Аманда Палмер - The Art of Asking; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help

We didn’t need a fucking Hit. We were a punk-cabaret duo specializing in tear-jerking seven-minute songs with drum solos . We were not radio friendly. Our audience loved us precisely for all the weird, radio-unfriendly shit we did. We weren’t in the hit business, or anywhere near it; we were in the community-art-cult-poetry-family-love business. Even the music itself was only a part of it.

The recorded songs, the tangible CDs, were only the tip of the iceberg: the perfect, frozen, beautiful soundtrack for something far bigger, and far deeper.

The connection underneath was everything.

A 2010 Princeton University study conducted by two economists concluded that money DOES buy happiness, but only up to the point (which turns out to be an individual annual income of about $75,000) where you have your basic needs met along with a few extra comforts. After that, the ability to buy happiness with money nosedives.

Right: it’s not rocket science. We need to eat, we need shelter, a meal in a restaurant is nice. But there’s a satiation level, a happiness threshold you hit when you have enough .

I don’t know of any such formal studies of working musicians, but I see the same patterns in artistic success. The happiest artists I know are generally the ones who can manage to make a reasonable living from their art without having to worry too much about the next paycheck. Not to say that every artist who sits around the campfire, or plays in tiny bars, is “happier” than those singing in stadiums—but more isn’t always better. If feeling the connection between yourself and others is the ultimate goal, it can actually be harder when you are separated from your crowd by a thirty-foot barrier. The ideal sweet spot is the one in which the artist can freely share their talents and directly feel the reverberations of their artistic gifts to their community, and make a living doing that. In other words, it works best when everybody feels seen.

As artists, and as humans: if your fear is scarcity, the solution isn’t necessarily abundance. To quote Brené Brown again:

Abundance and scarcity are two sides of the same coin. The opposite of “never enough” isn’t abundance or “more than you could ever imagine.”

Which is to say, the opposite of “never enough” is simply:

Enough.

We had to get off the label. But they wouldn’t let us go.

At first, I asked nicely. During a tour in Europe, I went out to dinner with the owner, and requested to be dropped.

Amanda, Amanda , he said. You are a very talented girl. Very charismatic and you write very good songs. But you get in your own way wasting your time on all this fans-this and fans-that and the Internet-this and the Internet-that. One of these days you are going to focus and write some hit songs that are going to make a lot of money. I have faith in you. We are not dropping you .

Then he winked at me.

I blasted them in my blog. I complained about them openly in the press. I wrote them a letter-song called “Please Drop Me” to the tune of “Moon River,” performed it live, and asked the fans to video and upload to YouTube (they obliged). The label ignored it.

Meanwhile, the age of burning and downloading was in full flourish.

Because I was blogging so openly about wanting to be dropped from the label, and also explaining transparently that we, the band, were seeing absolutely no profit from the records people were buying in stores (it was obvious, at that point, that we would never recoup our advance) an interesting phenomenon sprang up at the signing table. People started handing us money.

I know it’s illegal, but I burned your CD from a friend. I know you hate your label and stuff… I just wanted to give you this ten dollars. I love the record .

I’ve been downloading your stuff for a few months and there’s no way to pay you. So here’s a twenty. I read on your blog that you wouldn’t get the money even if I went into a store and bought the CD, so here .

I feel really guilty, I’ve been listening to burned copies of both of your CDs. Here’s five dollars. I know it isn’t much but I can’t stand the feeling that I’ve never paid for them .

A few people even took their checkbooks out and wrote us checks for the money they thought they “owed” us.

I was happily astonished, and I also took every single dollar. I’d been a stripper and a silent street performer; I was used to taking people’s dollar bills with grace. I never refused, I just took the money given to us, feeling grateful that I had a voice, literally, to thank the patrons personally.

Thank you .

Thank you .

Thank you .

The label still wouldn’t drop us.

Asking wasn’t working.

Finally, I decided to lie.

I don’t like lying.

I had a tour stop in Los Angeles, and Freddie, my A&R guy (Dave, the guy who signed us, had long since been fired), was also in town. I called him up and we arranged to meet for dinner.

Ten minutes before he showed up, I drank a shot of whiskey. I poured another shot down my shirt. As he was pulling up in his car outside my cousins’ house where I was staying, I gargled. With whiskey. In vino veritas ; I figured if he thought I was drunk, he’d never think I was lying. I got in his car, hugged him, and told him I’d been feeling really bad about all the tension and crazy label stuff. I was sorry. I hiccupped.

Over dinner, I asked Freddie about parenthood. He had kids, and happily told me his child-rearing stories. I listened, getting misty-eyed.

Finally, over dessert, I burst into what I hoped were uncontrollable-looking tears. Freddie sat there uncomfortably as I told him that all I wanted was a family. How I was tired of touring, tired of the fans, tired of the grind. I worried aloud that if I got pregnant, the label would think of me as a failure. I sniveled through my martini, swayed a little, and blew my nose on the sleeve of my dress.

No, no. Oh… Amanda , Freddie assured me, putting his hand on my arm. So you know, that would never happen. We’ve put all this time and energy into you because we BELIEVE in you. Okay? And in your whole career. It may be bumpy now but we’re in this for the long haul. That’s exactly why we won’tdrop you. And if you want to have children, you should. And that would never hurt your standing with the label. Never. Ever .

Really? Truly? I said, sniffling.

Really. Truly , Fred said, kindly.

Okay. Please, please promise me that this stays between you and me, okay? Please don’t tell anybody at the label. Promise?

He promised, and drove me back to my cousins’ house. I called Neil.

I just pretended to be drunk and lied to my label guy all night about being brood-y and it felt really, really, really gross .

I love you, fake-drunk girlfriend , he said. Did it work? Were you a good liar?

I want a fucking Oscar. I cried real tears. Meryl-Streep-level shit , I told him.

A month later, I got a letter from my lawyer.

The label had dropped me.