Meditations on Mazzy Star: Growing Up with So Tonight That I Might See

I listened to her sing that line more times than I could count in high school, picturing my best friends’ rooms and the light emanating from my own. There’s a profound empathy to it, a recognition of another that’s so clear-eyed and confident in a way I couldn’t imagine being at the time. It’s a confidence that’s echoed in “Unreflected,” where Sandoval warns against the mimicry that can lead to “a shortened, flattened soul”—“follow anybody, is that what you do?” Despite the anxiety that infamously wracked their live performances, Mazzy Star’s language is of sixth senses and intuition, of deep assuredness from within. Amid the turmoil that the album reckons with, the ultimate desire of So Tonight That I Might See is self-connection.

Lately much has been made of girlhood and the music that honors it, but Mazzy Star came long before our contemporary sanctification. There are no small problems on So Tonight That I Might See; instead, all are held with reverence and care. On “Mary in Silence,” the enigmatic central figure dances out of reach, devotionally-tinged and suggestively homoerotic. By “Into Dust,” desire turns to decay as a full-spun reckoning with mortality plays out over Roback’s cascading guitar. Youthful preoccupations are considered directly alongside these revelations of death and religion, but the pairings aren’t an attempt to assert that everyday daydreams are just as valid, or even that they need to be compared at all. Rather, they’re a serene acknowledgement that all are necessary threads in the making and revealing of a self.

Sandoval weaves these threads with dexterity on So Tonight That I Might See, while Roback’s instrumentation provides the loom. He draws upon the bluesy progressions of his earlier projects, but more confidently and playfully than on She Hangs Brightly, letting fuzz and atmosphere reign. On “She’s My Baby,” acoustics and electric guitars dance, paying homage to the band’s psychedelic roots while pushing into new territory. But Roback also knows when to scale back. So Tonight’s version of “Five String Serenade” by Arthur Lee of Love is a stripped-down take on the original, leading with a single plucked guitar in lieu of humming strings. Not only does this prevent the cover from buckling under the weight of the original, it allows Sandoval’s voice to take center stage, presenting the track as an intimate offering instead of a grand gesture. In my earliest listens to “Five String Serenade,” I felt its arpeggios giving voice to an achingly-teenage feeling: being overcome by just how much love you can give, and terrified by the desire to give it.

It’s interesting to consider So Tonight That I Might See in this coming-of-age light, knowing what eventually became of Mazzy Star on the heels of its success. The band had initially signed with Rough Trade, which folded abruptly in the same year as She Hangs Brightly’s release. Within weeks, they caught the attention of Capitol in the midst of the early-90s major label alt rock craze. So Tonight That I Might See came along in the fall of 1993, and its success unfurled over time, with “Fade Into You” emerging as a mainstream sleeper hit on the Billboard charts a year later and the whole album going platinum in 1995. Suddenly caught in the marketing machine, Mazzy Star felt suffocated. As Sandoval would later recount for the San Francisco Chronicle, “they had a formula. And suddenly all these people wanted to come to the studio to keep track of what we were doing and make sure we were following that formula. So we got out.” What could be more in the spirit of self-definition?

So Tonight That I Might See has had an enduring legacy since its release 30 years ago. “Fade Into You” has been used as a needle drop alone countless times, with a recent self-referential twist on the latest season of Yellowjackets. But the record’s imprint is also clear on the pop charts. It influenced the downtempo dreaming of Ultraviolence-era Lana Del Rey and the confessional ballads of SZA’s latest offering SOS. In the indie sphere, the record is a direct ancestor of the Tumblr-renowned Cigarettes After Sex; Sandoval’s drowsy alto echoes in Angel Olsen’s drawl; Hannah Jadagu’s guitar evokes Roback’s on her captivating 2023 debut Aperture.

For my own part, it’s an album that’s followed me around my entire life. I’ve listened to So Tonight That I Might See in the midst of blooming crushes and horrific breakups. It’s soundtracked my soul-searching and the still-novel dream of a future for myself and my friends. Even now, when I revisit it, I discover something new—a riff that surprises me; a turn of phrase that upends how I’ve previously seen a song. Lately, I’ve been drawn to the title track, a seven-minute evocation of The Doors and “All Tomorrow’s Parties.” Over droning guitars and a spiral of feedback, Sandoval performs an incantation, uplifting her intent through imagistic contradictions that spill forth like lyrical koans: “Let me hold you tight like rain. Sunshine on a rainy day.” This is the central contradiction of shadow work, the fallacy of communication itself. To achieve clarity, you have to first wade deep into mystery, then let it speak.

Annie Parnell is a writer, radio host and audio producer based in Richmond, Virginia. Her writing has appeared in The Virginia Literary Review, Pop Matters, The Boot and elsewhere. Annie can be found online @avparnell and avparnell.com.