There’s a helplessness to “Working for the Knife” because it’s hard to see each of our acts of emotional expression changing anything. How many express in silence, alone, and then act as if everything’s fine the minute eyes are on them? We fruitlessly give everything we have to no audience because we’re terrified to have one: we imagine avoiding these places in ourselves denies them power, but we know existing with them and giving them some kind of space helps to manage it at all. So many know that emotional explosion at the end of “Working for the Knife” – manic, joyous, angry, helpless, outsized and diminished, expansive and lonely, breathless, ragingly silent. Personally, culturally, globally, that’s the moment and we don’t see an end to it. “Working for the Knife” feels like a scream of exhaustion, for an exhaustion it’s hard to see ever going away. Sometimes they’re present because they’re component to how someone’s brain works and they don’t need a cause.

Sometimes they’re present for a reason and there’s an identifiable cause. They’re just present, like air or sunshine. They’re not wresting for power, they can’t be overcome by will. Our culture understands everything primarily through relationships of power.ĭepression and anxiety aren’t about a power struggle in ourselves, though. We imagine this because we understand these things through relationships of power.

We imagine avoiding these places in ourselves denies them power as if we can’t feel depressed or anxious if we avoid talking about being depressed or anxious. The music feels like a shelter or recognition for places we barely speak about. The thing about Mitski that I don’t get anywhere else is that her music (often with Zia Anger’s videos) feels like a safe place to just…break.

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