Simplicity with heart: St. Vincent on the songwriter who “took all the good melodies”
Annie Clark knows what it means to live in urgency. Clark, who is perhaps better known as St. Vincent, filters authenticity into everything she does, most notably in her recent album All Born Screaming, which, if nothing else, was written to represent the fickle of life itself. “To live is to suffer, but the only reason to live is love, so let’s do it,” the pariah once said.
All Born Screaming might have been written more broadly about grief, but Clark understands the therapeutic appeal of letting it all out. “Let’s be dangerous and radical and do that because we don’t have any time to waste,” she told The Forty Five, knowing that urgency in music can be beautiful and considered without suffering an ounce of disjointed haste.
Clark’s incredibly skilled concoction of musical greatness doesn’t just come from her exceptional themes, however. She also knows what it means to have studied rock ‘n’ roll and understand the many different facets of the genre. When we mention rock music, it’s often followed by a relatively conservative view of what that means, but Clark does well to remember its true roots.
And this permeates her own music, too. Even if we were to focus solely on All Born Screaming, it’s clear that her influences span far and wide, touching the various corners of seemingly opposing subcategories like rhythm and blues, metal, folk, and 1950s rock ‘n’ roll. What’s even more impressive is that she masterfully weaves these elements together in a way that feels innovative and experimental despite the nostalgic roots of her inspirations.
One such strand is rockabilly, including artists like Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly—the latter of whom Clark once claimed “took all of the good melodies” mostly because they were “the best” and “had no fat on them, just straight to the heart”. Berry also impacted her style as she believed he “invented rock guitar” and “wrote riffs that really defined the sound of guitar for an entire generation”.
Describing Holly as someone who created straight-line melodies is completely spot on. His ability to craft even the most simplistic tunes impacted the realm of rock ‘n’ roll no end, an endearing achievement considering how the genre went on to value complexities and guitar-playing technicality.
However, Holly’s hooks weren’t just straightforward; they had an emotional range that contributed to his music becoming completely timeless, with song structures that many rock artists would emulate. It might not be the easiest venture to detect Holly’s influence in Clark’s music, but if you listen closely, he appears subtly, notably in Clark’s own rhythmic drive and self-reflective qualities.
There’s that familiar urgency, too. The kind that feels effortless to digest, even if you’re vaguely aware of something even grander at play.
