Amanda Palmer
A is for…Amanda Fucking Palmer
Trigger Warning: #metoo, sexual assault
I hear of Amanda Fucking Palmer for the first time in 2012, when I am 22. A video of her is going viral on social media and intrigued, I click on it. A pixellated video of a woman with painted on eyebrows is singing a song addressing the Daily Mail, who had the day before shamed her for a wardrobe malfunction. As she continues the song, she slips completely out of her robe to reveal a fully naked body underneath, while singing in music hall style about the newspaper’s and other tabloids’ deeply misogynist approach. In direct contravention to the physical norms of the 2010s, Amanda is pale with curves and even has body hair, her legs, underarms and her vulva.
I blink at the screen in amazement, so unused am I to see such a real looking woman performing on stage to such an uproarious, screaming crowd. It has been a decade of size zero, tanned women with not a hair to be seen, other than on their heads. As a hirsute brunette, I warm to Amanda quickly.
After watching the video, I start to follow her on Facebook and proceed over the years to occasionally like her posts, while keeping her at arm’s length. I enjoy her unfettered feminist approach but also often find myself intimidated by her radical honesty and openness about almost any topic under the sun. She seems quite opinionated which I find quite scary, she also describes her music style as punk cabaret, which I presume I will loathe. She challenges my narratives about how women are supposed to look, act and express themselves, notions that I feel reticent about challenging, because they are so ingrained, so internalised.
Then I watch her excellent TED talk on The Art of Asking a couple of years later and her ideas about the arts, music business, funding, exchange and patronage startle me with her profound levels of insight and depth. I watch, fascinated, growing more and more impressed by Amanda’s determination to challenge conventions around record labels and the typical expectations imposed on artists. I realise I must do whatever I can to get the opportunity to see her live, because I love how she talks, her ability to weave in story telling with important information and philosophical reflections.
An opportunity to see her finally arises the month before I emigrate to the USA in the spring of 2018, at the Brighton Festival, six years after I’d seen the Dear Daily Mail song. A close friend says she is going and that I should be able to still get a ticket if I want to join. Two days later, I sit in the Brighton Dome, having almost zero expectations, apart from the eyebrows, which to my relief, appear to have grown in.
Amanda takes the stage after her support act, entering with her trademark crown of pinned up reddish hair and a bad-ass outfit of snug fitting ring-master style pants and a military style jacket, very much rocking the punk-cabaret-circus vibe. Holding a ukulele, she launches into a simple song called In My Mind, which in its opening three lines talks about a future, where she weighs less and will be the picture of self discipline. This makes us all laugh, assuming as we do that it is a comedy song, which she chides us gently for, as the song is actually more a wry reflection on the challenges of self acceptance.
Amanda can be hysterically funny, but like my teen rock idol Bono, they are both often regarded by the media and masses alike as earnest, humourless zealots. It reminds me of my earlier blog about being cool, to me in their very different ways are powerful of prioritising passion, vulnerability and honesty above affectations of being cool. I lost count in my teens of how often I was asked how I could love someone as pompous as Bono. These days I see Amanda torn down for her earnest approach when discussing how she funds her art or her vociferous political opinions. The images in people’s minds are the ones that our media often shapes, through their one or two dimensional portrayals of the celebrities we like to admire but prefer to tear apart.
The thing is, it doesn’t take much digging with either of these musicians to find and witness their senses of humour, it often shines through in their songwriting, performance styles, writing and interviews. Amanda pleading for universal safe access to abortion or Bono pleading for global aid relief are things that get remembered and challenged. Because it is easier to criticise people for caring about things and their all too human double standards and inevitable hypocrisies. Either of them being funny or self-deprecating usually doesn’t suit the press narrative of them being spoilt egoists, rather than fully complex human beings, flawed, real, passionate, thoughtful.
So Amanda, at that first show in Brighton, fully blows my mind. Her music, far from repelling me as I had thought it might, has me on the edge of my seat, as she sings her truth filled, often memoir based songs. I am struck by how embodied she is as a performer and physically present; the stories she tells between tracks, the painfully relatable way she shares her experiences of motherhood, love and loss. She plays the piano like no one I’ve ever seen, slamming her fingers into the keys to tapping them lightly for the darkly funny Coin Operated Boy, and her voice going from English sounding punk singer to full operatic cabaret style in the same song.
My friend and I clutch each other’s hands and stare at each other in tearful silence as the songs pour into our cells, stirring up memories of family dynamics, unrequited love and heartbreak, making us shout with laughter when she finishes with the defiantly joyful Ukulele Anthem. I leave, wiping my eyes, my heart fully open and feeling determined to become one of her patrons as soon as I get home. I also dive into her book which I wolf down in a matter of days, lapping up the direct, thoughtful prose. A poignant, funny memoir interspersed with a referenced thesis about the importance of human connection through the art of asking for help with everything from song-writing to touring to financing to support with grief and loss and much more besides.
During that same year, Amanda releases “Mr Weinstein will see you now”, a duet with Welsh singer-songwriter Jasmine Power. Since the revelations in the New York Times from the previous autumn about Weinstein and #metoo, the world is having an entirely new conversation about sexual violence. I click on the link to the song, feeling a wave of trepidation as I see the song’s dedication ‘to every woman who has been in a room with a man who has split their mind in two.’
The dedication hits me like a punch in my stomach, the song, haunting with ethereal vocals from Jasmine complimenting Amanda’s anthemic tones, is a double punch. I am floored and in the autumn when its video is released, even more so. The lyrics, production and video take me back into every moment where I was mistreated by a man on the basis of my gender.
It is triggering in ways that help bring profound catharsis for my own too common #metoo experiences. The power and beauty of watching an eclectic group of women extras performing in the video, brave enough to fully bare their bodies, the courage of these lyrics:
“you say
it’s not what you meant to mean
black or blue
you mean
what? you’ve got to be kidding.
just turn me over,fast
and
let’s get this over with”
The song helps me release wave after wave of self blame and shame. The song expands my compassion for everyone who has had their boundaries violated in similar ways to me. It helps me reckon with a past marred by the male gaze, misogyny and the devastating effects of patriarchy and rape culture. It even triggered, most surprisingly, some compassion towards the men who had hurt me.
It’s a kind of molten heat that runs through my veins when I connect to an Amanda song, piece of writing or performance. Her art connects me through visceral bodily sensations to feelings of rage, grief, compassion, sometimes amusement and much more besides. I think my body is responding to someone who is brave enough to be so fully naked (sometimes literally) about who they are with their audience. When I introduce my husband to her music, he falls as much in love as I do. We go to her Magnum Opus show for her album: There Will be No Intermission in 2019, connecting to one another even more deeply, through the shared rollercoaster ride of her performance.
Because she is Amanda Palmer, she is always looking for opportunities to connect with fellow human beings, so she throws parties and events where she is able to do so. I meet her a year and a half into being a fan at a patron party that she throws in London in the summer of 2019, during a very tough year of personal bereavement. She connects directly and we are able to have a brief chat about our shared interest in the power of radical compassion and empathy. I am also able to thank her in person for how healing I have found her music to be, the ripple effects of that healing showing up in unexpected areas of my life.
The mutual connection between artist and audience shines through Amanda’s many rich and varied projects, which if you are curious I urge you to check out. For as little as $1 a month you have unlimited access to everything that she does. There is her revolutionary TED talk The Art of Asking and the equally important book that it spawned. There are stunningly unusual and creative music videos, some brilliant live gigs both as a solo artist and with her band: The Dresden Dolls, as well as a smashing back catalogue of songs ranging in style from anthemic powerful ballads to satirical ukulele ditties. There is also the current podcast, The Art of Asking…Everything, dropping every week at the moment on all podcast platforms.
Amanda, thank you for treading the often bumpy path less travelled, and sharing so much of yourself with the world, the evenings of glorious music and stunning storytelling that you have given to me and some of my dearest loved ones. Thank you for showing me how stunningly attractive and deeply powerful it is to be unapologetically yourself, whether you’re playing a ukulele on the steps of the Sydney opera house, writing a difficult but truthful blog about your circumstances during the pandemic or delivering a fully naked riposte to crappy tabloid coverage. The ride we call life is so much better with you serenading us and reminding us that we are never truly alone.
Here are is a list of my personal favourite things in Amandalanda: First of all, to her patron, where you will find plenty of public posts plus many more treasures if you decide to be a patron, for as little as $1 a month: https://www.patreon.com/amandapalmer/posts
Favourite lyric: ‘Fuck yes, I am exactly the person I want to be’ from the song “In My Mind”
Ukulele Anthem, song and video
Amanda Palmer — The Art of Asking Ted Talk and the subsequent book
Amanda Palmer Drowning in the Sound video
TW: Sexual assault Amanda Palmer and Jasmine Power — Mr Weinstein will see you now —
