Your Best American Girl: Mitski's Anthem for the Un-American

Many of Mitski’s songs are autobiographical. While using metaphors and characters, she speaks about her own experiences and describes her own feelings. “Your Best American Girl” from her 2016 album “Puberty 2” is one of those songs. Mitski Miyawaki, half-Japanese and raised in 13 different countries, sings about trying to be the ideal American girl for an all-American boy. Over a simple acoustic motif that builds to a thrashing chorus, Mitski longs for a love which is ultimately inaccessible to her because of her background. In an interview with Hrishikesh Hirway for the podcast “Song Exploder,” Mitski elaborates on the meaning of her song: “I was in love with somebody, but I just felt like our backgrounds or the places we come from...were just so completely different and it felt like something that couldn’t be overcome by love.” 

Opening with a simple bassline on acoustic guitar, Mitski’s first words are “If I could, I’d be your little spoon/And kiss your fingers forevermore/But, big spoon, you have so much to do/And I have nothing ahead of me.” The quietness of the uncomplicated duet between bassline and mournful melody sets the mood of yearning to be something other than herself. In the second verse, she continues, “You’re the sun, you’ve never seen the night/But you hear its song from the morning birds/Well, I’m not the moon, I’m not even a star/But awake at night I’ll be singing to the bird.” Through the metaphor of day and night, Mitski describes cultural differences between her and her love. If the sun in this dichotomy represents the all-American boy, then the moon would be Mitski. However, she highlights her feelings of inferiority by declaring that she is neither the moon nor the stars. Despite this, Mitski sings to the birds in the night in the hopes that he will hear her through their morning songs; she hopes to bridge their gap through communication though he is unable to truly know her background directly. 

The pre-chorus is a single line: “Don’t wait for me, I can’t come.” A major theme within “Your Best American Girl” is the difference in upbringing between two people. Those differences in upbringing affect both their present by preventing a relationship’s success, but also determine their futures. From the first verse, we hear “I have nothing ahead of me” contrasting against “You have so much to do.” The pre-chorus emphasizes this. Mitski’s all-American boy is from a world she isn’t a part of and is going down a path she has no place on. 

Then the chorus crashes in, staticky and explosive, with “Your mother wouldn’t approve of how my mother raised me/But I do, I think I do.” In the midst of tragic romance, Mitski finds self-acceptance. The second time she sings this line, she adds “finally” - “I do, I finally do.” After wishing she was more American, she finally accepts herself and her background. But the multi-faceted aspects of love, identity, and acceptance are what Mitski wants to express. In the next line, she says, “And you’re an all-American boy/I guess I couldn’t help trying to be your best American girl.” Continuing into the bridge, she sings in the subsiding decrescendo: “You’re the one/You’re all I ever wanted/I think I’ll regret this.” 

“Your Best American Girl,” while an autobiographical piece, deals with an experience that is not unique to Mitski. She describes a struggle that many people of color encounter in America: loving white men. (Of course, Mitski never explicitly states that a white man is the inspiration for “Your Best American Girl,” but the conclusion is not a difficult one to reach.) 

“You always want what you can’t have, and that all-American thing, from the day I was born, I could never enter that dream,” she said in the interview with Hirway. “That all-American white culture is something that is inherited instead of attained.” 

This idea of white American culture being inherited and not being one of the inheritors to that culture is what “Your Best American Girl” is ultimately about. It’s about an ideal all-American boy and the ideal all-American girl by his side. It’s about the experience of being on the outside of that all-American couple, of loving the all-American boy despite your own perceived un-Americanness. Mitski describes very well what it’s like to accept that you are on the outside of a culture, while still asking permission to be a part of it. 

 The first boy I ever liked was named Tim. He had blond hair and blue eyes and wore cowboy boots to school. Every time I sat next to him I’d try my best to memorize the scent of his cologne. In my mind, I believed that in order for him to like me, I needed to be just like him. Being just like him could entail any number of things - be blond, have blue eyes, wear cowboy boots - but what I was really trying to be was white. I am not white. Both of my parents are immigrants. As I’ve grown older and loved my fair share of all-American boys, I’ve found myself trying to be their best American girl. And as I learn more about what I can never be, I also learn what I already am. “Your Best American Girl” perfectly describes the experience of cross-cultural love that cannot successfully bridge the gap - and the self-acceptance that grows out of that divide. It’s become my own national anthem for myself; for uncertainty, inadequacy and perceived inferiority, but also for growth, acceptance and real love - no matter how hard or disappointing it is.

 The second half of Mitski’s quote about all-American white culture is this: “So yes, it’s a sad song, but I wanted to make sure it reflected all of the contrasting feelings. You can be heartbroken about a relationship, but also, from it, realize you are you and you’re okay with who you are, or where you came from.” 

You can be heartbroken for the all-American boy of your dreams and still have love for yourself and how your mother raised you. And while you cry over another white guy (or girl or non-binary person or otherwise) and the false internalized notion that you will never be good enough for him (or her or them or otherwise), just listen to Mitski’s “Your Best American Girl,” and you’ll remember that you’re you, and you’re okay with who you are.