‘Be the Cowboy’ follows a single protagonist, who Mitski told The Outline “This protagonist is a person who’s in me. It’s just I’m not this person all the time. It’s this woman who feels powerless and overcompensates by exercising extreme control on herself and on her environment, and just trying to be powerful within her own the limits of her body and who she is, but kind of just unravelling a little bit because the amount of control she’s exercising on to herself maybe isn’t healthy or isn’t natural. There’s something more warm and human inside that she’s pushing down in order to appear strong to the world.”

The singer-songwriter, will play her largest UK shows to date as part of the string of UK and European tour dates, including a massive London show at Shepherd’s Bush Empire. She is set to begin the UK part of her tour in Manchester on the 19th of September and will conclude the UK part of her tour on the 26th of September in London.

“I will neglect everything else, including me as a person, just to get to keep making music. And even if it actually sometimes hurts, it doesn’t matter as long as I get to be a musician,” Mitski says, speaking to Pitchfork about the album’s themes.

19/09/2018 – Manchester Gorilla – Manchester
20/09 – Saint Luke’s – Glasgow
22/09 – Tivoli Theatre – Dublin
24/09 – Brudnell Social Club – Leeds
25/09 – Trinity Arts Centre – Bristol
26/09 – O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire – London
28/09 – La Marquinerie – Paris
29/09 – TRIX – Antwerp
01/10 – Gebäude 9 – Cologne
02/10 – Paradiso Noord (Tolhuistuin) – Amsterdam
04/10 – Musik & Frieden – Berlin
05/10 – Vega – Vesterbro
06/10 – Uebel & Gefährlich – Hamburg