St. Vincent’s Love Letter to Female Artists in “Melting Of The Sun”

American musician St. Vincent has released her second single Melting of The Sun from her sixth studio album Daddy’s Home. The idea of this psychedelic track comes from the sun as the immovable object that will remain to exist and last a long time. Here, St. Vincent made this incredible, sympathetic, and reverent ode to the trailblazer women who paved the way for female artists.

Those women are mentioned in the lyrics refer to Joni Mitchell and her song “Furry Sings the Blues”. St. Vincent pays tribute to musicians like her on this track. Mitchell’s song is also a tribute itself to blues icon Furry Lewis and reds are standard cigarettes that Joni Mitchell was often seen or photographed with a cig in hand, Tori Amos who blamed by the justice system in a sexual assault case when she was raped in Los Angeles when she was 21 years old, St. Vincent makes an obvious reference to the glamorous actress Marylin Monroe who died of a drug overdose and also the fact that she was abused throughout her life and the last is the disturbance in Nina Simone’s musical career was because of her civil rights activism. Nina Simone wrote the song “Mississippi Goddam” as a cry for freedom of Black people and equality.

St. Vincent also mentions that these women are brilliant. They face the hatred in a world they don’t deserve because they’re telling the truth. These genius women weren’t recognized at the time. When they spoke out, they weren’t listened to. Or, they even were actively suppressed. What they were doing was powerful. But unluckily, they were met with a hostile world. The lyrics show how they struggle with fame, addiction, and institutional sexism. People were trying to quiet women in the entertainment industry when they spoke the ugly truth or something righteous.

And from all the brave things those women did, St. Vincent despairs of her lack of courage in her music. She also compares herself unfavorably with the women who helped pave the way for her in her lyrics:

“But me, I never cried”

“To tell the truth I lied”

The lyrics are about how St. Vincent sees those women as much stronger than herself and having to put up with far greater obstacles. And from all the brave things those women did, St. Vincent despairs her lack of courage in her music. She hopes she was not a coward when those women were brave.

Through this song, she pays tribute to some women in the entertainment industry whose brilliance got stifled. People only recognized their true genius after time has passed or as St. Vincent puts it after the sun had melted away the attempts to mute their artistic vision. She made this song as a love letter and a form of her genuine gratitude to these heroes.