St. Vincent, aka Annie Clark, appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert back in December for the show’s Under the Covers segment. Under the Covers is all about, you guessed it, cover songs, and St. Vincent chose to celebrate David Bowie with a cover of “Young Americans.” In the pre-song interview, she mentioned her first cover of this song was back in 2023 during the annual Love Rocks NYC benefit show.
For her TV performance of the cover, St. Vincent stayed faithful to the original rendition. There was a lot of energy, groove, and a warm backing chorus of voices from the band. The most glaring change-up in the song was swapping Bowie’s line about Richard Nixon to Joe Biden’s name.
Originally released in 1975, “Young Americans” marked Bowie’s move into soul and funk, and still remains one of his most recognizable songs. St. Vincent’s performance was clean and confident. There was no need to try and modernize the song, showing how well it still stands strong from both a lyrical and a sonic standpoint.
As for St. Vincent, her upcoming performances include the Portland Jazz Festival and New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival later this spring.
In the interview she points at The Slits’ Grapevine cover. A great one indeed. Idea for a good, better, best item?
We covered (pun!) that one way back in 2011, with the Slits cover making the lineup.
https://www.covermesongs.com/2011/09/five-good-covers-i-heard-it-through-the-grapevine-marvin-gaye.html