“Last Words of a Shooting Star” is the closing track off of Mitski Miyawaki’s 2014 album titled Bury Me At Makeout Creek. It is backed only by a simple guitar line and an ambient background noise almost reminiscent of running water. Despite this, the song carries a heavy message about death and existential dread, which perfectly suits Mitski’s voice that infuses every word with a dark melancholy.
Mitski starts the song with the lyric “All of this turbulence wasn’t forecasted/ Apologies from the intercom,” which sets up an image of a plane that is going through a bout of turbulence. She then follows up this line with “And I am relieved that I’d left my room tidy/ They’ll think of me kindly when they come for my things,” implying that the plane is going to crash, and all the person can think about is how they are relieved that their room is going to be clean when they die. This lyric in particular focuses on the narrator’s emotional detachment about death, as they choose only to think about mundane things like a clean room and how people will think of them after death, all while their plane is crashing.
Her lyrics can also be viewed as a metaphor for someone’s downward spiral into depression (the “turbulence [that] wasn’t forecasted”) that ultimately leads to their suicide (the implied plane crash). This point is emphasized even more with the final lyric that simply states “Goodbye,” which is followed by a rapidly descending sound that can be interpreted as a metaphor to the person’s mental state.
Regardless of how we view the song, it is clear that “Last Words of a Shooting Star” is a beautiful, complex piece that can’t just be put in a box. Mitski’s exceptional talent with writing lyrics especially shines through with this piece, and even six years after its initial release, “Last Words of a Shooting Star” is just as emotional and relevant as it was in 2014.
i like to read about songs before i listen to them sometimes. i’m glad i did that with this song. i felt the interpretation of it being about suicide immediately. rlly hits home rn