Amanda Palmer - The Art Of Asking lyrics

(Breathes in, breathes out)

So I didn't always make my living
From music for about the
Five years after graduating from an
Upstanding liberal arts university
This was my day job i
Was a self-employed living statue
Called the 8-Foot Bride
And I love telling people
L did this for a job, because
Everybody always wants to know
Who are these freaks in real life? Hello
I painted myself white one day
Stood on a box, put a hat
Or a can at my feet
And when someone came by
And dropped in money, i handed them a flower
And some intense eye contact and if
They didn't take the flower
I threw in a gesture of sadness
And longing as they walked away

(Laughter)

So I had the most
Profound encounters with people
Especially lonely people
Who looked like they hadn't talked
To anyone in weeks
And we would get this beautiful
Moment of prolonged eye contact
Being allowed in a city street
And we would sort of fall
In love a little bit
And my eyes would say, "Thank you i
See you" And their eyes would say
"Nobody ever sees me thank you"

And I would get harassed sometimes people
Would yell at me from
Their passing cars "Get a job!"
And I'd be, like
"This is my job" But it hurt
Because it made me
Fear that I was somehow doing
Something un-joblike and unfair
Shameful i had no idea how perfect a
Real education I was getting for
The music business on
This box and for the economists out there
You may be interested to know I actually
Made a pretty predictable income
Which was shocking to me given I had
No regular customers, but pretty much
60 bucks on a Tuesday
90 bucks on a Friday it was consistent

And meanwhile, I was touring locally and
Playing in nightclubs with my band
The Dresden dolls this was me on piano, a
Genius drummer i wrote the songs
And eventually we started making
Enough money that
I could quit being a statue
And as we started touring
I really didn't want to lose this
Sense of direct connection with people
Because I loved
It so after all of our shows, we
Would sign autographs and hug fans and
Hang out and talk to people, and we
Made an art out of asking people
To help us and join us
And I would track down local musicians and
Artists and they would set up outside of our
Shows, and they would pass the hat, and then
They would come in and join us onstage, so
We had this rotating smorgasbord of weird
Random circus guests
And then Twitter came along, and
Made things even more magic
Because I could ask
Instantly for anything anywhere so I would
Need a piano to practice on
And an hour later I would be at
A fan's house this is in London
People would bring home-cooked food to us all
Over the world backstage and feed
Us and eat with us this is in
Seattle fans who worked in museums
And stores and any kind of public
Space would wave their hands if
I would decide to do
A last-minute, spontaneous
Free gig this is a library
In Auckland on Saturday I
Tweeted for this crate and hat
Because I did not
Want to schlep them from the East Coast
And they showed up care
Of this dude, Chris from Newport Beach
Who says hello i once tweeted
Where in Melbourne can I buy a neti
Pot? And a nurse from a
Hospital drove one right
At that moment to the cafe I was in
And I bought her a smoothie and we
Sat there talking about nursing and death

And I love this kind of
Random closeness, which is lucky
Because I do a lot of couchsurfing in
Mansions where everyone in my crew gets
Their own room but there's no
Wireless, and in punk squats, everyone on
The floor in one room with
No toilets but with wireless
Clearly making it the better option

(Laughter)

My crew once pulled our van up
To a really poor Miami
Neighborhood and we found out that
Our couchsurfing host for the
Night was an 18-year-old girl
Still living at home, and her
Family were all undocumented immigrants from
Honduras and that night
Her whole family took the couches and
She slept together with her
Mom so that we could take
Their beds and I lay there thinking
These people have so little is
This fair? And in the morning, her mom
Taught us how to try to make tortillas
And wanted to give me a Bible, and she
Took me aside and she said to
Me in her broken English
"Your music has helped my
Daughter so much thank you for staying here
We're all so grateful" And I thought
This is fair this is this

A couple months later, I was in Manhattan
And I tweeted for a crash
Pad, and at midnight, I'm ringing a
Doorbell on the Lower East Side
And it occurs to me I've never actually
Done this alone i've always been
With my band or my crew is
This what stupid people do?
(Laughter) Is this how stupid people die? And
Before I can change my mind
The door busts open she's an artist
He's a financial blogger for Reuters
And they're pouring me a
Glass of red wine and offering me a bath
And I have had thousands of nights
Like that and like that

So I couchsurf a lot i also crowdsurf a lot
I maintain couchsurfing and crowdsurfing
Are basically the same
Thing you're falling into the
Audience and you're trusting
Each other i once asked an opening band
Of mine if they wanted to go out into the
Crowd and pass the hat to get themselves
Some extra money, something that I did a lot
And as usual, the band was psyched
But there was this one guy in
The band who told me he
Just couldn't bring himself to go
Out there it felt too
Much like begging to stand there with
The hat and I recognized
His fear of "Is this fair?" and "Get a job"

And meanwhile
My band is becoming bigger and bigger we
Signed with a major label and
Our music is a cross between punk and
Cabaret it's not for everybody well
Maybe it's for you we sign
And there's all this hype leading up
To our next record and
It comes out and it sells about 25
000 copies in the first few weeks
And the label considers this a failure

And I was like, "25, 000, isn't that a lot?"

They were like, "No
The sales are going down it's a
Failure" And they walk off

Right at this same time, I'm signing
And hugging after a gig, and a guy comes
Up to me and hands me a $10
Bill, and he says, "I'm sorry
I burned your CD from a friend"
(Laughter) "But, I read your blog
I know you hate your label i just
Want you to have this money"

And this starts happening all the time i
Become the hat after my own gigs
But I have to
Physically stand there and take
The help from people
And unlike the guy in the opening band
I've actually had a lot of
Practice standing there thank you

And this is the moment I
Decide I'm just going to
Give away my music for
Free online whenever possible
So it's like Metallica
Over here, Napster, bad Amanda
Palmer over here, and I'm going to
Encourage torrenting, downloading, sharing
But I'm going to ask for help
Because I saw it work on
The street so I fought
My way off my label and for
My next project with my
New band, the Grand Theft Orchestra
I turned to crowdfunding
And I fell into those thousands of
Connections that I'd made
And I asked my crowd to catch me and the
Goal was 100, 000 dollars my fans
Backed me at nearly 12 million
Which was the biggest music
Crowdfunding project to date

(Applause) and you can see how many people
It is it's about 25, 000 people

And the media asked, "Amanda
The music business is tanking and
You encourage piracy how
Did you make all these people pay for
Music?" And the real answer is
I didn't make them i asked
Them and through the
Very act of asking people, I'd connected with
Them, and when you connect with them
People want to help
You it's kind of counterintuitive for
A lot of artists
They don't want to ask for things but
It's not easy it's not easy to
Ask and a lot of
Artists have a problem with this
Asking makes you vulnerable

And I got a lot of criticism online after my
Kickstarter went big for continuing
My crazy crowdsourcing practices
Specifically for asking musicians who
Are fans if they wanted to join
Us on stage for a
Few songs in exchange for love
And tickets and beer
And this was a doctored image that went
Up of me on a website
And this hurt in a really
Familiar way and people saying, "You're
Not allowed anymore to ask for
That kind of help
" really reminded me of the people in
Their cars yelling, "Get a job" Because they
Weren't with us on the sidewalk, and
They couldn't see the exchange that was
Happening between me and my crowd
An exchange that was very fair to
Us but alien to them

So this is slightly not safe for work this is
My Kickstarter backer party in Berlin at the
End of the night, I stripped and let everyone
Draw on me now let me tell you, if you
Want to experience the visceral feeling of
Trusting strangers, I recommend this
Especially if those strangers
Are drunk German people this was a ninja
Master level fan connection
Because what I was really saying here was
I trust you this much should I? Show me

For most of human
History, musicians, artists, they've been
Part of the community
Connectors and openers
Not untouchable stars celebrity is
About a lot
Of people loving you from a distance
But the Internet and the content that
We're freely able to share
On it are taking us back
It's about a few people
Loving you up close and about those
People being enough so a
Lot of people are confused by the idea of no
Hard sticker price they see
It as an unpredictable
Risk, but the things I've
Done, the Kickstarter, the
Street, the doorbell
I don't see these things as
Risk i see them as trust now
The online tools to
Make the exchange as easy and
As instinctive as the street
They're getting there but the
Perfect tools aren't
Going to help us if we can't face each other
And give and receive fearlessly
But, more important, to ask without shame

My music career has been spent
Trying to encounter people on
The Internet the way I could on the box
So blogging and tweeting not just about
My tour dates and my
New video but about our work and our
Art and our fears and our hangovers, our
Mistakes, and we see each other and I
Think when we really see each other
We want to help each other

I think people have been obsessed with
The wrong question, which is, "How
Do we make people pay for music?"
What if we started asking
"How do we let people pay for music?"

Thank you

(Applause)