“My Baby Wants a Baby” (2021) – St. Vincent * Written by Annie Clark * Album: Daddy’s Home * Label: Loma Vista
The “look at me” messages in St. Vincent’s cover art follow a fame arc. Album one (Marry Me, 2007) is the introductory entreaty, where she needs us to look her in the eyes. On album two (Actor, 2009), she needs us to keep looking, but she’s no longer obliged to meet our gaze. Albums three (Strange Mercy, 2011) and five (Masseducation, 2017) make do with St. Vincent body parts, while on album four (St. Vincent, 2014) she surveys us from a throne. Album six (Daddy’s Home, 2021) shows an altered, I-never-knew-ye Achtung Baby St. Vincent. She’s looking us in the eyes again but we don’t recognize her.
On this 2021 album she sings a song called “My Baby Wants a Baby” in which she wrestles with and rejects the notion of familial dependency and responsibility. (Her audience may perhaps feel a Freudian inclination to read themselves into this.) Has anyone noticed that she sings it to the chorus melody of Sheena Easton’s 1981 hit “9 to 5 (Morning Train)”? That hit single was an ode to the straight world, and a songwriting credit to Florrie Palmer might have given St. Vincent’s distaste for such subject matter even more winking clarity.