Album Anniversaries: Mitski Updates LinkedIn Profile - ‘Retired from Sad, New Career in Business’

On its 10th anniversary, Retired from Sad, New Career in Business and its central themes of self-discovery, maturity, and fear of the unknown are just as relevant as they were a decade ago. 

Written by Sydney Meier

Photo courtesy of “Square” Music Video by Mitsuki Laycock

Content Warning: Brief discussion of eating disorders 

Mitski’s sophomore album, Retired from Sad, New Career in Business, is a self-released project that debuted in the summer of 2013. While attending State University of New York (SUNY) at Purchase, this album became her senior project. The class project turned album features SUNY's exceptionally talented 60-piece student orchestra. The album cover features a drag performer named Pixel, who went to the same college. When creating this record, Mitski was readying up for a supposedly futile career in the arts which is heavily echoed through songs like “Class of 2013” and “Because Dreaming Costs Money, My Dear.” Retired from Sad explores the impending doom of finding a stable career in the arts. It’s a reflective voyage on just how much someone can change over four years.

Photo courtesy of Jade Greene

The album begins with a sequence of songs about Mitski’s various relationships across her college years. “Goodbye, My Danish Sweetheart” revolves around Mitski being the toxic element of her relationship with a person whose purity suffocated her. In contrast, “Humpty” and “Square” examine the other side of the same coin. In these sorrowful tracks, her partner is now the root of toxicity, and Mitski expresses a specific desperation for a person that will never love her how she wants..

“Goodbye, My Danish Sweetheart” was the catalyst for Mitski’s self-contemplative pilgrimage. She glimpses back at her behavior within a relationship, declaring, “There’s nobody better than you.”This is accompanied by folk-like instrumentals. She’s idolizing who her partner was in this relationship, but her partner recognizes Mitski’s toxic, self-destructive behaviors. She vocalizes, “There’s some kind of burning inside me… / I’m sure that you’ve seen what it’s done to my heart.” However, she is unwilling to give up these bad habits because they have “kept [her] from falling apart.” Mitski wishes her former partner well and hopes they don’t remember her for the woman she was. Ultimately, a partner — platonic or romantic — cannot force someone to change or better themselves, but will wait until they realize their efforts are entirely futile.

“Humpty” details a relationship as fragile as the fairytale egg. The audience is ushered in by bare piano notes as Mitski shakily (yet with a sense of assurance) proclaims, “I’ll live in the bathtub / It’s cool and clean / It’s smooth and it’s steady / It’s all that I need.” Mitski is becoming more and more anxious as she keeps trying to pick up the fragments of her relationship, but her partner keeps breaking what she puts back together. At this point, the song begins to crescendo. The instruments coat over one another with the addition of string instruments and percussion as she frantically pleads, “All the eggshells are on the ground / And I try, I’m trying to pick them up.” As her mind quiets, so do the vocals and the instrumentals. She makes a final cry to her partner: “Humpty Dumpty, it’s much too much.”

“Square,” the second song on Retired from Sad, delves into the feeling of falling in love with someone who will never want a relationship with you. This song utilizes the SUNY Purchase student orchestra horns the most throughout the album in the terms of crescendo and decrescendo. As the verses progress, the instrumental layering begins with horns, then woodwinds, a xylophone, and, finally, string instruments. Mitski notices how neat her love interest’s “square” room is as “everything had its own place,” so she questions where she will fit into his perfect life as an imperfect person. Her fantasy continues to build along with the instrumental swelling of string apparatus. However, Mitski realizes, “Oh no that's my ride” as her fantasy through the fourth verse has dissipated and reality takes control. Mitski ends the song as she comes to terms with the foolishness of hope, reciting, “Silly me waiting.”

Photo courtesy of “Class of 2013” Music Video by Mitsuki Laycock

Retired from Sad begins to close its curtains while the impending doom of an unknown future comes crashing down onto the listener with “Class of 2013.” The brief finale is an anguished plea to not be forced into the unknown world of true adulthood. Mitski clings to a childhood that lacks responsibility.She calls upon her mother breathlessly, “Mom, I’m tired / Can I sleep in your house tonight?” As college graduation is coming near, Mitski feels the impending doom of a career in the arts. She begs her mother to be there if she fails. She promises to “leave once [she] figure[s] out / How to pay for [her] own life too,” telling her mother she will not become a burden.However, this confidence does not persist as Mitski’s vocals swell to a shout and playful piano notes loom over her misery. She cries, “Mom, would you wash my back? / This once, and then we can forget / And I’ll leave what I’m chasing / For the other girls to pursue.” Mitski questions the permanence of adulthood with her lyrical longings for parental love.

Each of these sagas molded Mitski’s collegiate journey and culminated in her graduation with the SUNY Purchase class of 2013. 10 years later, the utter heartbreak and fear undergone by college students through these short yet impactful four years will be reminisced upon as they face an approaching graduation date. Listeners facing an upcoming dive into adulthood this semester should tune into Mitski’s Retired From Sad for a painful yet nostalgic listen.