Ampersand Lyrics

Lyric discussion by salparadiselives 

Cover art for Ampersand lyrics by Amanda Palmer

I really like the fact that although the song IS about her inability to commit and be half of a pair... It also adds that extra slighty unbalanced nature so typical of her work. If you read the lyrics carefully, you realise that the thread of it is as follows...

She walks past a group of firefighters. She reaches home and talks to the boys (highlighting her expression of personal freedom) She contemplates her past fascination with fire, and with her partner. She realises that he is all into commitment and she is not. She leaves him. She wakes up and the fire she saw earlier has "ironically" burnt down the whole bock except her apartment.

Why is this ironic.... It is because SHE STARTED THE FIRE!

She is in FACT! the crazy one in the song... or IS she?

This layering of Palmer's songs are what makes them fascinating as lyrics. And the music totally contemplates this multiplicity.

brilliant analysis! you must be one of her ex-boyfriends.

I would agree, Amanda is really independent and doesn't really commit in relationships. She's sort of notorious for it, as in "all those real/boys that i destroy" in coin-operated boy.

the fires and ghetto boys are such a rich description of her home in the South end of Boston...the tattered edges of an upscale neighborhood fading into the gang turf of Dorchester, just a block from the hospitals and fire department. There really was a fire on her street that burned up to their building, then stopped..

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