…it was actually about when you have some kind of toxic relationship to yourself, or to another person, for so long that it becomes your identity. Ev… - Mitski

It's not like [the album's protagonist] is a fictional character, but I noticed a personality in me that was very obsessed with control and feeling like I have power — because I am powerless and don't have a lot of control. So I kind of investigated that person in me. What is the exaggerated form? Well, it's a woman who's incredibly controlled, severe, and austere. But maybe there's some kind of deep desire or emotion that's whirling around in her and trying to get out. Maybe she's losing control.

I was always bothered when people say, 'I cry to your music, it sounds like a diary, it sounds so personal,'…Yes, it is personal. But that's so gendered. There's no feeling of, 'Oh, maybe she's a songwriter and she wrote this as a piece of art.'

…this song is quite autobiographical because I didn't grow up in the U.S. I am half Japanese, and it came from wanting to just fit into this very American person's life and simply not being able to. Just fundamentally being from a different place and feeling like I would just get in the way of their progression if their life, because I could just never get to wherever they're naturally going.