‘Daddy’s Home’: The true crime saga behind St Vincent’s album
The term “fearlessness” gets banded around far too wilfully in the music world. A mere shred of creativity is labelled as fearless and as such, does a disservice to the likes of a David Bowie or a Bjork who helped establish that idea. But of all the contemporary artists who can confidently carry their torch, St Vincent, otherwise known as Annie Clark, is undoubtedly one.
Her case for such a title is based on two counts. Firstly, she’s a proponent of avant-garde rock and has wrestled free from any reductive label the industry tries to put on her. Her very act of being avant-garde exists in more than just twangy riffs and art-rock percussion techniques. Her lyrical takes are deeply confessional and achingly vulnerable, yet with a sense of profound universality that allows fans to interpret them subjectively without the influence of the very honest stories she tells.
“For a long time, I think I didn’t want to talk too much about what the songs were personally about for me, because it felt like it was a little selfish to push all that into the way that somebody was interpreting or enjoying the song. It felt like micro-managing their experience” she once said, in regards to the lyrical interpretation of her own music.
But one of her songs has undoubtedly bucked that trend, given its hyper-specific inspiration. On her 2021 album Daddy’s Home, the title track references a very real situation in her life. In 2010, Clark’s father, Richard was convicted on one count of conspiracy, seven counts of wire fraud, five counts of securities fraud, and one count of money laundering. He was subsequently sentenced to 12 years in prison but was released in 2019, two years ahead of Clark’s album release.
It was an obviously personal situation for Clark to go through during the decade in which her career was beginning to become more successful. Predictably, the latter point brought this already bruising family episode to public attention when media outlets began sharing the story of Clark’s father when her star began to rise.
With the narrative firmly removed from her own grasp, Clark went into somewhat of a tailspin. During her Stange Mercy tour, it was reported that she flayed her own skin in a bid to externalise the pain suffered by her father’s incarceration. Trying to grapple family demons while remaining razor sharp in your own artistry is no easy feat, and with the narrative seemingly slipping from her own control, Clark instead confronted the issue by using her 2021 album as a centrepiece.
“I’m a lot like my dad,” she told The Guardian and, in turn, understood the artistic entry point through which she could confront a now highly publicised but still deeply personal issue. “We have a very similar sense of humour and a lot of similar interests.” But beneath that is something more existential that needed addressing, “Am I too destined for a road to ruin? Is there something cracked in me that will … am I going to live the Icarus fantasy, too?” An idea that culminates on the title track in the line, “Hell, where can you run when the outlaw’s inside you?”
With Daddy’s Home, Clark stared personal vulnerability in the face before snatching back her own autonomy. With courage, creativity and the all-important sense of fearlessness, she rehashed a much-publicised narrative to provide one of her finest works.
