Mitski Pleads for Normalcy on New Single, “Where’s My Phone?”
Nearly three years after her seventh album, The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, Mitski has returned with the first single, “Where’s My Phone?” from her new album, Nothing’s About to Happen to Me.
Album cover for Mitski’s new album, Nothing’s About to Happen to Me.
“Where’s My Phone?” is a return to the sound of Mitski’s third and fourth albums, Bury Me at Makeout Creek and Puberty 2. She’s ditched the synths and softness of her latest albums for an almost grungier sound - coming back to the layers of guitar and drums of her earlier eras.
The song wastes no time setting up the tone of panic and anxiety, beginning with the chorus, where she laments losing her phone and asks the question that will eventually become a throughline for the song, “Where’d I go?”
On “Where’s My Phone?” Mitski has returned to singing about her own struggles with her identity, which were featured prominently in her earlier work. She’s left behind the loving and yearning from The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We for a crisis of identity.
Mitski sings of wanting to fit in desperately, wishing to be “a clear glass with nothing in my head.” The song, at its core, is about Mitski wishing to separate herself from her individuality and become this “normal” person who even censors her own thoughts of sex so as not to be perceived as deviant.
As the song progresses, Mitski sings, “I keep thinking ‘Surely, somebody will save me’ / At every turn, I learn that no one will.” It’s a gut-punch of a lyric that exemplifies that these struggles of identity are often an internal struggle that we must face alone.
The single is quintessentially Mitski, with it showcasing her talents of crafting these beautifully tragic metaphors that encapsulate these grand emotions and plights of existing in the modern-day world. Despite it being a return to Mitski’s earlier production elements, “Where’s My Phone?” still sounds unique and holds up on its own as not being too derivative of a sound. This isn’t Mitski simply copying herself; this is Mitski improving on her own work after nearly 10 years of something of a similar sound.
Mitski’s eighth album, Nothing’s About to Happen to Me, will be released on February 27th, 2026.
You can listen to “Where’s My Phone?” on your preferred music platform as well as watch the music video here. Mitski has also updated her online store with an assortment of new merch items and preorders of vinyls, CDs, and cassettes for Nothing’s About to Happen to Me.