Music Moment: St. Vincent, “Human Racing”

Some turbulence this week to start the year, which is not a thing I seek or enjoy. I’d like to find a cave to hide away for at least a hundred days, but all I can do is slog through. I will not be pulled by the current toward the drowning deep waters of self-pity and away from solid ground, self-improvement, and good spirits. Today this song, together with the support of my friends and family, is the sturdy field of underwater reeds that are keeping me in the shallows. Cling and inch along with me.

St. Vincent – Human Racing

Romeo, where’d you go?
It’s been years and still no sign
But I’m keeping hope alive

Juliet, how’ve you been?
You look like death
like you sure could use some rest
from this place

Still from Romeo and Juliet (Baz Luhrmann, 1996). Every time this scene begins I want to stop them.

Human racing
and the faces of people
who pound at your door
They’ll always want more
they’ll want more

Still from Romeo and Juliet (Baz Luhrmann, 1996)

Hummingbird, what’s the word?
Are you still your mothers child
or have you found yourself a flower?

Flower child, you’re still wild
Under a harvest moon
can we eat of all the fruits of our youth?

Tell the truth now
Your heart is a strange little orange to peel
What’s the deal?
What’s the deal?

Mary, dear, how you feel?
Are you lost without your lamb?
You know I think I understand

Little lamb, what’s your plan?
Greener pastures in the sky?
it’s a shame you want to die, know why,

Just to find
you’ve been blinded
to the greenest of pastures
they’re right here on Earth

For what it’s worth,
you’re not the first to break my heart

For what it’s worth,
you’re not the first to break my heart
you’re not the first to break my heart


For what it’s worth,
you’re not the first to break my heart

Thank god for the grace of my dear friendohs who help me keep whatever semblance of sanity I have, and I know that with their help and my own determination, I will only improve in my outlook.

Coco Rocha as a naïad in Numero, looking like the glorious intersection of Our Lady with Ophelia and Bollywood and the Llorona. One of my favorite pictures ever.

The good thing about nearness to the bottom is that it’s such a known factor. When you can kick your legs and your knees keep striking the sand, then you know which way is up and truly only better can follow.

I believe that I will surface. I don’t think that giving up is failing, it’s just that I’m not ready to let myself quit.

Music Moment: Amanda Palmer, Surprisingly More Thought-Provoking Than I Suspected

Well, dang, Amanda Palmer, I did not expect this entry to turn out like this when I began writing. I always thought you rated as talented and fun, but not always for me, but once I had to start pondering you, I began to wonder if it might be that you hit a little too close to home? So thanks?

Amanda Palmer – Runs in the Family

“With me, well, I’m well,
well, I mean, I’m in hell,
well, I still have my health,
at least that’s what they tell me.
If wellness is this,
what in hell’s name is sickness,
but business is business
and business runs in the family…”

Here is a link to the official video for this really excellent track from her LP Who Killed Amanda Palmer, available through Roadrunner Records and produced by Ben Folds (also the album art is by Neil Gaiman … because they are dating, which I cannot comprehend). I’m not crazy about the video, so I’m not embedding it here. I think her showy, fitful histrionics kind of rob the song of its natural jumpiness and make it almost less nerve-wracking.

Amanda began her career with the Dresden Dolls, about whom the wiki has this nugget to say which for me says it all:

The two describe their style as “Brechtian punk cabaret”, a phrase invented by Palmer because she was “terrified” that the press would invent a name that “would involve the word gothic.” The Dresden Dolls are part of an underground dark cabaret movement that started gaining momentum in the early 1990s.

Brecht, punk, cabaret — I find these to be overused words, I stigmatize them because they drip with deliberate intellect, I kind of sneer at them, okay? However, that’s hypocritical as hell because I used terms like “dark cabaret” yesterday in describing Annie. Or is it? I don’t know because the Dresden Dolls never struck the right notes for me personally. I found them too … pat in their spin, in their self-styling. I should have loved them, being a fan of weirdness and steampunk and tinkly music and frankly some also pretty dark shit, you know, wink wink SEXWISE, is what I mean! …

I realized these Music Moment posts tend to run really long because I like music way too much, and can’t bear to only give you half the story on someone I think is really special, so click here to keep reading about Amanda Palmer and my queer little problems with her.

Music Moment: Annie Clark aka “St. Vincent”

Annie Clark is a singer-songwriter who goes by the stage name of St. Vincent. Her first album, Marry Me, came out in 2007 and got her massive attention from peers and critics. Justly, I think. It’s very well-written and performed, but her follow-up, Actor, is the one that really blows me away. So I’m putting up tracks from both and encouraging you to buy both.

St. Vincent – What, Me, Worry?

“What, Me, Worry?” is probably my favorite song by her. It comes off of her first LP, Marry Me, which, like Actor, is available for purchase directly from her label, Beggars Group, in like, every format of music-listening known to man. (Okay, not eight-track. No one is PERFECT.) This song, like a lot of her work, starts out deceptively gamine and light-hearted, then transitions, taking a sudden dip into much deeper, more solemn and world-wise territory. She reminds me of Edith Piaf this way; always with these light and skippy chanteuses, there is this darker side, this sideshow act in a midnight cabaret lurking underneath the smile and the wink. The jazz hands can also be used for digging and scratching — sometimes even at your own face, you know?

Have I abused you, dear?
You have had it to here.
You say, “Love is just a blood match
to see who endures lash
after lash with panache.”

Here is a youtube video from Shoot the Player of her doing an improv quickie version of “What, Me, Worry?” in Sydney.

She knows the videographer it seems, and so she doesn’t really get down to business until around :50. So if you don’t want to hear a lot of “a and b” chitty chat where they will “c” us later, skip to that point.

I realized these Music Moment posts tend to run really long because I like music way too much, and can’t bear to only give you half the story on someone I think is really special, so click here to keep reading about Annie Clark aka “St. Vincent”.