Music video
Production
For the song's accompanying music video, Friedberger drew inspiration from a humorous fifteen-year-old VHS tape her friend Beth Lieberman found from when the two were students at the University of Texas. [19] [34] Friedberger had appeared in the video for Lieberman's art-class assignment. She decided, for the "My Mistakes" video, to use some of the scenes from the VHS, deciding that "it fit the tone of the song perfectly." [19] [34]
At the suggestion of Britt Daniel, frontman of rock group Spoon and a classmate of Friedberger's at UT who also appeared in the old video, she also included new footage, filmed in her Brooklyn apartment, of her doing the same things as in the old footage. [19] [35] She remarked that the alternation between old and new in the video matched the song's lyric, telling The Quietus that "I thought it was fun to go back and forth in time like that, which is what's happening in the song too." [34] Another friend of Friedberger's, Sara Magenheimer, shot the modern footage for the music video. [34] [36] She also noted that she still owned many of the items — such as a Greek tourism poster and a dress — that appeared in the old video, allowing her to show them both in the new and old footage. [19] [34] She quipped that her still being able to fit into the old dress was "from doing all those sit-ups". [19] Friedberger stated that the hardest part of filming the video was deciding how to end it. [34] She and Magenheimer initially considered ending it with the date for which she's been preparing, but she ultimately decided on another conclusion. [34] In an interview with Vogue , Friedberger remarked that the video "might have been trying to make some feminist statement, but it’s supposed to be a little bit of a joke." [37]
Synopsis
The video depicts Friedberger preparing for a date, chatting on the phone, doing sit-ups, shaving her legs, and playing a vinyl record, alternating between footage of her doing those things at age 19 and now. [19] [21] The old footage also shows her on the date, making out with Daniel. [19] Rather than recreate the scene with Daniel, she opted to close out the video with a scene in which she plays an acoustic guitar while sitting on a stoop "full of the sort of odd neighborhood characters she likes to sing about". She elaborated that she opted to finish it in that fashion because she wanted to show that "I do learn from my mistakes and choose something new, which is music. It's corny, but I like the sentiment." [21] [34]
Release and reception
The music video for "My Mistakes" premiered on Pitchfork on June 14, 2011. [21] [22] The Village Voice observed that initially, the video appears to be "a cautionary tale about how not much has changed for women since the era of VHS fuzz-outs" before turning out to be "sort of a sweet love letter to her relationship with music, and the fine art of eating on a New York City stoop on a summer day." [38] Consequence of Sound interpreted one of the video's themes as being that people's "daily routines remain constant" despite technological and lifestyle developments since the 1990s. [39] Rolling Stone commended the video's concept as a "clever idea". [35]
Paste noted that the video had been "making its internet rounds" in the month leading up to the album's release. [10] Some viewers didn't recognize Friedberger in the old footage; in a 2011 interview with The Quietus , Friedberger noted that "People have been asking me who the other girl is." [34]
