Birth In Reverse

Album: St. Vincent (2014)
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Songfacts®:

  • This song is sung from the perspective of a curtain-twitching shut-in. It starts with the line, "Oh what an ordinary day. Take out the garbage, masturbate." St. Vincent's Annie Clark recalled to NME: "I played that for my best friend and he just laughed at me, like 'The only thing you wouldn't do is take out the garbage,'" she recalled. "That's true. I probably wouldn't."
  • The song title is taken from a Lorrie Moore short story, Which Is More Than I Can Say About Some People, from her 1998 collection Birds of America. It comes from a description of the floor plan of a Celtic passage grave, which Moore called a "birth in reverse."

    The final track on the St. Vincent album, "Severed Crossed Fingers," also takes inspiration from one of Lorrie Moore's short stories.
  • The video was directed by Willo Perron, whose company created the artwork for the album, which was the basis for the look. The concept is St. Vincent as a "near future cult leader."

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