St. Vincent brought her cover of David Bowie’s ‘Young Americans’ to The Late Show With Stephen Colbert this week – watch below.
The singer-songwriter – real name Annie Clark – appeared on the talk show on Wednesday night (December 17) as part of the programme’s ‘Under The Covers’ series, playing the 1975 classic with flamboyant rock’n’roll swagger.
Clark first played the track during her set at Love Rocks at New York’s Beacon Theatre in March 2023, and this time around, she switched the iconic “Do you remember President Nixon” line, invoking Joe Biden in Nixon’s place.
In an interview ahead of the performance, Clark was asked for three artists that she would like to hear covering her own music, and she named Erykah Badu, Doechii and The Slits.
Watch the footage of her performance here:
St. Vincent has often cited Bowie as a major influence on her work. In 2015, she spoke about how his aesthetic choices have impacted her, saying: “He had a myriad of aesthetics and was constantly changing – but it was always rooted in music. If David Bowie wasn’t a great songwriter, none of us would be here today, sitting and talking about authenticity as a guise.”
The same year, she was gifted a guitar signed by Bowie by her then-girlfriend Cara Delevingne, which she described as the “best gift ever in the entire world”, and she also included a Bowie song in a mixtape that she compiled for an 11-year-old fan.
In 2022, St. Vincent also created a remix of Bowie’s 1980 track ‘It’s No Game (No. 1)’ for an exclusive set of mixes for Peloton to mark the addition of Bowie’s catalogue to their equipment.
St. Vincent’s last album was 2024’s ‘All Born Screaming’, which won three Grammys and spawned a Spanish language re-recording, titled ‘Todos Nacen Gritando’.
In a four-star review, NME wrote: “On ‘The Power’s Out’, backed by a laconic bassline and aching slide guitar, she shrugs: “No-one can save us.” It’s the sound of acceptance that there are few happy endings, which is reflected on the sprawling title track. Here St. Vincent and fellow pop outsider Cate Le Bon dance through the album’s central conceit that we go out as we come in – kicking and screaming – so you might as well embrace the chaos. In ditching the artifice, Annie Clark has made her most generous and open statement yet.”
