Last month, indie music artist Mitski’s third album turned 10 years old. In 2015, she told The Cut her motivations behind “Bury Me at Makeout Creek” and said, “I care a lot. I think with this third record, I finally just let go of wanting to impress people and just did what I wanted to do.”

Track 6: Jobless Monday

  “Jobless Monday” is the shortest track of “Bury Me at Makeout Creek” but is impactful nonetheless. It carries the seasons and nature imagery that cements itself as a motif throughout the album, specifically with references to wind and the sun. Throughout the song, Mitski pleads with her partner to take her out into the sun, symbolizing it as something that could save their relationship despite its problems. It represents the intentional disregard of the issues within their relationship as they begin to arise. Wanting to savor the sun likely also represents the shift into winter, as their relationship becomes as cold as the world around them. A standout lyric is in verse two; “He only loves me when there’s a means he means to end / Oh, I miss when we first met, he didn’t know me yet.”

Track 7: Drunk Walk Home

  “Drunk Walk Home” is the clearest depiction of rage on the album, and the aggressive rock instrumentals throughout that build to screaming at the end of the track cement the feeling. The track expresses feelings of disillusionment and dismay at Mitski’s circumstances. With just two verses, she shows anger at the state of Western society and its emphasis on money, as well as anger with her romantic failings and how she feels she is “starting to learn [she], may never be free”.

Track 8: I Will

  Mitski told Out of Town Films “I Will” that the “I” in the song wasn’t her, she was the “you”, saying it’s a song that says all the things she wants to hear from a lover. Instrumentally, the track has less variation and takes on a softer tone than some of the others in “Bury Me at Makeout Creek”. It is one of Mitski’s sweetest depictions of love throughout her discography, although it is ironic that it came from her mind and not the real actions of another person. She sings in verse one, “I will take good care of you, I will take good care of you / Everything you feel is good if you would only let you / I will wash your hair at night and dry it off with care / I will see your body bare and still I will live here”. 

Track 9: Carry Me Out

  “Carry Me Out” shows the beauty of the crescendoing instrumentals that are present in this track and several others throughout the album. The instruments begin slow and methodical but build seamlessly during the bridge. Narratively, this song seems to be about the death of a loved one. Mitski sings in the bridge, “I drive when it rains / At night when it rains I drive / And the headlight spirits / They lead me down the Styx / So black it shines”. In Ancient Greek mythology, the River Styx is located in the underworld and separates the dead from the living, showing Mitski’s desire to once again be with the person who has been taken from her by death. The track’s title and its repetition of the lyric could be referencing suicidal ideation and her desire to be carried out in a casket as her loved one was. The song opens and closes with the same line; “At night / On the rooftop / I untie my hair / And watch from my plastic chair / As my dark hair / Unleashes the night”.

Track 10: Last Words of a Shooting Star

  “Bury Me at Makeout Creek” closes on a solemn note with “Last Words of a Shooting Star.” It uses the same guitar instrumentals as track one, “Texas Reznikoff”, thoughtfully tying up the album and enhancing the cohesion strung throughout it. “Last Words of a Shooting Star” narrates a plane crashing and a person in their final thoughts as they reflect on their life. This can be taken as literal, or it has commonly been theorized as a metaphor for suicide. Mitski reflects on the narrator’s grievances with the state of their fleeting life, and ultimately how no one knew about the extent of their suffering. It also makes the point that the person dying is glad they’ll be viewed in a positive light after they’re gone, with the lines “And I am relieved that I’d left my room tidy / They’ll think of me kindly / When they come for my things” in verse one. 

  The song and the album end with the lines, “I always wanted to die clean and pretty / But I’d be too busy on working days / So I am relieved that the turbulence wasn’t forecasted / I couldn’t have changed anyways / I am relieved that I’d left my room tidy / Goodbye.”

  “Bury Me at Makeout Creek” is a cerebral, cathartic album that has remained relevant over the past 10 years for good reason. The lyricism and intense instrumentation create a distinct atmosphere. On November 11, Mitski made an Instagram post to celebrate the 10-year milestone. The caption explains how she and her former guitarist recently went to see a musician who did the lower vocals in the chorus of “First Love / Late Spring” play a show alongside a band member Mitski previously toured with.  She expressed her gratitude by ending the caption with, “The whole night I was feeling the great privilege of aging, of getting to keep living and to watch how life unfolds. These people, and me, we all had vaguely similar faces to the kids we were a decade ago, but we were also different people with different lives, all at once. It is so beautiful to live, and to see how things evolve over time, to witness how things turn out. These are the things I was thinking about as we approached the 10 year anniversary of Bury Me. I am so, so grateful to you all for living and growing up with me. Thank you. I love you.”