I really like the vibe and retro sound of this modern hit song The Only Heartbreaker. It is Mitski’s most successful in the US reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Adult Alternative Airplay chart. Mitski is a Japanese-American singer-songwriter and has been recording and releasing music since 2012. For the recording she programmed synths and keyboards and her longtime producer Patrick Hyland played guitar and percussion. It’s a call-back to the exuberant synth-pop of the 1980s.
The song implicates herself in the inevitable unraveling of a toxic relationship. Mitski said that the song depicts “the person always messing up in the relationship, the designated Bad Guy who gets the blame It could simply be about that, but I also wanted to depict something sadder beneath the surface, that maybe the reason you’re always the one making mistakes is because you’re the only one trying.”
The track was co-written with Semisonic frontman Dan Wilson, marking the first time Mitski has ever teamed up with another songwriter. Dan Wilson has a long history of working with musicians like Adele, Taylor Swift, and the Chicks (back when they were going by Dixie). In a new interview with Apple Music, Mitski talked about that collaborative process:
This is the first song in my entire discography of however many albums I’ve made where I have a co-writer, and it’s because this song was this puzzle that I couldn’t solve. And I was just sitting on it forever. I have so many iterations of it. Nothing felt right. And right when I was stewing over it, I was actually in LA, doing co-write sessions for other artists. And we had this one day, or I had this one day with Dan Wilson. I had every intention to write for somebody else, but then I just sat down at his piano, and I was like, he’s one of the best, smartest songwriters in the world. Maybe he can help me with this song. And so I brought the song to him, and it turned out he’s really good. He helped me solve so many of the problems and kind of lead me out of the labyrinth of it. And yeah, I’m really glad that I took that chance with him.
The official video below shows Mitski dancing through a forest and reeling in despair as she realizes that she’s unintentionally killing everything she comes into contact with. Personally, I much prefer to enjoy the song as an audio stand-alone, as I often find that these image-saturated, heavily produced videos can distract from the pure listening experience and hinder full immersion in the music.
Interestingly, the former US president Barack Obama included The Only Heartbreaker in his list of top songs of 2021.
[Verse 1]
If you would just make one mistake
What a relief that would be
But I think for as long as we’re together
I’ll be the only heartbreaker
[Chorus]
I’ll be the only heartbreaker
I’ll be the only heartbreaker
[Verse 2]
So I’ll be the loser in this game
I’ll be the bad guy in the play
I’ll be the water main that’s burst and flooding
You’ll be by the window, only watching
[Bridge]
(I apologize)
(You forgive me)
(I apologize)
(You forgive me)
References:
1. The Only Heartbreaker – Wikipedia
“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.”- Michel Legrand
Observation Blogger 
Ironically, I like the video more than the song, though given it’s heavy content, I can see your point that it can become a distraction. The song itself is kind of catchy, though I have a complicated relationship with synth pop. Sometimes I like it, e.g., Eurythmics (mostly because of Annie Lennox’s vocals), other times I feel more lukewarm about it. With all that said, it’s nice reading about a music artist of Japanese heritage – not something you see every day.
So we beg to differ on the song. 95% of the time I much prefer to hear the audio as a stand alone than view it in video form. Sometimes I like Synth Pop too, Eurythmics not so much. Thanks for your thoughts as always friend. Cheers.