Some songs move you. When Mitski released “Your Best American Girl” in 2016, it was the rarefied kind of track that rattles you to your core and makes your heart swell. It also felt like an indie rock paradigm shift.
When Mitski dropped “Your Best American Girl” as the lead single off her fourth album, Puberty 2, she described it at the time as one of her most personal songs to date. Lyrically, the musician (born to a Japanese mother and an American father) explores letting go of “an all-American boy” because they were simply too different to be together. But she chooses herself, and the track ultimately becomes a story about accepting one’s own identity and upbringing.
