Me: It even gets a bit math-rock at one point. Me: There are quite a few more riffs on this album.Īnnie Clark. Meanwhile, as I quiz away, it's quickly evident that some of these references/influences aren't there at all. Some references, like the Marilyn paraphrase, are consciously there, whilst others slid in under her radar. These inspirations hang in the air and, as we talk, they're as interspersed in the conversation as much as they are in her songs. As she talks, it's clear that she’s the sum of her extensive reading (which is hardly surprising as her nom-de-plume is a reference to Saint Vincent's Catholic Medical Center where the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas died), black'n'white movies and Disney cartoons, as well as high art and low-slung guitars. It’s not that Annie Clark doesn’t completely understand creativity, quite the opposite in fact, because she on a quest to find the source of the many things in life she's fascinated by. There are no obvious and definable bridges between her muses and what she creates, records, releases, and then tours. And by doing so, and having the opportunity to mention this detail, she reveals a clue about the song's intention and a little about herself, and perhaps offers us a small clue as to what's in Strange Mercy's secret sauce.Īs I probe, it's clear there’s no recipe anyone could follow to create Strange Mercy. Monroe but the way in which Annie re-interprets it, contrasting the visceral imagery by singing it with a soaring sweetness. What's devastating about it, isn't the genesis of it in the mind of Ms. The paraphrased Marilyn-ism becomes a sweetly sung request to "come cut me open", and it makes for one hell of a chorus. She wrote 'best find a surgeon Lee Strasbourg, please cut me open.' That’s such a sentiment that resonates with me, and Marilyn was such a bright and intuitive person – she gets penned as this ditzy blonde or something, but she’s quite the opposite." This line rears its head in the song 'Surgeon' (embedded below). Before she pulled her iPad out to look for that elusive quote, Clark mentioned that she "was reading Marilyn Monroe’s diary, and Marilyn wrote about working with Lee Strasbourg at the Actors’ Studio. Talk of what will be left when the apocalypse arrives stemmed from a response to a question about whether she uses a form of organized idea association or a more meditative Burroughsian stream-of-conciousness approach when penning her lyrics. Getting lost in grand ideas whilst riffing off quotes is probably as close as it gets understanding how Annie Clark's elegant songs germinate and evolve. I mean, we like to think of ourselves as the centre of the universe.hang on, what was your question?” Then she continues, correcting herself “.the species of life that will see our sun die out will be as distantly related to us as amoeba. She begins paraphrasing “the creatures.” but she quickly trails off. "It was quite recent but maybe it was in The Atlantic or another journal." she says defeatedly, then lets out a barely audible sigh. ![]() ![]() ![]() Vincent is sat opposite me searching for a quote but it seems she can’t find the New Yorker article she's looking for. I went on to infuse that into the No Mercy sound.Annie Clark aka St. “At the time, I was hanging out with the Gipsy Kings before they really exploded on the scene and they showed me all these guitar techniques. “I first met Frank in Miami in 1992 before the band started and back then I was a big fan of the Spanish guitar,” Cintron recalls. This was thanks to Cintron, whose parents migrated to the US from Cuba, being an accomplished flamenco guitar player. Where La Bouche and Le Click anthems Sweet Dreams and Call Me subscribed to Farian’s vision of layering soulful vocals over tightly coiled dance beats and surging synths, No Mercy was where the maestro recorded his most organic sounds. In what remains one of the most ruthless acts in pop music, Farian chose to publicly out the duo, made up of performers and professional dancers Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus, as lip synchers – thus ending the group in scandal – rather than give in to demands for them to sing on future albums.Ĭintron’s contributions to the series will focus on the next phase of Farian’s career, when he helped lead the 1990s Europop scene by creating and producing hit groups such as La Bouche, Le Click, Eruption and No Mercy. While such a move proved relatively successful for the performing artists, it wasn't so for Milli Vanilli.
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