Pills by St. Vincent Lyrics Meaning – Dissecting the Opioid Era’s Dark Grip Through Melody
Lyrics
Pills, pills, pills every day of the week
Pills to walk, pills to think
Pills, pills, pills for the family
I spent a year suspended in air
My mind on the gap, my head on the stairs
From healers to dealers and then back again
From guru to voodoo and voodoo to zen
Pills to wake, pills to sleep
Pills, pills, pills every day of the week
Pills to walk, pills to think
Pills, pills, pills for the family
Pills to grow, pills to shrink
Pills, pills, pills and a good stiff drink
Pills to fuck, pills to eat
Pills, pills, pills down the kitchen sink
I’m behind the wheel
I’m leavin’ your state
I can’t even swim in these waves I made
From the bath to the drain, and the plane to the stage
To the bed, to give head, to the money I made
Pills to wake, pills to sleep
Pills, pills, pills every day of the week
Pills to walk, pills to think
Pills, pills, pills for the family
Pills to grow, pills to shrink
Pills, pills, pills and a good stiff drink
Pills to fuck, pills to eat
Pills, pills, pills down the kitchen sink
I heard the tales, fortune and blame
Tigers and wolves defanged by fame
From the chains to the reins to the vein
To the brain, anyway there’s a day
And I’ll pay it in pain
Pills to wake, pills to sleep
Pills, pills, pills every day of the week
Pills to walk, pills to think
Pills, pills, pills for the family
Pills to grow, pills to shrink
Pills, pills, pills and a good stiff drink
Pills to fuck, pills to eat
Pills, pills, pills down the kitchen sink
Pills to wake, pills to sleep
Pills, pills, pills every day of the week
Pills to walk, pills to think
Pills, pills, pills for the family
Pills to grow, pills to shrink
Pills, pills, pills and a good stiff drink
Pills to fuck, pills to eat
Pills, pills, pills down the kitchen sink
Pills to wake, pills to sleep
Pills, pills, pills every day of the week
Pills to walk, pills to think
Pills, pills, pills for the family
Pills to grow, pills to shrink
Pills, pills, pills and a good stiff drink
Pills to fuck, pills to eat
Pills, pills, pills down the kitchen sink
Come all you villains, come one and all
Come all you killers, come join the war
Come all you wasted, wretched, and scorned
Come on and face it, come join the war
Come climb the rafters, come out to space
Come for the answers, throw them away
Come kiss me stupid, come kiss me sore
Come find me standin’ under the wall
Come all you killers, come out to play
Everyone you know will all go away
Come all you wasting, wretched, and scorned
Come watch me standin’ under the wall
Come all you children, come out to play
Everyone you love will all go away, hey, hey
Annie Clark, known by her stage name St. Vincent, has proven herself to be a fearless architect of pop, constantly undulating between the viscerally raw and the deftly polished fine lines of musical composition. ‘Pills’, a track from her fifth studio album ‘MASSEDUCTION’, crackles with a kinetic energy, married to lyrics that are as infectious as they are introspective.
What might initially seem as a catchy, almost jingle-like critique of society’s reliance on pharmaceuticals, ‘Pills’ holds layers of commentary and personal struggle beneath its surface. A deeper dive into the punchy rhythms and relentless repetition reveals a narrative of dependency and its complexities.
A Generation’s Prescription for Living
Hiding in plain sight, the upbeat tempo of ‘Pills’ cloaks a grim reality faced by many today. The song opens with a litany of ‘pills to wake, pills to sleep,’ laying bare the pervasive nature of medicating every aspect of human existence. It speaks to our modern-day ritual of turning to prescriptions as a panacea for the complexities of daily life, from mundane activities to the more existential dilemmas we grapple with.
The repetition of ‘pills, pills, pills’ serves as a rhythmic mantra for the pharmaceutical carousel that many are riding without a clear end in sight. Here, St. Vincent isn’t just critiquing the culture of over-medication; she’s also drawing attention to the trap it represents, a cycle that is all too easy to enter and far too difficult to escape.
From Healers to Dealers: The Personal is Universal
In a confessional moment, Clark reflects on her own journey ‘from healers to dealers and then back again,’ a powerful acknowledgement of the blurred lines between treatment and addiction. The very institutions we trust to heal us can also inadvertently lead us down a path of dependence, putting the duplicity of the healthcare system itself under scrutiny.
This line not only resonates with the struggles of the individual, but it also reflects a societal condition in which the decision to take control of one’s health can ironically lead to loss of control due to dependency on medication. The ‘family’ mentioned repeatedly in the chorus, then, becomes a microcosm for society at large, equally embroiled in this epidemic.
The Orphean Struggle in Climbing the Waves
The haunting imagery of ‘I’m behind the wheel / I’m leavin’ your state’ and ‘I can’t even swim in these waves I made’ portrays an escape from consequences of one’s actions with an Orphean undertone—looking back might lead to losing oneself completely. Clark masterfully uses the metaphor of driving and drowning to depict the internal turmoil of someone battling with their dependency.
These lines evoke a feeling of helplessness and the daunting prospect of facing the repercussions head-on. It’s a cry for autonomy in a state of powerlessness, a longing for stability in the turbulent waters that one navigates under the influence of medication, or perhaps, in the broader sense, under the pressures dictated by society’s norms.
Uncovering the Hidden Pain Behind the Song’s Veneer
Despite the song’s bustling, near-celebratory exterior, ‘Pills’ is fundamentally about pain—both the kind that requires the pills and the kind they cause. The very admission ‘anyway there’s a day / And I’ll pay it in pain’ acknowledges the cyclical bargain with suffering, where each day’s struggles are medicated away only to return with compounded interest.
The choice to face life’s menagerie of discomfort, ‘fortune and blame’, with medication is weighted with the promise of relief but also the foreboding sense that this respite is temporary and, often, illusive.
Memorable Lines That Echo Beyond the Music
‘Come all you villains, come one and all’ invites every plagued soul into the fold, standing not just as an outro but as a siren song for unity in shared struggle. This rallying cry against societal norms and expectations resonates as both a battle hymn and a dirge for the forlorn—those who seek redemption or oblivion through the very substances designed to ‘help’.
In ‘Pills’, St. Vincent does not just illuminate the ironies and inconsistencies in our medicated realities; she also encapsulates the fundamental human desire for connection and the lengths we go to preserve a facade of normalcy, leading us all to, in one way or another, ‘join the war’.
