Welcome to Low Impact, where I share my thoughts on one song and one skate video every other week.
Mitski, “Working for the Knife”
I cry at the start of every movie/ I guess ‘cause I wish I was making things too
Mitski shed her cowboy hat and returned to the stage on Tuesday, ending a two-year hiatus from public life with her new single, “Working for the Knife.” It’s the first song and video the beloved singer has released since she announced an indefinite break from touring and left social media in 2019, and her fans are overjoyed. But it doesn’t quite feel like a triumphant return.
Mitski sings about her leave of absence and the feelings that motivated it: rootlessness, creative block, the pain of relying on self-commodification, the horror of fame (I’m reminded of when Twitter turned on her because her dad had worked for the State Department — fellas, have you ever been canceled for being born?). And though the single comes with the announcement of a new tour and album, the Mitski we see on “Working for the Knife” is still struggling with those same feelings, with the distress of becoming a product and of her outlet becoming her job.
I always thought the choice was mine/ And I was right but I chose wrong
It begs the question: why did she return? Why continue working for the knife? Does Dead Oceans have her locked in an oppressive record deal? Unlikely — she just renewed her contract with the label in June. So perhaps she’s just bored of the alternative to working for the knife: toiling in obscurity.
I always knew the world moves on/ I just didn’t know it would go on without me
It’s tempting to imagine Mitski like a clove of garlic, crushed under the stainless blade of her professional obligations and shedding skin after skin in an attempt to remain whole. But this interpretation robs her of agency. Mitski, contrary to popular imagination, is not simply a confessionalist — she has experimented extensively with vignettes and stories not drawn from her own experience, especially on Be the Cowboy. She has also earnestly addressed her relationship with music as a passion and a profession, notably on “Geyser,” which she said took ten years to write.
So it feels lazy to treat “Working for the Knife” as a cry for help. More likely, Mitski recognizes that she is on both ends of the steel, pressed on the one side and pressing on the other, ready to “use this pain,” like she told Genius about her mega hit “Nobody,” “and exploit it for my money.” (This is not a sad story when she tells it — Mitski is laughing throughout her explanation.) Her choice to return to touring and releasing is proof enough that this is preferable to letting the world pass her by. And for that I am grateful.
Braydon Szafranski, “SZA”
Braydon Szafranski could be your supermodel, if you believe. Just kidding — this part has nothing to do with SZA the singer, and I wouldn’t be shocked to discover that Las Vegas’s favorite son actually has no idea who she is. Indeed, the past decade seems to have had little effect on ol’ bat face, who in 2021 is still getting clips in red skinny jeans and skating to Ozzy Osbourne. And this is something we should celebrate.
Who else, today, would release a video part with such an incredible array of hats? Without a single nollie trick? Who else, after landing their ender, would widen their eyes, raise the horns to the camera, and mimic flatulence? Nobody. Today’s be-Dunked and Big Boy’d skaters would be too busy pushing victoriously to nowhere or dissolving in a huddle of homie love.
But Szafranski, the Piss Drunx punk who dresses alternately like a Hell’s Angel and the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, is immune to such trends. Like most of his Baker Boy brethren, he has stopped drinking, but he still runs a sunglasses company called Happy Hour and advertises “unbreakable bongs” on his Instagram (weed, after all, saves lives). But whatever he is or is not consuming, it’s working for him. Let’s not overlook the fact that this guy rips.
We can forgive the 38-year-old Szafranski for a kickflip that side-steps the yellow pole it’s meant to clear and a combo reminiscent of the Fully Flared era. We can forgive him for doing a varial flip out of a back 5-0. And I don’t think there’s any need to fault him for late-flipping over Barcelona’s Besos bump-to-bar (on a board that appears to have the French flag on it?) at the song’s climax. Just take a look at the Jaakobian 360 flip noseslide from pad to pad, the shifty out of the first wheelie, pretty much every fakie manual. This is feel-good skating. Here’s hoping that modern styles never permeate the SZA’s colorful membrane, via Ozzmosis or otherwise.