"That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be" -- Carly Simon

Carly [Simon] had had years of talking to therapists about her childhood. Now she shared the stories with Jake [Brackman -- her songwriting partner] and to his fresh ear the rich girl's problems that had been deemed merit less by the reverse snobbish times achieved a universal poignancy. And image stayed with Jake: Richard Simon, in failing health, silent in the dark -- Carly yearning for his attention.

One day, Carly handed Jake a melody she had written months earlier but for which she couldn't come up with lyrics. The melodies opening bars (shifting back and forth between two minor mode sequences with close dissonances) were so tensely poignant that Village Voice rock critic Robert Christgau would later, upon hearing them on the car radio, be grabbed by their calculated drama. She had composed the melody as the soundtrack for a proposed TV documentary called "Who Killed Lake Eerie," one of her freelance jobs, but nothing had come of it. And I was stuck she remembers.

By writing songs by herself, it was easiest for her to start with the lyric, not the melody. "So I had that melody for so long that I was blocked." When Jake came over, "She gave it to me with 'La, la, la, la's,'" Jake recalls. Thinking of what Carly had told him about her father Jake wrote:

My father sits at night with no lights on
His cigarette glows in the dark
The living room is still;
I walk by, no remark.
I tiptoe past the master bedroom where
My mother reads her magazines.
I hear her call sweet dreams,
But I forgot how to dream.

Jake used that childhood view of the sadness of marriage as a bridge to skepticism about friends from college being married.

They have their houses
And their lawns

...the larger point was that young women had suddenly stopped seeing marriage as the ultimate event of their early twenties. Two souls huddled against the world, the romantic image that had prevailed... was an archaic position. There was too much in this new world: romance, belonging and ecstasy literally flooded the senses...

"I wrote lyrics for Carly," says Jake, like a playwright writing for an actress.

-- Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon--And the Journey of a Generation by Sheila Weller:

 



"That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be" 
(Carly Simon, Jacob Brackman)

My father sits at night with no lights on
His cigarette glows in the dark.
The living room is still;
I walk by, no remark.
I tiptoe past the master bedroom where
My mother reads her magazines.
I hear her call sweet dreams,
But I forgot how to dream.

But you say it's time we moved in together
And raised a family of our own, you and me -
Well, that's the way I've always heard it should be:
You want to marry me, we'll marry.

My friends from college they're all married now;
They have their houses and their lawns.
They have their silent noons,
Tearful nights, angry dawns.
Their children hate them for the things they're not;
They hate themselves for what they are-
And yet they drink, they laugh,
Close the wound, hide the scar.

But you say it's time we moved in together
And raised a family of our own, you and me -
Well, that's the way I've always heard it should be:
You want to marry me, we'll marry.

You say we can keep our love alive
Babe - all I know is what I see -
The couples cling and claw
And drown in love's debris.
You say we'll soar like two birds through the clouds,
But soon you'll cage me on your shelf -
I'll never learn to be just me first
By myself.

Well O.K., it's time we moved in together
And raised a family of our own, you and me -
Well, that's the way I've always heard it should be,
You want to marry me, we'll marry,
We'll marry.

Video for That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be

Song by Song by Jill Sobule

The story behind 34 of Jill’s songs as told by Jill herself.





Bear Song


Bitter


Bobby Gentry


Empty Glass


Everybody's Queer


Good Life


Heroes


I Kissed a Girl


Jesus Was a Dreidel Spinner


Karen by Night


League of Failures


Letting Go of God


Little Guy


Lucy at the Gym


Mexican Pharmacy


Mexican Wrestler


Mom


The Most Miserable Girl in the World


Nothing to Prove


October in Paris


Palm Springs


Rapture


Rupert


Saddest Day of the Year


San Francisco


St. Francis


Soldiers of Christ


Spiderman


Sweetheart


That Hat


Underachiever


Under the Discoball


Wendell Lee


While You Were Sleeping




Buy Jill’s Music at her Store

"I Kissed a Girl" by Jill Sobule

Part 1. What was the origin of "I Kissed a Girl"?

Jill Sobule: "Okay...I don't think I've ever told this story. I've been asked a zillion times and have always given a bullshit...so. I was actually seeing this boy, who was in a band. And he went on tour. He came home and admitted to me, in tears, that he had kissed another girl. And I didn't think that we were dating, like going steady...so I wasn't upset. But I admitted to him that, well, I did too. It ended up being a little more serious.

"And it was just a goofy little story and I went to write songs with my friend Robin. I told him the story and we wrote it in 5 minutes. And I didn't actually think it would be on my record. Or that we would hire Fabio to do a video. Oh, my God, that's a whole other story...

"So that was the origin. And I wanted to write a song about a first kiss from an adult point of view. Were as my first kiss with a boy...it was, what? In sixth grade, Bobby Conner. It was horrible, like a fish. With a girl it was with someone named Ivanda Hooper.

Julia Sweeney: "Did you want to give her home address too?!"

Jill Sobule: "I don't know where she is. I tried Googling her. I don't think I've ever said... Oh, I've never outed that one too! I've just had a lot to drink."

--AfterEllen.com (All Access Pass): Jill Sobule and Julia Sweeney May 07 08


"It was sometimes irritating to be 'the kissed a girl girl.' Or rather, that that was, sometimes, the only thing that people knew about me. However, I am proud of it. It was the first, I think, blatant 'queer' song to make the top 40. Of course now Katy Perry has taken the title and made it her own. More power to her, however I will say, hers' is more of a 'girls gone wild' thing. The intent of "the Classic" (someone referred to my song as that) was hopefully more to empower and explore one's sexuality as more than just a fun thing to turn on your boyfriend. That said, I still think, it's great that a song like that can piss off Focus on the Family, and still be on the radio..."

"When 'I Kissed a Girl' came out (1995), it was a tough call on talking about my sexuality. I wanted to talk about all the songs, but all anyone wanted to talk about was 'so, what are you?' I didn't want to be an exclusive queer artist-only to play the 'womyn festivals.' At the same time, the idea of the song was to celebrate the joy of that first same-sex kiss and I did not want to underplay that. Since then, I have developed a diverse fan-base with a good sized gay following. And, I did play that...Womyn's festival. The community is very important to me. I am part of the family."

--Interview "She Kissed a Girl Way Before Katy Perry" from the blog "From the Horse's Mouth", Caty Simon, May 10, 2009


Part 2. Kissed a Girl -- yep, that was me.

Ah, the curse of the "novelty" song. It's my cross to bear, but it is also the thing that got me noticed. Plus I made a couple of bucks …well, not as much as you would think. Anyway, it was one of those songs that I wrote on a lark with my friend Robin Eaton. I never thought that it would actually be on a CD, nor thought in my wildest dreams that it would be an MTV hit. Or that I would be branded forever as "the Kissed a Girl girl."

Instead of being thought of as the serious artful singer-songwriter that I aspired to be, I was asked in Howard Stern-like interviews, "did you really kiss her?" "So, you don't like the penis?" My favorite, that I got all the time, was, "Hey Jill, you and me have something in common... we both kissed a girl! Ha ha ha..." What an idiot.I started to resent the song. When asked to play it, I would, but with a bit of an eye roll. Oh, I could go on forever, but in the last couple of years I have started to embrace my one hit wonder hit (actually I had two hits, according to VH1). First of all, what is the shame of having "only one" hit? How many of you would love to even play the cowbell on one jingle? ...Well, I would play cowbell on anything anyone asked me.And, in the last few years, I have started to embrace and have pride in my Kissed a Girl-ness. I mean, what other song includes the words "hairy behemoth"? Plus, I think it was the first song on the charts to deal with queer stuff -- not counting YMCA.
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It was way before the Ellen kiss on TV and The L Word. As innocent now as it seems (a kiss), it was scandalous in 1996. I was banned on many stations, especially in the Bible Belt. In fact one station in Nashville had a disclaimer before it played, so parents, I guess, could put their hands over their kids' ears.I am so happy when someone comes up to me and says that the song made a difference, as they were young, gay, and feeling depressed in some small town in Alabama.At one show, a big boned gal came up to me and said that when she was in the Marines, they would hum a couple of bars of the song to see who was gay or not. Don't ask, don't tell, but hum. I guess I really was "supporting our troops."So, I am Jill, and I am the Kissed a Girl girl.Side note: I always think how funny it is that the Village People's YMCA has become such a universal anthem -- and with choreography. Doesn't everyone know it's about anonymous queer sex at a gym in Chelsea?-- Jill Sobule and the Provocateurs (Yahoo Music Blog) Nov. 29, 2007
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Part 3. My "Feud" with Katy Perry"
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"how DARE YOU. Calling Katy Perry a slut. srs. I'm so pissed at you right now. So are the rest of her fans. why did you do that?!"

"Hi gramma.. I mean Jill fuck face. You should probably get over yourself.. Your 1995 song. I kissed a girl is terrible"

I woke up last Tuesday, and went straight to the computer. I had an interesting idea for a song -- that now I forget. First thing I noticed was my Twitter was filled with, what appeared to be, hate mail from about 30 very upset Katy Perry fangirls. I was confused. Then, I got email messages from relatives and friends informing me that I was in Perez Hilton and The Sun. Why would I be in the tabloids? I'm not that fancy. And, from what they said -- I still have yet to visit those particular sites -- I was portrayed as this angry bitter jealous "gramma" starved for publicity.

It all started with an interview I did for one of my new favorite blog sites: Therumpus.net -- a semi-obscure but hopefully growing arts and cultural website. It was one of the more interesting interviews I have ever done, as I was actually asked, engaging questions for a change. However, the interviewer had to ask the annoying yet inevitable "What did I think of the Katy Perry version of "I Kissed a Girl?"

I thought maybe this time I would have fun with it and goof on what many of my fans were hoping to hear over the last year. I prefaced my reply with a wink, and then rambled on with a string of over the top dumb-ass profanities, purposely out of character and completely in jest.
There was no problem with The Rumpus readers, but then a few weeks later the quote was picked up in the tabloids, out of context, with no link to the original interview, and without that -- hard to sometimes see in print -- wink. My friend Ken, a publicist, said, " I saw the grin behind your words, but not everyone knows you, Jill" My use of the phrase, "fucking little slut", by the way, would only be used... ironically.

I am sounding apologetic, which I'm not, but I have to admit the whole thing made me feel terrible for a couple of days. Who wants to be misunderstood or portrayed negatively, especially by such a beacon of light as Perez with his enormous following -- my mother reads him. And I'm not one who goes for the "all press is good press" dictum. Now I hear I will be featured in the upcoming issue of US magazine under the heading "Feud of the Week"!

But where my thin skin really showed was my reaction to the Katy Perry teen fangirls. I somehow was transferred to 7th grade, the worst year of my life. I was reminded of when mean girl Shelly Zissman spread the rumor that I was a "lezzie" at Shwader Camp. I was devastated. Okay, so maybe the rumor had some basis of truth to it, but she didn't know that at the time.
Out of curiosity, I wrote back to one of my tormenting Katy Perry fangirls -- Typhany. Most had already bored of trolling me, but Typh kept on going. I didn't ask her to stop, but instead asked if we could actually have an honest civil dialogue --unlike some of those health care town hall meetings. We did, much to her credit. She said she was just sticking up for her favorite artist. We are friends now. Facebook friends.

I will end with my final Katy Perry comments. I may be a touch cynical about the business, but I have never really been angry or had ill feelings towards Katy herself. I was actually in a small way happy to not be the "Kissed a Girl" girl anymore. That said, I hope her and her fans (god knows I don't want to piss them off anymore) are okay with the title of my brand new song, " I Kissed a Girl ...First"

Wink.

By the way (a bit of shameless self-promotion since I don't have a big machine behind me): My new record, California Years, was completely fan-funded. You can get it most places, but I like it best when it's listened to and bought on my website, JillSobule.com.
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Video for "I Kissed a Girl"
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Buy the CD at Jill's Store
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Mona Lisa Slept with Napoleon -- How She Became So Famous

For three hundred years the "Mona Lisa" was an obscure painting. Now she is the best known painting in the world. How did a overweight, eyebrowless frumpy Florentine housewife do it? It is a lesson for all you Gentlemen and Lady Gagas out there hungry for fame at all costs. Here are her secrets from the TV show "Every Picture Tells a Story" by Waldemar Januszczak Episode 6, 2004. Take notes, Mona's got it going on.

Step 1. Sleep with somebody famous.

“...the first great break for the ‘Mona Lisa’ -- the first great career move, as I would put it -- the French Revolution. What the French Revolution does, apart from minor things like abolishing the monarchy and so on, is to transform the Louvre into a museum. So at least she has gone from, you know, semi-obscurity [in the Royal collection] to a proper place.

“Another thing is Napoleon. Napoleon took a shine to many women, and one of these was ‘Mona Lisa.’ And indeed for, I think, four years, the ‘Mona Lisa’ was removed from public viewing and was in Napoleon’s bedroom.”*

Step 2. Become that obscure object of desire. 

“You know, before Napoleon carried the ‘Mona Lisa’ away to his bedroom, hardly anyone had seen her and no one thought of her as this figure of mystery and allure. She was a portrait by Leonardo and that’s it. But now that she was in the Louvre, and the Louvre was open to the public, she was ready to fall into the clutches of the public imagination. And so her ludicrous journey to global fame could finally begin...

“You won’t believe some of the silly things that began to be written about her by the feverish blokes of the 19th century... perhaps the most famous passage ever written about the ‘Mona Lisa’ by an eccentric English epicurean called Walter Pater, who was obsessed with her. ‘She is older than the rocks among which she sits,’ he gushed in 1873. ’Like a vampire, she’s been dead many times and learned the secrets of the grave and been a diver in deep seas.’ It just goes on and on. I mean, this isn’t art history. This is stalking. The ‘Mona Lisa’ had begun to drive men mad.

“Thus, the ‘Mona Lisa’ entered the creative imagination of the 19th century, where she would have stayed -- famous among writers and art critics and that’s about it -- if something else hadn’t happened -- something sensational, something that turned her into a public celebrity.” **

Step 3. Become involved in a famous crime.

In August of 1911 the “Mona Lisa” was involved in a scandal. Vincenzo Perugia walked into the Louvre and kidnapped her. It was a really complicated abduction too. He took her down from the wall, strolled to the exit and stood on the corner flagging down a taxi. (Huh? Why did Pierce Brosnan work so hard in the “Thomas Crown Affair”? That’s just not how it is done in real life.) And yes... a lot of people at the Louvre got fired for their slight lapse in attention. In fact...

Step 4. Get your face in the newspapers nonstop.

For two years the “Mona Lisa” was in the papers as the press taunted the Louvre and the police for being so stupid -- and wondered, daily, where the poor lass was. (You can’t get that kind of wall to wall coverage with all the see-through dresses or low speed car chases in the world.) There was sympathy too. Everyone was pulling for the girl to show up. She was eventually found under Vincenzo’s bed in Italy. His reason for stealing her? To get her out of France and back to Florence where she belonged. Aww, it was like a heart warming Benji movie -- but without that damn barking. In true Disney happy-ending-fashion, the sympathetic Italians gave Vincenzo just one year in prison and the “Mona Lisa” achieved the fame she has never lost since.

[By the way, it is a portrait of Lisa Gherardini. (No recent photo available.) So you should address the lady as Madonna Lisa. But of course the papers spelt her name wrong, as they always do. She is now the “Mona Lisa.”]

“There is not a single moment when the Mona Lisa becomes the world’s most famous painting. There are building blocks. There are stepping-stones. Though being in Paris is an important thing. Being painted by a Renaissance genius is quite important. Being a femme fatale or being described as a castrating woman would do you no harm. Being stolen was a great stroke of luck. Being mocked by Futurist and avant-garde artists was also very important. And being regularly exploited by the advertising industry in order to sell everything from fridge magnets, hotels and flights -- even condoms. You know, all that is a tremendous asset for a girl.” *


* Donald Sassoon, Art Historian. From the TV program “Every Picture Tells a Story” Episode 6, 2004.
**Waldemar Januszczak. From the TV program “Every Picture Tells a Story” Episode 6, 2004.

Pixie Herculon – The Bear Song

There is new dance song by Pixie Herculon (she’s the new Katy Perry) that’s getting a lot of attention. Here’s a little bedtime story from your Uncle John Waters to explain everything.


John Waters:

We all have limits. I have limits. At first the "bear" community kind of surprised me. This is middle-aged, hairy, fat homosexuals that find that erotic. All gay people know about that. No straight people know about that. Bears look for "cubs" and cubs look for "otters" -- people who aren't fat or hairy but will be.
They talk about, "This is my husbear. This is my significant otter." They talk about coming out of the second closet. That's too much for me, I say, "You tell your parents that you’re a bear?"

They say, "Yes, sometimes we do!"

I thought, oh come on, your parents have finally accepted that you are gay and you come in and say, "I have something else to tell you. Sit down... I am a bear!"

"A what?"

"A bear!"

"Don't tell your parents you are a bear! That's cruel and unusual punishment!"

-- From the film “This Filthy World” (2006)

“The Bear Song” by Pixie Herculon

(Grrrrr, warning explicit lyrics, kiddies.)

Disco this mother fucker...

If I was a guy
I’d wanna be a bear
At the bearbucks in Castro
I’d be there
Two shots of espresso
Make that three
I’m big as a cabin
I’m a mighty oak tree
It I was a guy
I’d wanna to be a bear.
It I was a guy
I’d wanna be a bear

No one’d call me call me sissy
If I was still up in Juno
They’d take me for straight
In my lumber Jack shirt
And my working man boots
Not just a beard, but a completely hair suit
If I was a guy
I’d wanna be a bear
I’d wanna be a bear

I’d be your daddy
You’d be my cub
I’d wrap around you 
With a big bear hug
Well, I could be nasty
Or I could be sweet
260 pounds of raw bear meat
I wanna be a bear

If I was your bear
I would take you on a picnic
Look in my basket
You can see I got a big dick
When I kiss on you
You will get so dizzy
Check me out Boo-Boo
I’m a straight love grizzly


(Thanks to Nicole Jeppsen for helping with the lyrics.)



To buy and download click here

Here is the video

So Ya Wanna be a Rock and Roll Star?

You dream of being a rock star, don't you? You see the glamorous lifestyle. Money for nothing and your chicks for free. Yep, that's the way you do it. Well, set your way-back machine for fricking 1978 -- those times are dead. 

Here is what it means to be a cutting-edge, underground rock star: Amanda Palmer. She released a wonderful record a while back, "Who Killed Amanda Palmer?" 

She (with her own money) shot videos for every song on the CD. Wonderful works of art that when snapped together like a jigsaw puzzle form a whole picture. She posted them on YouTube. They were taken down. Why? Her record company, Roadrunner Records, wanted YouTube to pay them every time someone watch the videos. Seeing it is free to watch the them (as a promotional tool to sell THEIR record) that just wasn't going to happen. So down they came. A fine job promoting the CD, Roadrunner. 

No worries. Amanda set off on a global odyssey to work her ass off and promote the CD herself. She toured all over the US...and then she went to Europe and got her foot run over in Ireland. It was very flat -- like Willie Coyote after a six ton bolder. Despite broken bones, a cast and amazing pain she kept touring, first Europe and then on to Australia. 
She e-mailed fans and asked them to put her up. She had no money. Strangers, who loved her music, fed her and gave her broken jet-lagged body a place to sleep. She couldn't even pay the band. At the concerts, she asked people to give them something. They did. She was too broke; promoting the CD, making the videos, and airfare to get to the gigs all over the world (in a tour apparent laid out by a drunken monkey tossing darts randomly at a map). 

Well in the end it would all pay off from the sales of her critically acclaimed CD, right? How much money has she made off the album sales? $0.00. Roadrunner records explained that she still owed her for their "promoting" the Dresden Dolls. In fact she owes them one more CD -- they will keep all the sales of that too. Pick cotton -- or record a CD... is there much difference? 

Morally, mentally and physically Amanda was spent. After four long months of jet-lag, hobbling around on a broken foot, pleading for food and lodging it was good to be back in her own bed. What a long strange trip that must have been. 

Did I say her bed? Well, not for long. Today she found out that she owes her landlord $3,600 in back rent! He has been very kind to let it all slide this long, but really. If he doesn't have it by the first of the month (five days away) she will be homeless. 

The glamorous life of a rock star! Cool, huh? 

Amanda has a book coming out soon that should make her some money. It is a coffee table book of nothing but pictures of herself dead in various odd ways. Considering her life, need you ask why she would do that? 

If you saw Van Gogh or Sylvia Plath on the street tomorrow -- would you walk by? I know, you are broke. I'm broke myself. I don't have any money to give, so I paint promotional buttons and posters, I set up websites, I write passionate blogs, I get my friends excited in artists with unique voices that must be heard. My life would be so empty without my favorite music. Perhaps I am the most selfish person on the planet. I can't go on without the joy it brings me...so I didn't walk by. I wrote this. 

And if you are in Boston and see a woman without any eyebrows lugging a huge box of "my Little Ponies" around, give that bitch a hug. That, my friends, is Amanda Fucking Palmer. She deserves your attention. 

Yes, Virginia, music matters.  

"Music can slip beneath our conscious reality to get at what’s really going on inside... a therapist for the human soul... help[ing] us with our internal, invisible lives." 
 --Dr. Karl Paulnack’s 
 
From Amanda Palmer's May 28, 2009 blog: Why Music Matters.

The Truth... by Amanda Palmer

Here is the first song from AFP records -- and it's FREE! This is the funniest, warmest, sweetest -- most obscene -- song I have heard this year. I smiled all the way through since I knew every word was true. From Easy Bake oven to playing dead on the carpet at the Golden Globes in ten heartbreaking steps. This is Amanda Palmer's entire life in song. The perfect introduction to AFP for the young, innocent or doomed.

I am neither young or innocent... Doomed? Probably. I only heard of Amanda through my buddy Nicole a year or two ago. Evelyn Evelyn hasn't been off my stereo since I got it. That was released under an alias with Jason Webley since Amanda was under contract with a record company that, well... as she sang in "Please Drop Me" -- "I'm tired of sucking corporate dick. You don't get me..." Next time I will repost how she got to that point. It is amazing that the American dream for any recording artist (a contract with a major label) is now a nightmare.

As a child, Amanda use to get up in the middle of the night and pound on the family piano like a drunken monkey trying to open a coconut with a sledge hammer. She taped her first sessions on a cassette recorder -- but they were usually spoiled by her father screaming, “Amanda! Go to bed!”  
As you read the lyrics below and gasp at their frankness, you might wonder what her parents would think of her today. She sang this song on a webcast last night. Time? Midnight -- at her parent's house. They were sound asleep. Amanda and her friends pounded away on a piano, pots and pans with that old child like excitement. The tension was amazing. When would her parent start screaming at her from the top of the stairs? Could they ground her -- even if she is in her thirties? But nothing happened. 

As she sat hung over at the kitchen table the next morning, she looked over at her stepfather. His Wall Street Journal slowly came down, he looked at her and said, "Did you kids have fun last night?"

Amanda sank in her chair. She might be free of her mean record label. But she felt like a six year old.

“Do You Swear To Tell The Truth The Whole Truth And Nothing But The Truth So Help Your Black Ass” 
By Amanda Fucking Palmer

when i was six years old my sister alyson 
asked for a stove for her birthday 
a miniature one you could actually cook with 
and my mom was nice and she bought one 

alyson needed a reason to bake something 
barged in my room and she grabbed me 
she said: 
"i made a cake and we're going next door 
to sam weinstein's and you're getting married" 

the cake was burned 
it tasted gross 
she made me kiss him 
on the mouth 

now i am 33 
unmarried happily 
no plans in life and i'm planning to keep it that way 
i do kissing with only one mission 
do you like to kiss? then you have my permission 

and i have already spent too much time 
doing things i didn't want to 
so if i just want to make out all the time 
you can bet your black ass that i'm going to 

when i was nine i was kind of a loser 
the kids in my class didn't like me 
melanie chow was the meanest of all 
and my mom made me go to her party 

nobody talked to me i sat there quietly 
drawing with crayons on a napkin 
a picture of melanie skewered with a pitchfork 
her legs getting eaten by lions 

the cake was good 
i took some home 
i had a party 
in my room 

now i have friends and i'm not such a loser 
but i go to bars all alone and i sit there 
and order red wine and i write and i like being alone around people 
yes that's how i like it 

and i've already spent too much time 
doing things i didn't want to 
so if i wanna sit here and write and drink wine 
you can bet your black ass that i'm going to 

yes i come here often 
sure i'll have another one 
yes i come here often 
sure i'll have another one 
but i don't have to talk to you 

when i was 17 i was a blowjob queen 
picking up tips from the masters 
i was so busy perfecting my art i was clueless to what they were after 
now i'm still a blowjob queen (far more selectively) 
i don't make love now to make people love me 
but i don't mind sharing my gift with the planet 
we're all gonna die and a blowjob's fantastic 

and 

when i was 25 i was a rock star 
but it didn't pay too well i had to strip on the side 
of the road to get ready for shows and the cars driving by 
baby they'd never know 
what a bargain they'd gotten 
and if i'm forgotten 
i'm perfectly happy with all that has happened 
and i still get laughed at but it doesn't bother me 
i'm just so glad to hear laughter around me 

and i've already spent too much time 
doing things i didn't want to 

so if i want to drink alone dressed like a pirate 
or look like a dyke 
or wear high heels and lipstick 
or hide in a convent 
or try to be mayor 
or marry a writer 
smoke crack and slash tires 
make jokes you don't like 
or paint ducks and retire 

YOU CAN BET YOUR BLACK ASS THAT I'M GOING TO

released 06 April 2010 
Written & Performed by Amanda Fucking Palmer 

Featuring: 
Amanda Palmer: ukulele & piano 
Jason Webley: guitar 
Sam Kulik: trombone

You may download the song directly from Amanda Palmer. You could be like her former record company and not pay her a cent. But you should -- and every cent will now go to Amanda F. Palmer.

Click here to get a free download right from Amanda.
 

You may read her open letter to her former record label here:
http://blog.amandapalmer.net/post/501070649/free-at-last-free-at-last-dear-roadrunner-records

Jill Sobule and John Doe's Idea

If you're a music geek like me, you dream music. Wouldn't it have been fun to watch the Beatles record Sergeant Pepper? You know -- see them smoking dope, giggling and forcing Ringo to sing. Or have been a fly on the wall while Fleetwood Mac cut Rumours (if only to hear what the rest of the group was saying about Stevie Nicks when she was out of the room for her daily two hour twirl practice). John Doe (of the seminal LA punk band "X" -- no spitting please -- that is so 1979) and Jill Sobule (who turned heads by raising over 80,000 dollars from her fans to record and release her last record, California Years) has an innovative idea: fans who donate for a recording session -- can watch them make a record.

Jill suggest that she might try this in other cities. I'm hoping she takes the Last Train to Clarksville with Davy Jones. But then again, I spent my formative years as a screaming teenage girl.


A word from Jill:

Hello feller fans and friends,
 
Wanna make a record with me? Want to see what it’s like in the studio? Wanna be a bad-ass and brag to your friends? Well…in Los Angeles on April 11th the amazing John Doe and I are each making recordings, w/ the same band, in the same day ! !
 
Not only would you create the good vibe–helping us get a great performance-but you would have a rare look behind the scenes, experiencing the recording process first hand, in the same room with us while we record. Does that sound good?

We have a killer band, including Don Was on bass and Doug Pettibone on guitar. We’re paying for the studio & musicians by inviting fans to the session. 

This stuff ain’t cheap so please excuse the higher priced tickets. (It IS once in a lifetime though.) Here’s a link to find out more details and what you can expect.

www.stepinside.eventbrite.com

Jill

I will keep you posted -- if anyone spits or falls down whilst twirling.