From a Late Start in Songwriting to “I Think I Lost a Day,” Miist Keeps Following the Unexpected

Photo credit: Elvis Yang

Miist’s career began with a moment she had intended to use as proof that she could not write music. At 34, after a friend repeatedly encouraged her to try composing, she sat at a piano with no formal songwriting background. She wrote three original songs that day and continued from there.

That origin story helps explain the openness of “I Think I Lost a Day,” her newest single and video. Miist has never built her music around a fixed genre or a single prescribed route. Her catalog has moved through ballads, dance music, pop, R&B, Latin-influenced arrangements, and collaborations with experienced producers and players.

The new track introduces another variation. Produced by MPG Breakthrough Producer of the Year Tayte Nickols and featuring Los Angeles band Familiar Faces, it has the casual propulsion of musicians enjoying the instability of the arrangement. Miist sings from the perspective of someone who has misplaced an entire day and is trying to determine how much that should concern her.

Her confusion is intentionally comic. She asks whether it was yesterday and wonders who moved her house and dog. The lyrics create the impression of a person whose surroundings have shifted while she was asleep, though the more likely explanation is that she has been moving too quickly to maintain any clear sense of time.

The video begins with Miist oversleeping before sending her out into Los Angeles. She rushes through a town shaped by 1970s clothing, styling, and attitudes. The period setting places her contemporary urgency in relief. She is trying to recover lost productivity, while everyone else appears occupied with the older and simpler business of hanging out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDXeU7qt_xM

Eventually, she accepts their invitation. The final sequence finds Miist joining the group, singing, and allowing herself to enjoy the day she had assumed was already ruined. It is a modest narrative turn, but it fits an artist whose larger body of work emphasizes small, available ways of reconnecting.

Miist’s unconventional entry into music has always been linked to that idea of possibility. Recordings of her early songs later reached producer Narada Michael Walden, leading to a collaboration that expanded her range and helped bring her music to listeners internationally. She went on to become the first native Chinese artist to enter Billboard’s Top 25 Pop/AC chart and developed projects released across numerous languages.

“I Think I Lost a Day” carries those larger achievements lightly. Its appeal comes from seeing Miist treat confusion as a source of play rather than evidence of failure. Years after discovering songwriting unexpectedly, she remains interested in what can happen when the planned route disappears and another one opens nearby.

Photo by Andrew Ficke