The Void Is Back And Unblinking

St. Vincent “Hang On Me” (MassEducation Version)

There is a couplet in an old Loud Family song called “Screwed Over By Stylish Introverts” that I think about a lot. It goes:

“You let me know that calling just because I’m lonely is completely rude
You could work this into a lecture to the starving not to beg for food”

This comes to mind any time I feel lonely and miserable and desperate to communicate with someone else. I can think of very few times in my life when I would have felt this way about someone reaching out to me, but it’s what I worry about someone else thinking. Sometimes it’s irrational, but other times it’s not – you can be an imposition, a burden, a drain on empathy, and too dependent on other people’s emotional labor. You can just be a drag.

“Hang On Me,” the opening song on St. Vincent’s Masseducation and the closing song on its stripped-down counterpart MassEducation, is about reaching out to someone in a time of desperation. Annie Clark’s protagonist has some fear about disrupting the person she’s calling or asking for too much, but she’s not about to stop herself – she’s starving, and not too proud to beg for food. The MassEducation arrangement, just piano and vocal, is more effective in getting across the sentiment of the song. Clark’s voice sounds more fragile here, and there’s something in the ambiance of the track that reminds me of the way your eyes start to sting after you’ve been crying for a while. She sings “oh please don’t hang up yet,” and you feel that raw need for connection. Just under the surface of this song there’s a powerful dread – if I need you this much right now, what would I do without you? And if I’m too vulnerable now, will it turn you off to me? Making the call is a calculated risk.

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