In blues mythology, the musician Robert Johnson met the devil at a crossroads and sold his soul to him in exchange for increased guitar proficiency. On the left-field pop auteur Mitski’s song The Deal – from her most recent album, The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We – the song’s narrator goes on a similar midnight ramble.
Keen to be rid of her suffering soul, she offers it up to the night, asking for nothing in return. A bird unexpectedly appears – her liberated soul, though analyses may vary – who archly informs her: “Your pain is eased but you’ll never be free.” Mitski is just “a cage” without the bird singing in it. On the studio album, released last month, a cavalcade of drums and a storm of groaning strings bear witness to how dire this deal is.
