Tracy in the street and at the Grammys (Patreon)

Hello loves.

Greetings from Woodstock, 4:40 am. I’m re-inventing in many ways, scrambling, feeling the raw ache of transformation and the disorienting spin of huge, hard life decisions.

My local friend’s house is infested with mold and ladybugs. Somebody’s also stalking her, and she’s going to move. I found out last night that the collective noun for ladybugs is a “loveliness”. A murder of crows, a loveliness of ladybugs. She says they’ve been suiciding into the candles she burns at night.

……

I’ve so behind that I only just watched the “Fast Car” duet between Tracy Chapman and Luke Comb from at the Grammys.

Watch it if you haven’t.

https://youtu.be/TZtUrJAMkIQ?si=7h-2Z5m_W7x1FBKc

Total goosebumps multiple times.

Watching Tracy, this hero of mine, brings up so much. I have feels to share and I’m up early before Ash, so I’m gonna do it.

Tracy cut her teeth, like I did, as a street performer. She was a busker in Harvard Square, right on my pitch. It’s always been a remarkable thing for me: that this woman whose songwriting I worshipped in high school was out there, fifteen years before I would be, standing on those same bricks, likely getting ignored by the vast majority of people who walked by her.

I said it in my book” The Art of Asking”: busking gives you performance balls of steel. It creates a comfortable-ness that no stage word can give you, because street is street, and stage is stage. The stage is a safe, sacred space. You’re supposed to be there as a musician or an actor. It’s MADE FOR YOU.

The street is not. It’s made for everybody. You have to fight every demon of insecurity to play on the street, boldly inviting the world to pay attention to whatever you may have to offer.

You can see it in Tracy’s face. So at ease.

I am going though a very hard moment in my life right now. Everything feels unpredictable. I often don’t know who I can trust, rely on, believe…sometimes it feels like I just don’t understand anything or any place. I feel lonely.

I have been relying on songs. One song, really. I have a song that I listen to right now, on repeat, that’s been getting me though the nights. It’s the only song I need. (I’d tell you what it is, but I think I’m gonna keep it mine for now. It’s a love song to a lighthouse. Maybe I’ll cover it.)

I imagine that “Fast Car” may have been that song for some people when it came out in 1988.

I imagine women, especially survivors of abuse and concentric circles of addiction, hearing Tracy’s voice coming through a speaker and thought: my god, I’m not alone, my god, someone’s put words to it.

Songs are just songs.

The listener gives them power. You can imagine it: Tracy playing “Fast Car” on a sidewalk in Harvard Square, as 78 different business people and students walk by and think nothing of it. But one woman stops, listens, quietly cries, hesitates, gives Tracy a dollar. A connection. A spark. An un-lonelying.

And all I need is for one song I’ve written to have ever saved one person for five minutes.

If it needs to be said: patronage is the digital version of that case at Tracy’s feet in 1983, the urn at my feet in 1997. It seems very dorky to some, but that’s what this is. It’s digital busking. Your dollar is my rent.

You being here is everything.

You are what keeps me getting out of bed in the morning, you are what helps me make, work, feel and know that what I’m making matters.

Thank you for being here with me on this beautiful sidewalk in this scary world.

If you’re just following but not paying, you’re always welcome to be here, read and watch. But one day, if you’re really moved, I hope you contribute. It helps me.

And I

I had a feeling that I belonged

I

I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone.

I love you all so much.

Good morning.

Xxx

AFP

Ps edit: Mary Lou Lord just commented on this post on FB with a quote from my own book and I nearly fell over. I’m gonna just spend all day crying.

Ps the band is touring. Come see me do what I actually do with The Dresden Dolls:

March 22&23: Mohawk, Austin TX

March 26&27: The Kessler Theater, Dallas TX

March 29th: The Eastern, Atlanta GA

March 30th: Brooklyn Bowl, Nashville TN

Tickets amandapalmer.net.