a final goodbye song, as i fly away. (Patreon)

hello my loves.

i’m writing this - poetically, and perhaps by design - from the tarmac of auckland airport as i wait for the wheels to lift and the big steel bird to carry us back to america.

this is the song i wrote and tweaked over the last month.

it is a love song.

and it is a goodbye song.

it was made - literally - far underground.

it was recorded this past wednesday in the stony batter on waiheke island, a remote set of defense tunnels built during WW2.

i saw the tunnels (and that there was an old rickety piano down there for secret events), only a few days after i wrote the song.

it had to be.

so the tunnels let us in, we hired a remote sound engineer (david wernham, julia dean’s partner) and down, down, down julia and i went to record. we also made a video - we will hang onto that for later (it needs work, and i think this song will probably come out on the collection of NZ songs i seem to have amassed).

here are some shots….

at the start of the pandemic, when new zealand opened and the world closed, there were all of comments about how new zealand was fine because it was just “a little island in the middle of nowhere”. the kiwis were quite defensive about this - and rightly so - for two reasons.

one, the government did the right thing. it was not an accident.

and two, new zealand isn’t all that small.

they are sensitive about that. i kept seeing images of NZ superimposed over the UK. it’s bigger.

…..

so…. more about leaving this country, later.

now, all you need to do is listen:

https://soundcloud.com/amandapalmer/little-island-featuring-julia-deans/s-bsZYXMDbP6n?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

the soundcloud link is private, but you can share it with people who may want or need to hear it (i know i especially have friends of friends in new zealand who aren’t patrons. send away.)

you can download the song direct from soundcloud.

this photo was taken the morning i left, out of the window of my car as the rain poured down, near awaawarowa, the eco-village that first welcomed me onto the island.

it all fits.

i love you all so much.

a hit about the song.

jamie macphail is one of the people in new zealand who really schooled me in the history of the place, as we drove around and opened one another’s hearts to hidden stories.

he helped me a lot with ash when i was alone at at my lowest ebb. here he is in september 2020, when new zealand was open and the world was closed, and i tried to throw ash the best birthday party ever to heal his sad heart. jamie came dressed like this, with giant balloons.

this song is for new zealand, but it’s also really for him.

…

jamie says the kiwis loved americans

the moonshot JFK and lucky strikes

now there’s just this pity and embarrassment

the proud boys covid deaths and oscar night

jamie says the old days here were simpler

no television coffee and no phones

and even people third fourth generation

when they were talking about england they’d say

… “home”

oh i owe you little island

little island bigger than my mind

some of us are proud of what we brought here

and some of us are proud of what we left behind

jamie took me to the family graveyard

up near where he grew up on the farm

his little sister died when he was six years old

she was buried there between his dad and mom

jamie went to gaze into the sunset

and i wandered around wondering what to do

that’s when i saw the headstone with the swastika

this mongrel mob guy next to a guy from world war two

oh i owe you little island

little island bigger than the sun

some of us are proud of what we fought for

and some of us are proud of how fast we could run

and there’s a cloud of doubt

hanging over the hangman’s back

and there’s a long white cloud

hanging over the union jack

jamie says that people always leave here

because europe and australia have work

jamie says he’s never left the country

but he swears he’ll come and see me in new york

oh i owe you little island

little island bigger than the sun

some of us are proud of what we fought for

and some of us are proud of how fast we could run

oh i love you little island

little island bigger than the whole UK

some of us are proud of where we came from

have got to settle being proud

that we got away

…..

i love you, little island.

you have changed my life forever.

xx

afp