St Vincent, aka Annie Clark, is a right tease. Early last week the cryptic www.strangemercy.com went online, with the promise of a new song from Clark’s third album once #strangemercy had been tweeted enough to unlock the St Vincent-o-meter, offering creepy videos along the way. On Friday, tweeters finally hit the target, unleashing ‘Surgeon’. Download it from Abeano here.

I interviewed Annie last week for a feature for NME, where she explained that the chorus – “best finest surgeon, come cut me open” – is a quote from Marilyn Monroe’s autobiography, something she wrote about her mentor Lee Strasberg: “Best finest surgeon, Lee Strasberg, come cut me open.” Clark explained that she was struck by the strange syntax, as if the phrase had been uttered by someone to whom English was a second language. What strikes me most about this song is how Clark’s lyrical skill has developed since 2009′s ‘Actor’ (which I adore). There, she drew the white picket fences, the kids hiding under the bed, the awkwardness of community interaction; here she’s learned to paint with less explicit brushstrokes. The woozy background vocal surge at the start overwhelms like queasy summer heat, more Play It As It Lays than Revolutionary Road, or Grey Gardens just as the veneer starts to crack, where housewives’ brains are boiled with boredom and the heat-onset lack of physical ability. ”Wade in bed, a blue and red, a little something to get along get along get along” – she sings so casually, through dopey eyelids and a protective barbiturate forcefield, before the screaming guitar solo at the end gets driven to madness by the tightly looping, ululating guitar beneath.

I’m fascinated by depictions of American suburbia (if you haven’t, you must read this Ed Pilkington piece on Celebration, the town that Disney built that was recently shattered by a series of violent episodes), so seeing Clark, a Dallas native, lay her scene here again is thrilling indeed.

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Tags: St Vincent, Strange Mercy, Surgeon