User:Benmite/Sandbox/Working for the Knife

"Working for the Knife" is a song by Japanese-American singer-songwriter Mitski. It was released on October 5, 2021 through Dead Oceans, making it her first major release since her fifth studio album Be the Cowboy in 2018. The song, a synth-heavy rock and electro-industrial song about "the knife", a metaphor for the expectations placed on Mitski, was written by Mitski and produced by her longtime collaborator Patrick Hyland. The song's Zia Anger-directed music video shows Mitski wandering around The Egg in Albany, New York before eventually dancing and writhing around on stage in silence.

Background and release
Following the release of her critically acclaimed fifth studio album Be the Cowboy in 2018, Mitski announced in September 2019 that she would be performing her "last show indefinitely" in Central Park with Lucy Dacus as an opener, but that she would not be quitting music, and she subsequently took down all of her social media accounts. During her hiatus, she was featured on Allie X's song "Save Your Love" from her 2020 album Cape God, contributed the song "Cop Car" to the soundtrack for the 2020 film The Turning, and was included on the soundtrack for the 2021 graphic novel This is Where We Fall. "Working for the Knife" was released on October 5, 2021 through Dead Oceans. Upon releasing the song, Mitski announced that she would be embarking on a 2022 tour throughout North America, the UK, and the EU.

Composition
"Working for the Knife" was written by Mitski and produced by Patrick Hyland, with whom she has collaborated on every album of hers since Bury Me at Makeout Creek. At two and a half minutes long, it is a "bleary" and "dark" rock and electro-industrial song with elements of Americana and shoegaze. Its "intricately textured" production is led by synths, a syncopated beat, and "clattering" percussion and also includes piano, a distorted electric guitar riff, acoustic guitar, and horns. In the song, Mitski uses "the knife" as a metaphor for the expectations placed on her, the inescapable systems that control her life, and the realities of modern life. She sings about feeling unfulfilled due to only working for "the knife" and struggling not to give up on her creative aspirations, and about getting older.

Scott Russell of Paste compared the song to "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)" by David Bowie. Tatiana Tenreyno of The A.V. Club wrote that "Working for the Knife" represented Mitski's "darker side" who wants listeners to listen instead of cry. Rolling Stone's Angie Martoccio considered the song a spiritual successor to Mitski's song "Blue Light" from Be the Cowboy, in which she sings, "Out there I'm a sharp knife/Are you that blue light?"

Critical reception
Marissa Lorusso of NPR called "Working for the Knife" a "powerful entry" into the canon of Mitski's "most compelling songs", and wrote that it was "impressive, but, frankly, unsurprising" that Mitski could "transform a song about feeling hollow and adrift...into something transfixing and staggeringly alive". Clash's Robin Murray called it a "fantastic return" for Mitski and "a work of supreme confidence". Writing for the New Statesman, Ellen Peirson-Hagger called it "a powerful, taut ballad that examines how it feels to live in a world that sucks the humanity out of you at every turn", and described her voice on the song as "rich" and "mesmerising". For Gigwise, Jessie Atkinson called it "grand and spectacularly produced", describing Mitski's vocals as "gorgeous" and her songwriting as "sad but smart". Tatiana Tenreyno of The A.V. Club remarked that, while the song's lyrics were simpler than her "lyrical gut-punches from throughout the years", they "tell so much", and called the song "terrific". Rolling Stone's Angie Martoccio wrote that Mitski was "sharper and wiser than ever" on the song, adding that it "arrives with the kind of energy that tosses you back in your scarlet theater seat and keeps you nervously eating popcorn".

Music video
The five-minute-long music video for "Working for the Knife" was directed by Zia Anger, with Ashley Connor as its director of photography. It was filmed in The Egg in Albany, New York. In it, Mitski, who enters the venue wearing a cowboy hat before taking it off, wanders around and dances alone in a blue silk outfit. At the end of the video, after the song ends, Mitski thrashes and dances around on stage to an empty crowd, at first set to simulated applause and then to silence. She also licks a staircase and makes exaggerated facial expressions.

Reception
NPR's Marissa Lorusso wrote that, in the video, Mitski's presence "is both startling and magnetic – particularly in the video's final minute". Rolling Stone's Angie Martoccio referred to the video as "a strangely compelling short film starring a reluctant performer returning to the spotlight".