Working for the Knife

Following the release of her critically acclaimed fifth studio album Be the Cowboy in 2018, Mitski announced in September 2019 that her performance in Central Park (with opening act Lucy Dacus) would be her "last show indefinitely", but that she would not be quitting music. She subsequently took down all of her social media accounts. On October 4, 2021, her management posted teasers of a new song on social media, announcing that it would be released the following day. It 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 and Europe. ==Composition==

"Working for the Knife" was written by Mitski and produced by Patrick Hyland, whom she has collaborated on every album since Bury Me at Makeout Creek. At around two and a half minutes long, it is a "bleary" and "dark" electro-industrial, synth-pop, glam rock, and dream pop song with elements of Americana, shoegaze, country, and folk. a syncopated beat, Rolling Stones 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". The Faders Jordan Darville called the song "a welcome return for Mitski's brand of ennui, compact and literary like a good short story". Vogues Emma Specter stated that the song "definitely capture[s] some of the surreality and loneliness that so many of us have felt" during the pandemic, also writing that it "combines [Mitski's] signature mix of lyrical alienation and hope". 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 Stones 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". Rankings ==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. Synopsis The video begins with a dark, shaky camera shot of Mitski and the sound of heels on concrete. She then enters The Egg on an elevator, wearing a black leather trench coat and a cowboy hat, before taking the hat and trench coat off, underneath which she is wearing a blue silk outfit. She then wanders around the venue alone and does a modern dance routine, which includes her licking a staircase and making exaggerated facial expressions. At the end of the video, after the song ends, Mitski goes on stage and collapses, then thrashes and dances around on stage to an empty crowd in a routine inspired by butoh, at first set to simulated applause and then to silence. The Faders Jordan Darville compared the video to that of Fatboy Slim's song "Weapon of Choice", but writing that it had "more emotional depth". Kate Brayden of Hot Press described the video as "gritty and beautifully intense", and wrote that Mitski's "dedication to both sonic and physical presentation is on full display". Under the Radars Mark Redfern called the video "dramatic". ==Charts==