St. Vincent: A Note From Annie
Daddy’s Home has been out a whole year. I think “year” meant something different to me the last time I put out a record. A year was endless travel and tours and interviews and fat airline mileage accounts. A year was longer. A year was much, much shorter. A year into a record release was a little road-burned, a little manic, a little emotionally strung out, but I could sleep. But the global-event-that-shall-not-be-mentioned made me, like all of us, re-experience and reimagine time. When does something start? When does it end? I set out to make something that had a different kind of relationship to time. It “started” with my earliest memories of road trips, listening to Steely Dan, looking out the window of a car not suited for children, watching the man-of-war laden, oil-slicked beaches of North Padre Island, Texas blur by. “Here come those Santa Ana winds again….” I didn’t know what a Babylon sister was, but I sure sang along religiously with my sisters…” So fine so young…tell me I’m the only one…” and the gulf air blowing the smell of tar and Texas throughout a car playing a song unsuitable for children.
And I learned you can tell a real sad story with a smirk on your face.
So time moves in it’s typically-perceived direction and years later I write a song called, “Daddy’s Home.” And I’m thinking back to those Haitian divorces and that Dr Wu and that smell and time’s all circling back on itself.
And then I looked up one day and I’m Daddy now.
I don’t know how it happened. I swear I was just a kid. Time just happened to me.
“I wanna be loved” is the truest thing I ever sang. I could primal scream it until my throat bleeds. Say it to yourself enough and you’ll start to cry. But as much as that line is true, I wanna love, too. I really, really do.
“Candy Darling” was the last song I wrote for “Daddy’s Home.” I can’t explain it, but I felt like Candy was guiding me through writing it all, so it only made sense for me to send her home on that last uptown train with a bouquet of bodega roses. I had to leave her there. She had to leave me. She had a pressing engagement.
We are all sinners. I’m just so thankful you made a cameo. That you could ever forgive me.
And I learned things don’t have to make literal sense to mean everything.
Lots of love and all my gratitude,
Annie
DOWN AND OUT DOWNTOWN REBROADCAST
Tune in for a rebroadcast of ‘Down and Out Downtown’ to celebrate onMay 24th & 25th. Tickets available now.