“Your Best American Girl” is the lead single on Mitski’s 4th album, Puberty 2. The song represents the turmoil that one feels when they experience a relationship that brings them great joy, but also must come to terms with the fact that they are different from their new partner on a multitude of lev...
[Verse 1]
If I could, I'd be your little spoon
And kiss your fingers forevermore
But, big spoon, you have so much to do
And I have nothing ahead of me
[Verse 2]
You're the sun, you've never seen the night
But you hear its song from the morning birds
Well, I'm not the moon, I'm not even a star
But awake at night I'll be singing to the birds
[Pre-Chorus]
Don't wait for me, I can't come
[Chorus]
Your mother wouldn't approve of how my mother raised me
But I do, I think I do
And you're an all-American boy
I guess I couldn't help trying to be your best American girl
[Bridge]
You're the one
You're all I ever wanted
I think I'll regret this
[Chorus]
Your mother wouldn't approve of how my mother raised me
But I do, I finally do
And you're an all-American boy
I guess I couldn't help trying to be the best American girl
[Outro]
Your mother wouldn't approve of how my mother raised me
But I do, I think I do
Your Best American Girl was written by Mitski.
Your Best American Girl was produced by Patrick Hyland.
Mitski released Your Best American Girl on Tue Mar 01 2016.
In an interview to Song Exploder podcast, Mitski has said that she was in love with someone who came from a very different background as hers, and she felt like love couldn’t surpass that.
In 2018, NPR ranked this as the #16 greatest song by a female or nonbinary artist in the 21st century, saying:
One of Mitski’s rawest, most viscerally painful songs, ‘Your Best American Girl’ is about striving hopelessly to be what someone else wants. It begins tenderly, with mention of finger kiss...