Behind the Song: “The Mistake”

I’ve been asked more times than I can count if I “really did fuck Casey.”

I sure do love keeping people on their toes.

I started writing this song while walking down the street in Montreal. I was having a flashback to a conversation I had with my boyfriend at that time. He had told me that he hated when girls cut their bangs, so much so, that he couldn’t go out with anyone who had such a haircut. For some reason, that comment stuck with me.

As I was leaving work, the opening verse for the song popped into my head. I wrote it down in my phone’s notepad, humming it all the way to the metro station, before pulling off to a cranny in the sidewalk to call my mom and share the blurb with her.

When I got back to my apartment, I poured myself an anything-less-than-modest glass of white wine, and admittingly, I got a little drunk. “The Mistake” came seeping out. I couldn’t believe what I was writing– it was so angry, raunchy, and out of nowhere. I recorded a voice memo, and put the song away, confused by the intense emotion that I very rarely feel.

When it came time to record, I immediately remembered this song, but I was incredibly hesitant to bring it to fruition. I was scared to bring this one to Van, mostly because I was unsure of how the connotations of this song would be received by the people working on the record, and by the people who would eventually hear it. I mean, it drops the “F-bomb” within the first twenty seconds of the song.

I was so thrilled when Van told me that “we had to record this one.” Her biggest emphasis was that this track was honest, and that by sticking to the bluntness of the song, I was“as a woman in the world {…} not tip[ping] the scales into diminishing yourself in the process.”

The composition and production, of this song are unique. We recorded the vocals on an instrument mic, not a vocal mic. There’s a sort of vocal overdrive that makes this song sonically edgy. Van’s vocals combined with mine make for a frightening amount of angst, especially with our voices' contrasting warm and cool tones. The instrumentation makes it feel like the “hot mess” character that it is.

This song excites me, mostly because I don’t think anyone expected it. It’s uncensored, which makes it honest, even if it’s fictional, and that’s something Van and I believe very strongly in. It was beyond amusing for me to release it as the first single off the album because it is such a strong “stand-alone” character. And I– like I said earlier– really, really love keeping people on their toes.

Thank you for letting me be dishonestly honest, and for listening to my stories regardless of if they’re true or not.

With love,

P.S… More Behind the Song

Lyrics/Credits Liner Notes

Songs that feel like/remind me of “The Mistake”

A meme inspired by “The Mistake” created by Phil Newman