“Mr. Weinstein Will See You Now” {official thing}
(public post)
hello my loves.
here it is. i’m going to post this here and head to bed in london, i’ll see what’s happened when i awake. i’m also about to send download codes (and charge you) as a patron-only post/email. check it.
in the real world….this is the link to share:
https://amandapalmer.bandcamp.com/track/amanda-palmer-jasmine-power-mr-weinstein-will-see-you-now
listen. then…..share it far, and share it wide. this isn’t going to the media. it’s going to you. you are the media. spread it.
100% of the digital sales of this song until june 30th are going to be donated to TimesUp, a Legal Defense Fund that provides subsidized legal support to those who have experienced sexual harassment, assault, or abuse in the workplace: https://www.gofundme.com/timesup.
……..
album cover photo: coco karol.
album cover design: andrew nelson.
and now….i’ll try to be brief. that’s hard for me, you know.
big and important: you need to listen with headphones, or with stereo speakers. i know i sound like a broken record (wait, what’s that?), but some music just doesn’t work on a phone or on laptop speakers.
please, trust me. the way it’s recorded really calls for it.
my fucking god. okay.
bill cosby. all those women.
harvey weinstein. all those women.
donald trump. the fucked-up and relentless news about stormy daniels.
and so much more, so far beyond, so many women that you will never hear from, ever know about. the women who will never be profiled in the new yorker.
all of it.
all of us.
and more….
all those rooms in which it happened…the hotel rooms, the apartments, the houses. the hotel rooms. the shady gray areas of our minds. the internal arguments and justifications. the madness.
the voices that echo there.
……………..
this is the text i sent to my journalist friends:
The song began as a “let’s write something, anything together” jam session between me and Jasmine Power, a 24-year-old welsh artist/songwriter who happened to be over to dinner at my house alongside a mutual british playwright pal of both of ours named Hywell John. Wine was imbibed, songs were shared. Jasmine had never heard of me. It didn’t matter.
Three days later we went into a studio together to try to co-write something, anything, together…and we pondered what topics to attack. The news about Stormy Daniels was just hitting fever pitch, and I found myself thinking about hotel rooms across the world, how they’ve been the backdrops of so many of these painful encounters. That was the starting point, and we wrote with the idea of a split self: two voices inside one woman’s head, and british arranger Matt Nicholson then added strings and orchestration to make the scene more – literally – cinematic.
I’ve been fiddling in my own head for months with ideas for songs and tunes to address the #MeToo movement, and it’s such a hard thing to write about it. It’s so personal to these women, these stories, and it felt to wrong to write something funny and cabaret; the topic is too harrowing. It’s not surprising that, just like the movement itself, it took two women getting into a room together, comparing notes and joining forces to create something almost like an anthem for taking back our narrative.
The working title of the song was “The Hotel Room”, but then I thought it’d be a stronger statement to call it “Mr. Weinstein Will See You Now.” I mentioned the title to my patrons online and one of my feminist writer friends texted me, warning me that the title itself could be controversial. When I asked why, she said: “Because you cannot tell a story that isn’t yours, not this one”. I didn’t agree with that one, as I think that spells the end of all art as we know it, but I said: “What if I asked Rose Mcgowan to read the lyrics and tell me her own opinion?” So I tweeted Rose Mcgowan the lyrics, and she gave us her blessing to use the title.
Every time I hear this track I get goosebumps, and every time I play the track for one of my female friends, we have an important moment together.
I don’t know if most people will even understand this song; and I don’t care.
The women we wrote it for will know.
And that’s who it’s for.
…………….
a journalist from the BBC asked me a few days if donald trump had indeed “made punk rock great again”, as i’d suggested he would in the press the week of the inauguration.
the answer is….yes.
look at what is happening in the world, on social media, with #metoo, with art.
women are sharing their stories; women are infecting & inflaming one another with the truth.
and the truth is what punk is – or what it was for me, at any rate.
truth is punk as fuck.
—
photo by matt nicholson.
the lyrics:
MR WEINSTEIN WILL SEE YOU NOW.
amanda:
your seven hundredth bedroom
the waiter brings the bill
you came here dressed for battle
you knew damn well
the sharpening of axes
the fat man rings a bell
jasmine:
don’t touch me
i’m not here to help
amanda:
he’ll smother what he captures
jasmine:
move over
amanda:
you know damn well…
every door behind you closing
jasmine:
you’re a very lucky girl
amanda:
every velvet rope that opens
jasmine:
every time the robe unfurls
amanda:
you came here with a wish-list
jasmine:
move over
amanda:
you came with bows and bells
jasmine:
i’m not here to have
amanda:
you came here armed for action
you knew the drill
jasmine:
move over before i shelve myself
i’m not here to help you
amanda:
every man behind the curtain
jasmine:
jerking knobs and smoking guns
amanda & jasmine:
shut your eyes pay no attentionjust keep calm and carry on…
black or blue, you choose
you’re free to be inbetween
play or lose
you say
it’s not what you meant to mean
black or blue
you mean
what? you’ve got to be kidding
just turn me over
jasmine:
fast and
let’s get this over withlet’s get this over with
amanda:
let’s get this over with
jasmine:
let’s get this over with
amanda:
you crouch down in the bathroom
jasmine:
our time is at a loss
amanda:
the mirror makes you sick
jasmine:
won’t have you in me
amanda:
you hear him channel surfing
jasmine:
won’t have you near me, not at any cost
amanda:
you knew this script
jasmine:
run now, girl, run
amanda:
your shirt is on the table
jasmine:
run now girl, toss back the covers, lay your buttons on the ground
amanda:
your skirt is on the floor
jasmine:
i dare you not to lay back down, your fetish on the floor
amanda:
you did what anybody would…
jasmine:
bless me with the strategy to chip away your smell
walking the nightmare out the door
amanda:
every version has two endings
jasmine:
every time the penny drops
amanda & jasmine:
open casket, open casting
this is where the story stops
jasmine:
i storm out through the hallway
i leave the scars inside
you won’t portray my picture
this film is mine
amanda:
every door that closes opens
jasmine:
you may cut this lucky girl
amanda:
say you’ve got
a lot of nerve
walking in here on your own
so come and get it
you deserve it
everybody wants to rule the world
jasmine:
say you want me
say you’ll haunt me
say you’re angry
say you’re honest
say you’re honest
say you’re sorry
say you’re sorry
amanda & jasmine:
black or blue
you choose
you’re free to be inbetween
play or lose
you say
it’s still not what you meant to mean
black or blue
you mean
what?
you can’t be seriousdon’t you dare forget
jasmine:
that i’m the one writing thisi’m the one writing this
amanda:
and this never happened.
jasmine:
i’m the one writing this.
amanda:
this never happened.
jasmine:
i’m the one writing this.
………………………..
words from jasmine:
I was on a song-writing trip when my co-writers and I received an invitation to have supper with Amanda Palmer. Great conversation quickly led to a live jam and performance in the barn. She asked me to sing and so I performed two of my songs on the piano before Matt Nicholson and I improvised a song. Then I asked Amanda to sing. The room felt quiet, still and beautiful… just six of us in the candlelit barn sharing songs.
I found Amanda so charming, hospitable, generous and cool. We made an instant impression on one another and we both thought that our voices would blend beautifully together. Just two days later, after a big hike up a mountain to clear my head and rejuvenate my spirit, my co-writer Matt Nicholson picked me up and took me to the studio to write a song with Amanda. The rest is history. Life seems full of serendipity at the moment. I just felt so honored to be writing a song with this inspiring person who has become my friend and mentor.
We had a fantastic rapport working on the song about Weinstein and the #MeToo movement. It was funny the way it just happened because we didn’t really plan the topic, but it felt important to both of us and we were excited by the idea of a powerful intertwining female duet. But that got us thinking, “How can we portray this from two angles in one song?” Inspiration hit when we realized we could sing two perspectives of one woman’s experience of abuse: how fear of power can overcome her conscience telling her she is strong enough to run away.
I believe this is a message that resonates with all women, all around the globe. It’s about time it stopped. We are reaching a place in society where women are beginning to feel more empowered but I feel we have a long way to go and I’m determined for this to happen during my lifetime. I want to bring my children into a world where there is true equality and mutual respect, in both work and relationships. I wish that all women were able to own the strength to say no whenever they wanted to. But consent is vital – it’s quite simple, the line should be drawn when a woman says “no”. Men need to shape up and they need to start listening. Of course, there are many good men out there – we are speaking to abusers of power.
Co-writing ‘Mr Weinstein Will See You Now’ with Amanda Palmer was different from anything I had ever experienced before. It was an intense process entering into this story together, but writing with a unique artist and extraordinary lyricist like Amanda was so inspiring. I loved the combination of our styles and our accents, the way our voices entwined. I had shivers down my spine when we sang together.
I’m so excited that we arrived at this song. It felt very poignant to me to write this song with Amanda about a subject that I feel every woman and every man should hear.
………..
jasmine’s on the web at:
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/jasziepower
Twitter - https://twitter.com/jasziepower
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/jasziepower
………
run now girl.
i love you all. so much.
xxx
AFP
——THE NEVER-ENDING AS ALWAYS———
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