St. Vincent Says She Paid Tribute to the ‘Beautiful, Poetic’ Producer Sophie With Forthcoming Song

With a title like All Born Screaming, you’d be forgiven for assuming St. Vincent’s upcoming new album might be a dark affair. But according to the artist, one song in particular pays loving tribute to a late icon.

Speaking to The Guardian in an interview published on Saturday (March 2), the singer — otherwise known as Annie Clark — said that a song called “Sweetest Fruit” off her new album serves as an ode to late electronic music pioneer Sophie, who died in 2021 after a fatal fall. Speaking about the song, Clark said that she felt compelled to write something that properly reflected the unusual circumstances of the influential artist’s death.

“The internet twists things, and I don’t want it to be seen like I’m trying to capitalize on somebody’s death. I was an admirer from afar; we never met, but I read about the way that she fell because she was trying to get a better look at the moon, which was just the most beautiful, poetic thing I’ve ever heard,” she told the paper, adding that the song is about “people trying for transcendence.”

St. Vincent would be far from the first artist to pay tribute to Sophie. In the aftermath of her death, Sophie was eulogized by a wide range of fellow artists, including Rihanna, Nile Rodgers, Christine and the Queens, Rina Sawayama and Sam Smith. “The world has lost an angel,” Smith wrote in an X post at the time. “A true visionary and icon of our generation. Your light will continue to inspire so many for generations to come.”

The interview comes just after St. Vincent announced her self-produced new album with the release of her latest single “Broken Man” on Friday (March 1). In a press release accompanying the announcement, Clark shared that the album was all about reevaluating difficult feelings. “There are some places, emotionally, that you can only get to by taking the long walk into the woods alone — to find out what your heart is really saying,” she wrote in a statement. “It sounds real because it is real.”

Listen to St. Vincent’s new song below: