relationship, hint, it’s probably not the healthiest. verse two digs deeper into that relationship, stating,
“help me with the zipper on my skirt, it’s stuck / as you kneel, i’ll be watching you fix me / this view of you, of the top of your head makes me forgive you”
in the lines, “i’ll be watching you fix me” and “makes me forgive you” it’s clear that the characters of this song use sex as the glue to hold whatever relationship they have together. in the chorus mitski sings,
“but how long, how long can we play this way? / i’m tired, i’m tired of not loving you / my heart, my heart wants to hold you / but i know, i know, i know the rules”
with each line, she gives more about this relationship. two lines to focus on are “how long can we play this way” and “i know the rules” this “relationship” is less relational and more contractional. it’s clear the singer longs for more, but is forced to play her “role” this song ends in one of the best (if not the best) endings i’ve ever heard. the singer implores over and over, “i want” in multiple part harmony slightly slowing down until it ends giving a resolutely pained experience.
real men
real men is not on the bandcamp version of lush, and to my knowledge it wasn’t originally included with the album. however, in all other versions, real men is track number 4 on lush. it opens with accented, but separated chords on the piano. compared to the last two songs, real men is technically much more upbeat, however in my opinion this song conveys a divine sense of anger and certainly not happiness. it is discordant and powerful and leaves the listener on an unresolved note. this song is about appealing to men and the damage the patriarchy has on everyone. the first lyrics of this song are a description of ‘real men,’
“real men don’t need other people, / and / real men suck it in / real men don’t flinch or bleed in public”
this description is cold and unfeeling: real men are resilient they don’t show any emotion if they even have any emotion. she then juxtaposes this with a description of ‘little boys,’
“little boys cry and look around for comfort / and always get what they want / little boys see toys and say ‘i can take that!’ / oh, you are my little boy”
this description sets up the emotional turmoil that this song envokes. here the song starts to pick up in a bout of staccato, high hats, and snare. mitski is singing about how men can put on the persona of little boys and cry to get whatever they want. but it leads into the chorus,
“though honestly, sir / all i wanna do is get naked in front of you / so you can look me up and down and tell me / “well done, girl, you’re looking good.”
here it she is plainly singing about wanting the validation of men, putting herself on display for men, begging approval from them. by now the music is louder, and discordant, the staccatos are off beat, the drums are in full effect, ride and crash join the high hats to give a fuller sound more angry sound like i was saying. something that i didn’t mention, but that is really important is that at the end of the first verse she says,
“oh, i think i’m a real man” and then in the third verse she says, “oh, i’m gonna be a real man”
the third verse has similar views of masculinity as the first verse, and to me, an important line is, “real men don’t eat / cause their above that damn it” mitski sees herself in this, or at least she wants to, and i think that it’s telling, both of masculinity that it’s cold and unfeeling and damaging, but also that she wants to embody these things, because society tells us that these are honorable things. the song ends on the line,
“so go ahead / do it, do it.”
the last four words embody the anger i spoke of in the beginning, but not directly. she doesn’t say this line angrily, but rather, she says it almost imploringly, as if she’s asking for someone to put her out of her misery. it’s an anger at the situation, the “system,” the way things are. this line is a line of grieving acceptance and when in combination with everything else in this song, this song shows anger.
wife
wife is a tragic song. it immediately follows real men, and the themes in this song are fairly similar to the preceding. it starts with a simple, haunting piano melody, which is so representative of this album. the piano line leads into possibly the most haunting opening lines ever written. she sings,
“you’re home, you’re home, you’re home, to me”
in my interpretation, this song is about attachments to a person, and ultimately those attachments being unhealthy. mitski plays the role of “wife” but she cannot fulfill quote unquote role in the marriage. the first chorus reads,
“i cannot bear you a son / but i will try / for if i am not yours / what am i / i daydream i’d give one a name of my own / for i, even i, even i, am on loan”
that line conveys a divine sense of sadness. this again harkens back to the misogyny that was so plain in the last song. but there is more longing in this song too. the line “if i am not yours / what am i” is one of my favorite lines of poetry ever written. to me it is about finding your identity in another person. the line
“for i, even i, even i, am on loan” becomes “for i, even mine, even mine is unknown”
in the second chorus but both hold the same weight. importantly the chorus reads, “i cannot bear you a son” specifically, not just a child. there is importance in names in this song, and traditionally, surnames pass from male to male. it’s about feeling like you cannot give a person the one thing they so desperately want, and so you feel like you are unworthy of them. i think it’s also important to mention that mitski is a japanese american woman, and that she took her mother’s japanese last name. this line addresses the fact that not only is mitski as a metaphorical wife giving up her name, she is also in a country where her name is “unusual” or “unknown” so she looks to another person for her identity. this song is very short, but it is so powerful. it is full of emotion (like i said it is one of my favorites and if you take anything from this [essay] it is that you should listen to this song.)
liquid smooth
this is the first song on the album. melodically it is very simple, the same few chords repeated in the same pattern on the piano. but the affect is there. it drills the message into the listener’s brain. this song is about how women, and people who present feminine are given “expiration dates.” the first line,
“i’m beautiful, i know cuz it’s the season”
lends creedance to this. the season for beauty. in the chorus she states,
“i’m liquid smooth, come touch me, too / and feel my skin is plump and full of life / i’m in my prime / i’m in my prime / i’m liquid smooth / come touch me, too / i’m at my highest peak, i’m ripe / about to fall / capture me”
these lines, while given deliberately and powerfully, almost as if she’s proud of being “captured” don’t paint a pretty picture. mitski was 21 when this album released, though we know she wrote bag of bones at 18 & this song could have been written any time between that span of time. and god knows 18 to 21 is not the prime, the “highest peak” of one’s life. but following the theme of the album, that is what society, the patriarchy and leonardo dicaprio instills in young girls. by the time you hit 21 you’re “ripe / about to fall” this song is one of two in mitski’s discography that includes japanese lyrics. the line reads,
“kuzurete yuku maeni” and translates to “before i collapse/crumble/fall apart”
the song ends on a low d, giving the distinct feeling of a ripe fruit, falling off a branch, being abandoned, the beauty no longer offered, therefore no longer desired.
i’ll be completely honest. i don’t know if mitski was trying to make this huge message about the patriarchy and feminism with this album. i think it entirely possibly that she was just someone who was writing her observations in song. and the interpretations fit. i don’t think the interpretations are wrong. but maybe not wholly intentional. or maybe totally. or maybe both.
Abbey
this is one of my favorite mitski songs of all time. musically and lyrically, this song is elite. it starts off acapella. not until the second verse do the instrumentals kick in. the quality of this song is other earthly. it is a very repetitive song and i think that only adds to the ― for lack of a better word ― hunger of the song. the opening line is,
“i am hungry / i have been hungry / i was born hungry / what do i need?”
it’s the repetition that drives this song. the acapella vocalization is lilting, makes the song float, but the lyrics are pained,
“i am something / i have been something / i was born something / what could i be?”
this song is a search of something, a search for the “the light” she mentions in the first chorus, singing,
“there is a light / that i can see / but only, it seems, when there’s / darkness in me / there is a dream that i sometimes see / that appears in the dark of sleep.”
in the second chorus she sings,
“there is a light, i feel it in me / but only it seems, when the dark / surrounds me / there is a dream and it sleeps in me / to awake in the night crying ‘set me free’ / and i awake every night, crying ‘set me free’”
this song, in my opinion, represents a form of mental darkness. the singer sees a light in herself, but only when in this very low, dark state. the light, of course, represents art, and this idea that the best art often comes from the lowest points in one’s life. i think an important note, however, is that she’s almost skeptical of the notion, that she needs the darkness. it’s less a codependency on the darkness inside her, but more an introspection: remarking on the fact of being unable to find this light anywhere but the darkness.
abbey is complex in it’s simplicity. the song is almost deceptive, presenting a very simple concept but weaving an intricate and beautiful map
Door
door is a painful song. the story it tells is not beautiful or hopeful. it opens with slow octaves on the piano that lead into the first verse. the lyrics are a simple metaphor stating,
“there is a door to me / i’ve never seen it / sometimes i get closer to it / but i’ve never found it / at twilight i almost had it / but then the night fell / i looked out in the dark and wondered / how could i have lost it?”
the door is an entrance to another life, a life where mitski could get out of the “dark” that she mentions. the song is only two verses long, making it the shortest song on lush. in the second verse she sings,
“then, one night, at the park i saw it / with my cheek in the dirt / i couldn’t move underneath the dark / but at least i finally found it”
this song paints a picture. by now it’s clear that door is a metaphor for love, and i think that the line, “i saw it / with my cheek in the dirt” shows that the singer is in an abusive relationship. she continues, singing,
“cried out a creak and opened / to show me what’s beyond it / a hopeless violence / i named it love”
the story portrayed in this song is not meant to be a beautiful love story. it’s meant to be painful. to the listener hopefully you recognize that a hopeless violence is not love, but to someone who has desperately looked for it their whole life, anything resembling it would be enough. however heartbreaking the story this song tells, though, it doesn’t take away from the actual musical quality of the song, which has a divine quality. it’s a work of art, and i think there’s something to be said about a beautiful thing masking something so ugly.
Brand New City
third on the tracklist and most like the artist’s more recent music is brand new city. the song opens with mitski singing the line,
“one, two / honey, what’d you take?”
a precursor to the chorus. it leads into a short riff on the electric guitar and drums. the instrumentals on this song are the most raucous on the whole album, stylistically setting this song apart from the others on the lp. lyrically though, it’s fairly similar, the first verse opening,
“think my brain is rotting in places / i think my heart is ready to die / i think my body is falling in pieces / i think my blood is passing my by”
it’s a depiction of decay. i almost see this song as a response to liquid smooth: after reaching her “prime” the singer has now fallen, and is a state of falling apart. the chorus is very simple, the same iteration of
“honey, what’d you take? what’d you take? honey, look at me / tell me what you took, what’d you take?”
that she introduced in the beginning of the song. this song is not a continuation of liquid smooth, but rather a retort. in the chorus she’s asking to someone, the “honey”, what they took from her. but paired with the accompaniment it’s clear this isn’t just a response but a retaliation to the idea that she has had her prime. she isn’t rotting because she is past her prime, she’s rotting because something has been taken from her. the second verse is more detailing of decay, though in a more poetic sense,
“i think my fate is losing its patience / i think the ground is pulling me down / i think my life is losing momentum / i think my ways are wearing me down”
she goes directly from the second verse into the bridge singing
“but if i gave up on being pretty, i wouldn’t know how to be alive / i should move to a brand new city and teach myself how to die”
and then repeats the refrain of the chorus four times. now, all these things in combination lead me to believe that the “honey” that mitski refers to in this song could be herself, or at least the self destructive parts of herself. the line in the second verse “i think my ways are wearing me down” is my biggest indicator. before this line the things she mentioned were all outside forces, but this line, the last line of the verse is something that she is doing to herself. that line immediately leads into the line, “but if i gave up on being pretty, i wouldn’t know how to be alive” which ties into this idea of self destructiveness. the obsessive need to be beautiful, which mitski describes as destruction.
Pearl Diver
this song is very metaphorical. the last on the album, this song is about dying. not literally, just metaphorically. the first verse reads,
“treasure hunter, you are dead / the light of the world is fading / you cannot see the other end / your body’s lost all feeling / those creatures of your woken mind / don’t fear them or their hunger / forgive the sea, follow the tide / with the monsters on your shoulder.”
this song chronicles a pearl diver, “the treasure hunter” diving into the depths of the sea in pursuit of something, and whatever that something is ultimately being their downfall. i believe that this song is about hating your body, and destroying your body in pursuit of beauty. this obsessive pursuit is detailed in the chorus with the line,
“pearl diver, dive dive deeper / pearl diver, diver dive down”
repeated twice. the phrases “treasure hunter” and “pearl diver” give the listener the impression that the object of this song is in want of something beautiful. the singer continues in this way in the second verse singing,
“oh hunter if you didn’t want the beautiful so badly / perhaps you would’ve found it / in your spirit singing softly”
like in brand new city, mitski is speaking to herself through this song. the hunter is mitski. and also like in brand new city, she is destroying herself for beauty. however, unlike the former, this song is also about forgiveness. she continues in the second verse,
“but hunter you were human / don’t forget it and go safely / and i, i’ll live without you / though the struggle will be daily”
with this line the singer (metaphorically) forgives the part of herself that desperately and destructively searched for beauty. effectively killing that part of herself.
mostly what this album represents i think is being young, but leaving youth, as a woman especially. the experiences in these songs are about the experiences of growing up. and it’s painful, but there is beauty in retrospect. to be able to look back and see where you have come from and how you have grown from it. to me, this album is cathartic. it is an album you can scream to and an album you can cry to. in terms of style, lush is miles apart from mitski’s other lps. but this album is true to its title. with rich vocals and instrumentals, mitski did not just create an album, she created an experience. to end this [essay] i’ll leave you with what the artist had to say about this album in an interview with chicago reader,
“Yeah, and I don’t feel like I can do that ever again. I think it’s an especially first-album kind of thing, not just for me but for any artist. Because for your first album ever, you put together all the songs that you wrote over a long period of time when you were changing as a person constantly.”4