1. “Hang on Me”

Pitchfork: You’ve often sang from an outsider’s perspective, and this song centers around the lyric: “You and me, we’re not meant for this world.” Do you take solace in being an outsider or is it more a cause of angst?

Annie Clark: All human beings create their own mythologies, and I’m in the somewhat bizarre circumstance of creating a big mythology that gets shared with a lot of people. In some ways, doing the work that I do is about reinventing a value system. More or less, there’s a ubiquitous value system in America, these markers that signify your rite of passage into adulthood or into validity: getting married and having kids and having mortgages. But I always felt a little bit like an alien cocking my head to the side at various cultural milestones, going, “I would never aspire to that.”

I’ve chosen a line of work and a community that doesn’t abide by the same value system. My markers are more about the things that I make and do, and I am happiest when I’m forging ahead and watching the Rubik’s cube slowly come together—or being midway through the process and going, “This isn’t a Rubik’s cube at all.” That’s not any sort of indictment on other people’s mile markers, they’re just not mine; those markers aren’t a threat to me, and my choices shouldn’t be a threat to them. I just had to eschew one paradigm to be free enough to construct another.

2. “Pills”

After the desperation of “Hang on Me,” this song about pills acts as its own pick-me-up within the album. Sonically, it actually reminds me of “The Real Slim Shady” by Eminem.

Oh, cool. I love that song. I was definitely listening to Eminem, because that stuff still bangs so hard. This song is intended to be kind of a banger.

“Pills” has some fun with the idea of pill-popping but it also includes an extended outro that serves as its own comedown. What’s your take on the proliferation of pills as a cure-all for so many modern maladies?

The song wasn’t intended as this moral indictment of the state of the pharmaceutical industry in the U.S. I don’t think it works to write finger-wagging songs, because it’s condescending to the audience and just a bummer to listen to. This song is super personal for me, a little snapshot of a small period of my life. I was having trouble sleeping and I had taken a sleeping pill. As I was popping it into my mouth, I was like, [sings] “Do-do-do, do-do-do, pills, pills, pills, every day of the week—oh, maybe that’s so jingle-y that it’s good.” Just using that language of advertising.

The producer Sounwave, best known for his work with Kendrick Lamar, did some drum programming for this song. How did that come about?

I’d worked with Sounwave on a cover of the Stones’ “Emotional Rescue” for a film called A Bigger Splash. We hit it off and worked on a couple of other tracks together. When Kendrick was making DAMN., Sounwave came to my studio, and I just freestyled on guitar for a long time on different ideas that Kendrick was working on. None of that stuff ended up getting used on the record, but Sounwave is always looking for the next, the most innovative thing.