FEATURE:
Groovelines
St. Vincent – Digital Witness
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IT is time to focus once more…
on the brilliant St. Vincent (Annie Clark). One of my favourite songs from her turns ten next year. I remember when Digital Witness came out in 2014. It was the second single from her acclaimed and wonderful eponymous album of 2014. Following the release of Birth in Reverse in December 2013, that song made it to the B-side of Digital Witness (on the Triangular 7" release). A chart success in the U.K. and U.S. – though it deserved to go top ten in both but did not -, St. Vincent is a wonderfully strong and interesting album. Digital Witness is arguably one of the most urgent and catchy songs from the album. St. Vincent could have put that song up top and lead with this gem. Instead, it appears as track number five – between Huey Newton and I Prefer Your Love. I think it is a smart move putting it in the middle of the album, as you the tracks are brilliant sequenced to create maximum impact and longevity. The album, as a result, linger long in the mind. Produced by John Congleton, and with a stunning video shot in Madrid and directed by Chino Moya, I recall watching it when it came out and being mesmerised by the colours and storyline. It is a wonderful piece of work that is one of the best videos of the 2010s in my view. I wanted to dig into the song for another reason. On 28th September, the incomparable Annie Clark celebrates her birthday. I was keen to salute her by spending time with one of her most adored and finest tracks. Digital Witness is a jewel from one of the music world’s most incredible and original songwriters.
With lyrics that deal with dependence on social media, it is a song that was very relevant back in 2014. I think it has taken on new and stronger meaning nine years later. Perhaps more of a warning back then, Digital Witness sounds like this prescient anthem from the past. Because of that, Digital Witness will never sound dated or lose any of its impact and gravitas! I am going to come to a feature about the song in a minute. If you have not heard the St. Vincent album, then you really should. Her latest album, 2021’s Daddy's Home is among her best. I wonder whether we will be teased new music from St. Vincent very soon. That would be awesome. Referencing Wikipedia, here are a selection of critical takeaways for the sublime and emphatic Digital Witness:
"Digital Witness" received positive attention from music critics. Cady Drell, in a review for Rolling Stone, gave the song 3.5 out of 5 stars, calling it "the sound of an art-pop weirdo throwing a curveball by playing it delightfully straight". Heather Phares, in an Allmusic review of St. Vincent, cited "Digital Witness" as an example of Clark's "razor-sharp wit". The track is designated as an Allmusic "pick". It placed 14th on The Village Voice's 2014 Pazz & Jop critics' poll”.
There was a lot of excitement and buzz around Digital Witness upon its release. I will finish with a couple of track reviews. I want to move on to an article from American Songwriter. They asked what the song was about. Is it really about social media?!
“Released as a single in the first week of 2014, “Digital Witness” was written by Annie Clark, AKA St. Vincent as a commentary on the impact of social media on our present lives. It was triggered, she said, by the new widespread dependence of people on the instant judgment of “a million digital eyes, validating our experience.”
It was the second single from her fourth album, St. Vincent. She performed it on “Saturday Night Live” on May 17, 2014, the last show of their 39th season.
The record was produced and engineered by John Congleton. Annie plays the guitars and bass, Homer Steinweiss of the Dap-Kings is on drums, and percussionist McKenzie Smith of Midlake plays percussion.
The only other musician on the track is the late great sax player Ralph Carney, who died in 2017. Famous for playing sax and more with Tom Waits, he also played with The Black Keys (Patrick Carney is his nephew), Elvis Costello, on many of Hal Willner’s great tribute albums.
That raw resonance of the horns on this track comes from his self-contained horn section, anchored by the dark reedy timbre of his big, low baritone sax, a sound Waits also peppered throughout many of his own records.
The horns play a percussive part on the track, which Annie knew was needed. “I knew the groove needed to be paramount,” she said. “I wanted to make a party record you could play at a funeral.”
“Digital Witness“
By St. Vincent
Get back, to your seat
Get back, gnashing teeth
Ooh, I want all of your mind
People turn the TV on, it looks just like a window, yeah
People turn the TV on, it looks just like a window, yeah
Digital witnesses, what’s the point of even sleeping?
If I can’t show it, if you can’t see me
What’s the point of doing anything?
This is no time for confessing
I want all of your mind
People turn the TV on, it looks just like a window, yeah
People turn the TV on, it looks just like a window, yeah
Digital witnesses, what’s the point of even sleeping?
If I can’t show it, if you can’t see me
Watch me jump right off the London Bridge
This is no time for confessing
People turn the TV on and throw it out the window, yeah
Get back to your stare
I care, but I don’t care
Oh oh, I, I want all of your mind
Give me all of your mind
I want all of your mind
Give me all of it
Digital witnesses, what’s the point of even sleeping?
If I can’t show it, if you can’t see me
What’s the point of doing anything?
What’s the point of even sleeping?
So I stopped sleeping, yeah I stopped sleeping
Won’t somebody sell me back to me?”
There was a lot of media intrigue around Digital Witness when it came out. Various sources trying to understand and picture the lyrics before the video came out. This is what The Guardian noted about St. Vincent’s horn-blast, propulsive single in 2014:
“St Vincent, aka Annie Clark, has described her self-titled fourth album – her first since 2012's well-received collaboration with David Byrne, Love This Giant – as "a party record you could play at a funeral." On December's brilliantly unhinged Birth In Reverse – the first song to emerge from the album - this sense of upbeat melancholy is also infused with a comical sense of the mundane, Clark detailing her morning routine of taking the rubbish out and masturbating. Yesterday a new song emerged in the shape of the squelchy Digital Witness, lead by its horn-augmented hook "What's the point of doing anything?" That's not to say that it's a 'woe is me' boreathon, however – Clark's innate feel for the oddly unsettling ripples through the song's myriad different sections, including a bit midway through where it all goes a bit Prince. While there isn't a video for the song as yet, you can listen to it while staring at the holding image which is definitely moving, isn't it? It's not just me going mad?”.
In January, 2014, Pitchfork shared their thoughts about a song that is as widely played as any other St. Vincent cut. Digital Witness has definitely endured and taken on this impressive legacy. An instantly recognisable thing of wonder from the dazzling and genius St. Vincent:
“St. Vincent and David Byrne’s Love This Giant, a labored-over if uneven album, had a track called "I Should Watch TV”. Naturally, the the song was ironic, with Byrne half-embracing, half-disdaining the “weird things” the “common people” share over a track like the music from five TV Guide Channel segments at once. “Digital Witness”, the second track from Annie Clark’s upcoming fourth album, has more than a little in common with that song, both in sound—it’s built on a funky beat (the album’s percussion roster includes the Dap-Kings’ Homer Steinweiss) and squelchy, synth-boosted brass riff, like the Bee Gees through an old Sound Blaster card —and in message.
The title’s suggestive of a number of things—a bout of testifying, a bit of FOMO-pop?—and Clark has fun with the ambiguities, calling, “Get back to your seats!” before she races through blithe, tweet-sized exhortations on viral culture, surveillance (in an odd bit of synchronicity, Digital Witness is an actual surveillance brand), mindshare, and oversharing. It’s as celebratory as it’s cautionary, relentlessly likable (and Like-able) even as it’s acerbic”.
I guess the whole of the St. Vincent album was embracing a digital age. More from the minds and mouths of robots and machines than something totally organic. That said, songs like Digital Witness sound inorganic whilst also being quite machine-led and with a technological strut. This amazing song is one of my favourites from the 2010s. It is ten next year, so I wanted to mark that. Annie Clark celebrates her birthday on 28th September, so that was all I needed to get down to spotlighting…
A wonderful piece of music.