She performed a stripped-back version of 'Perfect Day' in New York

St Vincent has performed a moving cover version of Lou Reed‘s classic song ‘Perfect Day’ at a concert in New York.

Annie Clark and her live collaborator Thomas “Doveman” Bartlett performed the stripped-down cover at the start of St Vincent’s show at Brooklyn Academy Of Music on Tuesday (November 20).

The performance saw Bartlett at the piano and Clark intensely reciting the late Reed’s lyrics in front of a minimal black backdrop. Watch a clip of the cover below.


The gig was in support of ‘MassEducation’, St Vincent’s recently-released album which strips back the songs from her 2017 album ‘Masseduction’.

St Vincent’s cover of ‘Perfect Day’ follows her version of Joni Mitchell’s ‘Court And Spark’ at the intimate Cadogan Hall in London with Bartlett, where they delivered a similarly starkly-decorated acoustic performance.

‘Perfect Day’ was originally recorded by Reed for his classic 1972 album ‘Transformer’. Its initial release as a single was as a double-A-side along with another Reed classic, ‘Walk On The Wild Side’.

The song became popular with a new generation when it featured prominently in Danny Boyle’s film Trainspotting, which led to the song being covered for BBC One’s Children In Need by an all-star cast and reaching No 1 the following year.

Other recent mini-covers by St Vincent included her playing her favourite guitar riffs by Nirvana, The Breeders, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull and more for a BBC 6 Music documentary in August. She also joined Dave Grohl and Beck to cover ‘Rapture’ by Blondie earlier this month in Los Angeles.