One of the most hotly anticipated rock albums left on the calendar in 2018 is Mitski’s Be The Cowboy, which is set to drop next week. The singer-songwriter built up a voracious cult following after releasing her phenomenal fourth record Puberty 2 in 2016, and from the singles she’s shared from Be The Cowboy already, it’s evident that she may have even surprised the emotional heft and imaginative songwriting of her breakthrough project. Today she’s decided to give her fans another glimpse into her latest album by sharing a new single titled “Two Slow Dancers.”
“Two Slow Dancers” is a graceful, elegiac sounding track that simmers with regret and pathos. In it, Mitski ponders the effects of time on relationships, wondering what might have been, and contemplating how people change. “It would be a hundred times easier / If we were young again,” she croons. “But as it is / And it is / We’re just two slow dancers, last ones out.”
In a press release, Mitski talked a little bit about the larger themes she was hoping to tackle on Be The Cowboy. “[I had in mind] a very controlled icy repressed woman who is starting to unravel. Because women have so little power and showing emotion is seen as weakness, this ‘character’ clings to any amount of control she can get,” she said. “Still, there is something very primordial in her that is trying to find a way to get out.”
Mitski’s latest album Be The Cowboy is out on August 17 via Dead Oceans. Check out her latest single “Two Slow Dancers” in the video above.
