"How Would You Like To Play God" (official Thing + DOWNLOADS 4 ALL) (Patreon)

hallo loves.

I interrupt this season of discussion regarding patreon, platforms, systems, capitalism and so forth to bring you some Actual Fucking Art.

may i remind you that the point of all this brouhaha is, indeed, me making art-shit that i'm really proud of and excited by and you getting to listen to it.

......................

i'm keeping this a patreon-only release, as per my decision last month, and, as i've done before (and especially given what's happening with the $1 people getting especially reamed by the new patreon fee plan), i'm making this a download available to all patrons, not just the $3 folks. $3 folks, i really hope you don't mind. it feels like the correct kindness.

and since this is a patron-only release, i'm not building a project page...i'm just going to tell you the backstory of this song here on this post. within the next week there's also going to be two (unthing'd/unpaid) extra pieces of content: the student video (scripted and shot on campus by the students at wesleyan university who were enrolled in me & michael pope's "film 442: the art of doing" ....and an additional short documentary that one of the students took upon himself to make. they're both super touching.

if you want to see me & pope and one of the students doing a facebook live wrap-up (hilarious, and touching) interview explaining more....here it be:

https://www.facebook.com/amandapalmer/videos/10155445127293375

..........

and.

here's the long story behind this song.

last spring, the president of wesleyan, michael roth, called me up and asked if i would "do something". a course. a seminar. a workshop. whatever. i knew that this would be a generally unpaid (or very low-paid) gig, so i offered to work for free - but i also asked that they hire michael pope, one of my most inspired and trusted collaborators, as a teacher for the semester, and the two of us came up with a plan to work with a select group of students for an entire semester (pope taught twice a week, i came to campus four times throughout the semester - it's also where we filmed the epic live take of "the ride").

this was the plan:

michael pope would teach these students (who came from all years and backgrounds, we didn't make it a requirement of the course that you had to be studying film, or theater, or any kind of art - this was open to EVERYBODY) the impossible-to-explain art of shaking off your creative shackles. this is how we opened the first class: we made everybody meditate, yell at the top of their lungs, and free-write - with Olde Fashioned pens and paper - whatever came into their heads. 

the students continued on this path with pope for the next month or so: discussing, yelling, doing martial arts, tapping into their creative brains, keeping a morning journal where their work would never be read by anyone, and so forth.

then i came back to campus and - much like i did with you guys for the last few flash songs - i gave them a writing prompt, and told them that i was going to collect their pages, read them, and write a song inspired by what they'd handed me.

this was the prompt: "what would you kill to fix?"

the pages i got were a combination of the most depressing, inspiring and angry shit i've read in ages, and i buckled myself into the piano chair about a week later and wrote this song on a borrowed piano in a shed in saugerties, new york.

the song itself made me angry. i wasn't in a particularly good mood. 

this may be why it sounds more like a dresden dolls song from 2003 than anything i've written in recent memory. this could have been a track from "yes, virginia" without a blink.

............

then i made a demo piano recording and sent it to the students so they could start working on their video treatments.

two of the students in the class, olivia and katie lopez, are in a band (they're twin sisters and their band is called Lopii. get it?....here's a link to their soundcloud).

they made a recording of some back-up vocal ideas they had and texted them to pope, who texted them to me. there was a psychic mind-meld at play: i'd already been planning to record those exact back-up harmonies when i got this song to a studio. so i invited them to be on the recording....as long as they could get to a microphone at wesleyan the DAY i was in the studio in london. they freaked out and were happy and said yes. 

a few days later, i flew to london with neil (he had to work on good omens for the BBC) and i booked a studio recording day at a place called livingston studios. i was going to record the song as a piano-and-vocal only track, but i kept listening to it and hearing....bells.

like, glockenspiel. so i called the only person i knew in london who might have a glockenspiel, christo squier from the band perhaps contraption, and asked if he would be keen to work for a day (and, er, bring his glockenspiel). he said he didn't have one but might be able to borrow one from a friend. good enough. i sent him my demo recording for the track ($5+ people, by the way, i'm gonna send you the piano demo in a second).

he listened to it and said: "it really needs drums". 

"i know, i know", i said. "it really does. but we're recording tomorrow, so, yeah. shame about that. i can play drums really badly. so can you. maybe we can both play bad drums on it?

he said: "that's a bad idea. i know a drummer. a really good one. riccardo. if he's free can he come?"

i said "fuck yeah. tell him i'll pay him his regular day rate."

i was with jherek at the time, since we were rehearsing our asses off for the union chapel show/webcast. 

i said "well, there's this drummer coming to my session tomorrow. do you want to come and play bass? where there is drums, there must be bass."

he agreed.

and so, like that, we created an accidental band about 18 hours before hitting the studio. christo showed up with a glockenspiel and a saxophone, jherek showed up with his bass, and riccardo showed up with a stick bag and settled in at the studio drum kit.

it was fuckin' cold in london that day. we had tea.

here's our whole band. from left to right: jherek, me, christo, riccardo.

we rehearsed for half the day, tracked the song until we got it right, and then christo and i stayed late into the session putting down overdubs: the glock, the massive vocal layers, the weird angry saxophone.

meanwhile, i'd sent the rough band mix back to olivia and katie in connecticut, and they recorded and wetransfered their back-up vocals in just in time and we folded them into the batter of the final mix.

by the end of the night, we finished the song...

i think it's absolutely fuckin' smokin'.

you be the judge. and don't leave me hanging. nothing will depress me more than 500 people leaving me comments about business and money and only 14 people leaving me comments about music and art.

seriously.

with that, here are your download codes:  

WAV: https://we.tl/d3ighdsBV5 

MP3: https://we.tl/q3qurbnI28

and if you want to stream it, here's a private soundcloud link:
https://soundcloud.com/amandapalmer/how-would-you-like-to-play-god/s-GClCs

i love you all.

if you needed another reminder: you are paying to make everything possible for me, all these musicians, all of this. it's working. it may be janky, but it's working.

xxxxx

AFP

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CREDITS & LYRICS

Music, Lyrics, Piano & Lead Vocals by Amanda Palmer
Arranged by Jherek Bischoff
Drums: Riccardo Castellani
Glockenspiel: Christo Squier
Backup Vocals: Olivia Lopez & Kathryn Lopez
Engineer: Simon Todkill

Recorded at Livingston Studio 1, London. 

the lyrics:

HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO PLAY GOD 

trapped in my bed
dead like the rest
let’s go

it started off innocent
just some who do you know and some remember when
but man there you go again
reducing me to some kind of cross-section

well, two can play this game
and i don’t like you either but i’ll fix you anyway
two can play this game
so just lie back and relax

two can play this game
and you can’t hurt me cause i can’t feel anything
two can play this game
so let’s agree on certain facts

the bells have stopped ringing today
how long would you like to stay...
(would you like to stay?)
how would you like to play
GOD

don't gimme that knowing wink
cause you don’t know dick about it and i’m sick of tryna wrap my fuckin head around things i think you think i think
don’t act like you’re here to help
because there’s too many cooks in this hellhole already and it’s hard enough just trying to get off myself

well, two can play this game
and i don’t like you either but i’ll fix you anyway
two can play this game

so just lie back and relax
two can play this game
and you can’t hurt me cause i can’t feel anything
two can play this game
so let’s agree on certain facts

the bells have stopped ringing today
how long would you like to stay
(would you like to stay?)
how would you like to play

GOD

i’ll take your order now
oh i’m sorry sir we’re out
if you wanna come back again
we’ll see what we can do about your precious things
we’ll see what we can do about your precious things
we’ll see what we can do about your precious things

we’ll see what we can do about your precious things....