My Mistakes (Eleanor Friedberger song)

The song's lyrics move back and forth in time, as Friedberger reflects on emotional and physical pains past and present, while the production features a two-chord guitar, keyboards, and a saxophone solo.

It became a top 40 hit on the Billboard Mexico Ingles Airplay chart, where it spent five nonconsecutive weeks and peaked at number 36.

[6] In May 2011, following a performance at the Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona, The Fiery Furnaces announced that they were going on hiatus and would be pursuing solo recording projects.

[8] For the entirety of the song, its guitar consists of a two-chord pattern, with a bass coming in around the thirty-second mark and keyboards setting the chorus apart.

[9] The end of the song features a saxophone solo that one critic described as "jazz fusiony" and which was deemed by another to have a "cheerfully untrendy retro vibe".

[15] A record review by John Murphy for MusicOMH observed that the lyric is ambiguous, such that it "could be about anything from crashing on a bridge to time travel".

"[19] The lyric was also noted for its catchiness, while Friedberger's "distinct sing-speak style" was compared to a combination of Patti Smith and a child's imitation of a British accent.

[14][16][23][24] Pitchfork's Lindsay Zoladz reviewed the single favorably, commending Friedberger for "striking the perfect balance between wistfulness and whimsy" and opining that by the saxophone solo, "it's hard not to be swept along by the track's carefree vibe".

"[25] In his review of Last Summer, Murphy praised the song's selection as the record's opening track, calling it "a perfect introduction to the album" that "kicks (it) off… beautifully", as well as describing it as "bright, sunny, catchy but with a weird edge to it that makes for a compelling listen".

[33] 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.

"[37] 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.

[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.