DISQUS

Erron K. · 4 weeks ago

Amanda,

I followed a link to this that was re-tweeted by a video game journalist who's opinion I vastly respect, so I decided to give this a read. I've never listened to your music, and I've never listened to The Cure. I grew up under vastly different influences, and I think I might have missed out on something amazing. But that isn't the point of this post.

I read through this entire letter without understanding the material it focuses on. I've only ever been to one concert in my life (Rolling Stones/ Alice Cooper/ Kanye West/ The Trews) and while it's easy to listen to any of those artists and find a song that sounds nice, none of them ever really grabbed me.

Your letter made me realize I've never had a band like that. If you were to walk up and ask me "Name the band you really connected with" I wouldn't be able to give you an answer. I read your letter and found myself silently crying. It was part because I could feel the emotion you put into this letter even though I can't really relate to it.. but it was more than that.

I think I was crying because this single letter was enough to make me realize how much I've missed out on.

I grew up in a village with a population of less than a thousand. My highschool had under five hundred students, and I had a graduating class of twenty-seven. My school was filled with white kids who drove ATVs and listened to rap and/or country. I was strange because I kind of dug Metallica.
A lack of different music in my school and a lack of musical interest among peers on the internet (when I finally got a computer // video game nerds in a video game community don't really talk about music) meant there was a lack of discovery on my part. Not seeking it out meant not thinking about it, and not thinking about it meant.. well, not thinking about it. Until I read this letter.

In twenty two years it never occurred to me to look beyond the video games I play for something to really connect with. It doesn't work the same with games -- you can play a video game, and love a video game.. but you can't really enjoy a video game the same way you enjoy music. Playing a video game takes focus. You can't put on a video game and just sit back and close your eyes. You can't let a video game play through on it's own and crank the speakers, letting it wash over you while you think about what it means, or how it makes you feel, or doing absolutely nothing except being there with it.

I can't remember if I was going somewhere with this comment. I think I've gotten lost since I started writing it, having gone back and re-read your letter. I think I need to stop writing for now and maybe go look into some music. Maybe I'll find something I can really connect with like you connect with The Cure. Maybe I'll find The Cure, or The Dresden Dolls. Maybe it'll be something else.
Maybe I'll never find it. But your letter helped me realize that I need to look.

Thank you.

Andrea · 4 weeks ago

I'm sitting here utterly destroyed because this touches on so many of the things I've been struggling with in my life right now.

kaci · 3 weeks ago

that was a beautiful letter.
keep doing what you love,
and never forget that we're all beside you...

Rockets · 4 weeks ago

Umm... that's the sweetest fan-love-letter I've eva read...

michael · 4 weeks ago

today is the day that blogging became beautiful.

i've just bought disintegation off the back of this.
the cure never really interested me till now.
so now i'm all amped and buzzed for it arriving so i can give it a good listen.
woohoo, etc.
x

Sylvia · 4 weeks ago

God... that was beautiful, Amanda. I'm crying. I don't do that often, and I'd rather not do it now, but that was beautiful and life is harsh and beautiful and I am waxing lyrical and crying.

To see an artist so plainly and honestly document her own teenage crushes and loves is sort of a gift... we're all fans before we make art after all, but somehow that connection gets lost after the turning point. Maybe it's not cool. I hate cool so much.

I hope you understand that you deserve every second of happiness you find, and every person who enters your life and makes it happy - if just for the happiness you give to other people, and your honesty, and your *realness*.

I'm really not this soppy usually.

Also, Robert Smith is (and has always been and will probably always be) one of the only two artists I actually "fangirl" over, and has made a ridiculously huge difference to my life. The best and biggest possibly being the revelation that The Cure are supposed to be one of the beginning points of goth, BUT THEY'RE NOT F*CKING MISERABLE. And so I do not need to be miserable, or wear black, in order to be serious about the art I make.

Peace.

sezinka · 4 weeks ago

Dear Amanda,

I'll admit it - I have really no idea who you are, your music, anything about you. But my friends keep posting your blog posts in places that I see them and I've started reading. Your words are amazing. So honest, raw, intimate, very *you* even though I don't even know you. I like that.

The Cure via Robert Smith saved my life several times. Not changed my life, saved it. If it hadn't been for DISINTEGRATION, I am absolutely 100% sure that I would've given up, stopped caring, halted creating, gotten an office job and bought a house in some cookie-cutter suburb. Thankfully, an Italian goddess brought them into my life and now I live in Prague, crazy happy married, constantly under the influence of creative energies, and in love with life.

I loved reading how deeply Robert Smith has affected your life, down to the uncomfortable details of first sexual experiences. That kind of openness does me in every time. You are so brave. I'm inspired. My Italian goddess friend gave me DISINTEGRATION after a Spanish jerk broke my heart. Robert's voice put the pieces back together. When my husband's uncle passed away. I played it for him, watched him heal while listening. And he doesn't even really like music (I know, I know, blasphemous, but he's so great in every other way I barely notice that anymore.)

After this post, I am absolutely going to start listening to your music, buy your albums, follow your thoughts on Twitter, etc. Maybe you'll even pass through town someday soon. What you put into the world just through your written words is pure magic. I can hedge a bet that I'm not wrong in thinking all of the other art you create is too.

With much respect and thanks,
Sezin

Catherine · 4 weeks ago

Thank you for sharing this. I, too, tried to make goth friends in clubs just to feel much more lonely and inhuman when I left in the mornings. Now I find comfort in your music like you did in the Cure and although I might maybe in 20 years abandon you (because who knows what will happen?), I will still always love you and know you have changed my life by showing me what a real woman is.

dana · 4 weeks ago

Dear Amanda,

Thank you for this. It made me remember exactly how I felt about The Cure when I discovered them. It made me cry a little. (But not in a bad way). It made me smile.

Thank you.

dresdendolly · 4 weeks ago

that was beautiful, sweetie. i know exactly what it is to love someone so much and then accidentally leave them. the coming back is so much sweeter and it's honeymoon all over again. xoxo

Name · 4 weeks ago

that was the most pretentious, narcissistic, irrationally self-absorbed pile of shit i've ever read. good job!

Shiny · 4 weeks ago

no one made you read it, and comment.

i myself found this interesting, and i'm sure many others did too.

Nico · 4 weeks ago

*WHOOSH*

You hear that?

That's the sound of irony flying right past your head.

Guest · 4 weeks ago

You won't be left.

Paula(bear) · 4 weeks ago

Amanda, I fuckin' love you. Bands may not be exactly the same - though I too had a nearly religious experience seeing MBV again last year - but you just summed up so many of my own feelings and thoughts about the people and the bands and the music that made me who I am today. And still rock my world, even if I forget that for a while... :)

kc · 4 weeks ago

Excellent.

Heather · 4 weeks ago

well I don't have Disintegration so I put on Faith instead. I hope Robert Smith reads it and responds positively. Don't know whether to make music now or listen to it (for the rest of the evening, that is. not for life.)

My best friend was in love with a Cure fan when we were teens but it turned out HE was in love with Robert Smith and soon ran away to the arms of another lovely male Cure fan. sigh.

El Sid · 4 weeks ago

That was sincere, and lovely, and made me kinda cry a little bit because of course that's exactly what The Cure meant to me, too. Thank you for sharing.

Name · 4 weeks ago

I love Robert as well. I ask people if they care for the cure, and I've only found a single girl who has, she means a lot.

john · 4 weeks ago

definitely been there. Well put!

Anna · 4 weeks ago

This made me cry, but in a beautiful way. Thank you for sharing.

Chad curry · 4 weeks ago

I'm sitting here at work in tears. This was amazing. The Cure's music changed my life like nothing I've ever experienced. The album Disintegration still reduces me to tears. Thank you for not only writing this, but for sharing it.

On another note, YOU are the first musician since my first experience with The Cure, over 20 years ago, that has evoked that similiar feeling. I love the Dolls, but your solo album is my favorite album since Disintegration. I remember listening to it with my boyfriend and just staring at the wall in a weird trance, just like I would get with every new Cure release.

My boyfriend proposed to me at a Cure show Kansas City in May of 2007 and I proposed back at a Dresden Dolls show a week later.

I force your album on everyone I love just as I did each Cure album. I've had so many friends email me, text, or call in utter awe after I sent them one of your videos, or forced them to buy your album.

Thank you again, for this letter, but thank you also for bringing a passion and a love for and back to music. I have no doubt you'll be getting letters like this, 20 years from now.

dadekian · 4 weeks ago

That was so friggin' great. Thank you. I hope Robert reads it and takes you up on the keyboard offer. Not for any fan's thought of a magical musical combo but just because it sounds like it'd be a lot of fun for you. Thanks again.

Matt · 4 weeks ago

That was amazing. Thank you.

-Logan- · 4 weeks ago

Wow. This is wonderful. Thank you.

Alexandra · 4 weeks ago

Wow! I enjoyed that Amanda, I've had a pretty crap day and this has cheered me up (I don't know why, but it has) x x x

wakashi · 4 weeks ago

:) beautiful, as it is.. you said it would bring your fans closer to understanding how it is and you were about 100% right! ;) it's not even that long, accounting for what's inside.. suffice to say: we want more!

spacegirl_spiff · 4 weeks ago

That.... was... wow. Awesome?
Reminds me of my youth as well.... bravo.

D.C. · 4 weeks ago

It wasn't that long. I think you've been twittering too long - it's warping your sense of scale :) And thanks for that moment you created for me that I won't forget: when you covered MJ on that day he when suddenly he was dead - electric skin fire, eyes suddenly embarrassingly blurred with moisture ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsHJy1xNvEE

Muertecaramelo · 4 weeks ago

Amanda. I read it all (office hours! that's what them are for!) and I'm very overwhelmed of your words and honesty and random facts that make you end up in that last photo.
I'm younger and never had the chance to get into The Cure. On my dearest friends did and I know for sure the band and their music is not for everybody and needs an extreme sense of sensibility to get hooked into. I love him and I love Robert because of him.
Your words made me remember his own trying to explain me the deeper inner core of The Cure without much success. I know I've missed something important and I sure regret it sometimes.
Back to you.
It's great that you finally published this letter. Hope it helps you realized just how far you've come and why your fans are... well... your fans.
I relate to your music as you once did to Robert's. I plan to grow old listening to your records.
It may sound crazy but I'm loyal to my friends and I consider you part of my life so, why don't you get the same treatment?
Just keep playing, not stopping, making people cry tears of joy. It's your time now.
Love you. J

Debbie Menzel · 4 weeks ago

I wish I could express myself the way you do - God knows you just wrote down the same feelings I have toward the Cure - although I still follow them religiously, probably in a scary, stalk-y way. Thank you for sharing this - amazing.

Name · 4 weeks ago

Thank you for changing my life more than once. I'm admitting I didn't own 'Disintegration'. I do now. :o)

XoXoX
Melissa

Leelah · 4 weeks ago

This is how I feel about you.

But I haven't left you yet.

I pray everyday that I never will. I love you.

brannen · 4 weeks ago

Damnit, Amanda.

Now I'm all torn open again. Amazing writer, amazing artist, amazing woman. Thank you.

Drdakota · 4 weeks ago

amanda, it was a pleasure reading this.

DrKilljoy · 4 weeks ago

Amazing Amanda, fucking amazing. I'm 35 now, and I was, as you were a deep disciple of The Cure and all those other bands that made sitting in a dark room, alone and "unloved" not such a bad thing knowing that somewhere, somehow someone else understood the moments we were suffering.

You positively nailed the feelings I get when I go to a show and truth be told you brought a heartfelt tear to my eye. I lost touch with many of my heros in the mid 90s when I decided to become an "&" for a moment. It took me a few years to find that connection again, but thank god I found it and I will never let it go again.

By the way, I followed your advice and kicked on Disintergration when you told me to (I'm a good submissive that way) and it was an amazing exercise in synchronicity. Even as I write my response to you now the syncopated rhythms of "Lullaby" speed my fingers along the keyboard, tapping the keys with precisions and intent.

Thank you for this moment, in fact thank you for all the moments you have given me over the last several years, you aren't my Robert Smith, (no one else could be) but you are my Amanda Palmer.

XOXO and a little hair pulling, sincerely.. your FAN. Keith

niftywench · 4 weeks ago

this is beautiful. and so are you, AFP.
i feel honored that we both had that same wonderful poster, xmas lights and all, in our rooms.
thank you for sharing your letter to the sweet Robert Smith.
xo
jenne

thatfreekinukeguy · 4 weeks ago

robert smith is accually a very good guitarist. look for very early videos on youtube of killing an arab. using the year in the search helps bunches. good luck ms amanda. hell i got to meet you so how hard is it really?

thatfreekinukeguy · 4 weeks ago

now im in the mood to go viddie it..........

thatfreakinukeguy · 4 weeks ago

Edward_Edwards · 4 weeks ago

I often wonder if you & I share a brain. Thank you for sharing such a fantastic letter.

KelBel · 4 weeks ago

I am a HUGE cure fan and have been since Disintegration - I totally relate to everything. Welcome back to CUREFANDOM its an amazing place to be in life. My closest friends in life I've met because of the Cure from all over the world. I love you even more now. Thank you for sharing.

mynameissamenjoytheshow · 4 weeks ago

You teach us the universal language in every cord.
I’m not as lucky to be as expressive as you but I hope that even with my few words you will understand. You have changed how I think; my life began with you.

mattmessenger · 4 weeks ago

Oh Amanda,

Thank you for this. This really is a summary of how i feel about the music that forms the deeper soundtrack to my life (of which The Cure is a huge part)

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Matt

missbox · 4 weeks ago

You made me cry, Amanda Palmer (admittedly not for the first time, but for the first time in a blog).

I think it's more a guilt about leaving ourselves in our past, rather than the music. Of course the music is right there in the fabric, but its not the only thing.

Though I am PMSing right now, so you probably coulda written about anything and I'd be sobbing.

I'm totally obsessed with Leeds United right now too.

All my love, @MissBox xx

Ellie · 4 weeks ago

This is amazing. Thank you for posting this. I almost cried (being in the office stopped me). Please write a book. :D
Incidentally, you and the Dolls and later you by yourself made me realize that for the first time since high school, once again I was a fan, I had a favourite band/artist. I've obviously listened to music since graduating from high school, but for many years I didn't have an artist whose name I would have on a t-shirt, if you will. Thank you.

arkady62 · 4 weeks ago

THAT, was amazing!

Liesel · 4 weeks ago

Amanda, I have gone to two full-on Dresden Doll shows and both times I wound up SOBBING. I hit a point where the music was perfect and the song was perfect and you were perfect and my body was imperfect and just couldn't take it anymore and my friends kept asking me if I was ok (which was sweet but obviously they didn't understand).
The songs were Delilah and Boston, if you want to know.
Anyway. Anyway. I love Robert Smith too and I love you and I understand. Thanks for the letter. <3

Mad Hatter · 4 weeks ago

That was truly gorgeous.
Just remember that the same feeling that Robert Smith inspired in you, you inspire in a sea of other musicians. When you write stuff like this, it makes me so, so happy to be a musician too, to know that even if there's stress, there are endless hell-weeks, setups, breakdowns, and often tears, it's all so, so worth it, just for the possibility to inspire and be inspired.

poutz · 4 weeks ago

I sometimes feel that we share the same heart. You remind me of what my sister means to me (she got me into The Cure when I was 4 years old), maybe thats why I feel so connected to what you have to say. I'm kinda cracking up because I have done this same thing. I wrote a long letter to you and then posted it on my blog like two years ago. How funny.

And thats exactly how I felt when I saw The Cure at Inland Invasion when I was in high school (they opened with Plainsong!!!)

Poppydragon · 4 weeks ago

Having just found you I don't know that I plan to leave you ever. I wanted to say that this letter struck a chord, there is a lyric from a Billy Bragg song that says "every time I switched on the radio there was somebody else singing a song about the two of us". Your letter does that for me, it feels almost as though you were writing my thoughts about my favourite bands. I caught up with two of them this summer although the Cure remain on the to do list. Thank you for this Amanda I really hope that RS does read it and in doing so wants to revisit his favourite bands all over again.

Demetra · 4 weeks ago

Way back when, the Cure played the Orpheum in Boston, and Robert was one of my few idols. I threatend to slash my wrists to one of his crew members if I couldn't get a backstage pass (notice I didn't offer girly favors, oo was I goth). He laughed, gave me an after-show pass. The concert was perfect, and heavy with anticipation for afterwards. The rest of the band were in that little room having beers. One girl a few years older than me kept telling me I should have one (I was way too young, and was a straight-edge, so that didn't interest me). Porl came to my defense and said that if I didn't want one, I shouldn't be forced. I always had a fond spot for him after that....felt he was being heroic. Then....Tha Man, Robert made his enterance.....I held my breath....and I was kind of crushed. He was perfectly nice and lovely, and handsome, but he was wearing a heather gray University of Connecticut sweatshirt. Yeah. My mind tried to block that part out and just focus in on his most awesome hair that I tried daily (with much Super Extra Hold Aquinet) to imitate. That helped. But 'til this day, the things that stick out the most are how he explained jokingly to me that he wore strawberry flavored lipstick (that was why it was always in the corners of his lips) and that damn UCONN. sweatshirt.

Leisl · 4 weeks ago

Bra-fucking-va!

hollythehermit · 4 weeks ago

Fuck, you can write, woman. A mad round of applause for effectively capturing my youth (though my first concert was the Wish tour...still as spiritual an experience as Disintegration was for you, I'd imagine.) Definitely retweeting this to share with the world. And if Mr. Smith doesn't respond to this? Well, I guess there's a reason some of us fell off his band's fan-wagon....glad to see I wasn't alone. Enjoy China, m'dear.

karen! · 4 weeks ago

the cure's disintegration was my first album and what brought me to them. amanda, you have encapsulated everything i ever wanted to say about the cure, and robert, and smiths fans (who never really understood).
but most importantly disintigration was playing the same night i got into the Sandman, and i read dream of you and season of mists and death: the high cost of living to the Cure and it was all SO PERFECT that i can never again listen to all of that album without thinking of Barbie, and the cukoo, and the corinthan, and of morpheus.
i found neil when i found the cure, and ive never been the same (or alone) since.
(tori was a few years prior-- dont know what took me so long!)
neil n' me hanging out with the dream king
neil says hi by the way

thanks for being amazing.

eugeniamooney · 4 weeks ago

Brilliant!!! Why is it we all have these moments where someone we don't even know changes our life as we know it????

Alice · 4 weeks ago

Haha that's a fan letter to trump all fan letters. Of the sane variety anyway.
I can completely relate to the 'emptiness of goth' feelings. I eventually hung up my black velvet robes with the conclusion that a lot of people follow feeling music because they long to feel, rather than synchronise with it. Now as a slightly older veteran ex goth I find that the world is full of the ones who can remember the lyrics but lots fewer of us that feel it like someone tore out our heart and showed it to us and we seem to very rarely find each other :)
I have to say I'm a fan of Pornography as a favorite album. It's underworked, dark and forged of pure feeling. The Figurehead has stayed my favorite song ever throughout my life (since admittedly buying Pornography at random due to the title).
Anywho; come back to the UK, I'll be near the vending machine backstage with an alluring pout.
x

Name · 4 weeks ago

Lovely. Amanda re-discovered (or just gave herself a good, hardcore reminder of ) what music is all about.

Kambriel · 4 weeks ago

You "speak my language" :)

I must someday show you my old denim jacket that has somehow survived since the '80's... I covered it in *embroidered* portraits of Robert Smith. It was my wearable shrine, created and added to over the course of some of the most tumultuous years of my life. You'd love it.

Charlie · 4 weeks ago

What an amazing roller coaster ride you just put me on, I cried as I looked at all the music that I can't listen to anymore because it has such a deep impact on me it knocks me down too much, I am listening to the new Alice In Chains & can't stop, knowing that it is going to screw me up, but the music I love suffers, (NIN Tool Dresden Dolls Alice In Chains Arcade Fire, My Bloody Valentine, A Perfect Circle) I am a writer that can't listen & be pulled in that deep & still work, Thank You this was cathartic & helped me shed & relive what music did to all of us that Love It, I felt like I was Dancing while you dangled such wonderful images in front of me, I will be dancing all day & letting the pool of music splash over http://twitter.com/charholly9

Name · 4 weeks ago

So, fans who have stayed on the ball, followed them through every up and down. Good album, bad album. MOVE ASIDE. Someone famous likes the Cure, so give her attention. She is more worthy. Give it up. So what, the Cure's music moves you? It does all of us. It did for Disintegration, it did for Bloodflowers, it did for 4:13 Dream, and it will for everything to come. If it really moved you then you couldn't get enough, no matter how much was released: In other words, YOU WOULD HAVE KNOWN about the other albums. Letters of admiration lose something when you admit to forgetting about that person for a few years. "Yeah, I love you so much... sometimes."

Name · 4 weeks ago

Ah, Amanda, the queen of "TMI". From the crotch-lights and toplessness of the past to irrelevant discussions of your blowjob-technique history --- these are surely *not* about keeping that fanbase of horny disaffected guys & gals who listen to your records with two ears and one hand, right? Of course not. What could I be thinking? Your career has nothing to do with gimmickry.

A letter that's supposed to be about Robert Smith, but is really just more ego-centric AP life story. What makes your typical rebellious-suburban-kid life worth any more than anyone else's, other than you write songs about it? How soon until the Maxim photo spread? Girlfriend, *please*...

Sheling · 3 weeks ago

You know, the way to REALLY demonstrate your contempt is to not read the entry.

Dumb ass.

"I HAD TO READ THIS SO THAT I HAD SOMETHING TO BITCH ABOUT"

Go feed the hungry or something - there are easier ways to change bits of the world you don't like.

Father Ribs · 1 week ago

All I have to say is: Janet Susan Ballion. You gonna call her a gimmicky-based performer then?

crileymunoz · 4 weeks ago

I couldn't help but feel part of an everlasting cycle as I am currently intoxicated and obsessed with your solo efforts (I'm a die hard DD fan too!) and playing the record as I read your dissection of fandom. There were details about how sometimes feeling so lost in this world is all blown to smithereens when the right song starts playing and even for a small moment in time you're able to say that you belong to something. * Queue Ampersand, Astronaut*

And the cycle continues and we are all part if it. My mind cant stop conjuring melodic thoughts and gloomy lyrics ever since I listened to "Leeds United". And even on a cold morning here in Orange, Ca, I kept warm by reading your open letter, appreciating your inner workings, being a fan and writing a little letter in return and sipping coffee with a shot of Bailey's to start out my day.

Life can be too busy at times, but Im a lifer for DD and you love,

-Carlos Riley Munoz

PS. I might as well come full circle and share a story that only proves the reality of your letter. It was an early night a few years back in LA, at this place called Safari Room, one of my idols made her way to the bar with an empty wine glass. I immediately ran up and offered to pay for the next round. She politely declined but I insisted since it was the only way I could repay her for all the nights I listened to dramatic piano and drums and lyrics that hit like a hammer but drop like a feather. With a cute smirk she thanked me and gave me a kiss on cheek. I could've easily died a happy fan right then. Later that night, I stumbled to the men's room after having countless drinks and I see my idol again making her way to the ladies room. As I relieve myself on a urinal, my idol brazenly makes her into the men's room and sees me and says, "the line was way too long..." So she goes into stall and we are peeing together. All I could say in my drunk stupor was, "Amanda Palmer, you're fucking great!"

Name · 4 weeks ago

Agreed. This reads more like an atempt to reach a wider audience. An attempt to get Cure fans to listen to her music because she likes the Cure. It really is childish. I hate fans who claim to "Love Robert". Love is something you build when you slowly get to know a person in the truest sense, NOT just because you like his hair, or lyrics, or the way he squeaks. The fact that you mentioned giving head in this letter of devotion leads me to believe you have another motive all together. Slut.

Chad Curry · 4 weeks ago

As someone who has followed The Cure loyally, buying every album and single the day they came out, etc, I disagree. She freely admitted that she failed and lost out on The Cure. She admits to being a "bad fan".

How this is any attempt to be more famous is insane. Cuz The Cure are such a huge force in the pop charts right now? Half the people that sell tons of albums these days don't even know who they are. Why would someone try to gain popularity by picking a band like them?

How does her mentioning giving head make her a slut? She was being honest. I love how someone daring to mention that they have actually had sex makes them a slut. What an ignorant fucking thing to say. As a Cure fan, Robert Smith has mentioned drug use, does that make him a junkie?

Why even comment on this if you are just going to be a cock? Constructive commentary is one thing, just being another shit talker online is idiotic.

blahblahblahginer · 4 weeks ago

lol

ValeneShay · 4 weeks ago

Dearest Amanda,

Thank you. Thank you for sharing this letter, and sharing yourself.

Teary-eyed Love,

Valene

P.S. You have a beautiful smile. :)

Wretched1 · 4 weeks ago

This is awesome Amanda. You Rock!

anarchyx1 · 4 weeks ago

I don't normally post, but read your blog religiously... You summed up what I think, most people feel about band or artists they really connect with. Those Spiegeltent shows in Edinburgh and last years gig at King Tuts in Glasgow were very special.

G.

lillerina · 4 weeks ago

This is very beautiful.

I've had this experience - with music, friends, former lovers - and it hurts either way. Someone I called a good friend for years crosses the street to avoid me now, and I don't know why. I picked up a CD I loved when I was 13 recently and thought, wow, I was a dick who knew nothing about music when I was 13. Now I think, why am I treating who I was with such disrespect? This music touched me and helped shape me, just as yours is doing now.

Thank you for your music, Amanda. I can't promise that I will never ever grow in a direction that takes me away from your music, but I would not cross the street to avoid it. It's a friend to me, and if I find I've accidentally left you, I will try to return.

stm · 4 weeks ago

some of my memories put into words... kinda strange, but GREAT (i didn't listen to disintegration for years until now)
thx

Neverm0re · 4 weeks ago

Dear Amanda,
just ended reading your letter.. Thank you.. Thank you so much.. Half an hour reading your words, with Robert's music in my ears, and I almost cried.. No sadness, no happyness.. but something deeply honnest.. You just remind me why I 'm following you for 6 years now.. Truth.. Thanks a lot for that.. xxx

BrassyCassy · 4 weeks ago

I will never leave you, Amanda.

Mandaz087 · 4 weeks ago

THIS. this is what you are to me. thank you.

Fräulein Löblich · 4 weeks ago

Dear Amanda,

I couldn't finish reading, because I don't want to cry tonight. Anyway ... couple of years ago a friend gave me a mixtape with some Dresden Dolls songs. And it touched me so deeply after having long lost what I felt for music when I was in my late teens. Your music touches me in a way I don't even find words for. So much I can't even listen to it most of the time these days. Too scared to get lost in it and not being able to find my way back to live my life.

Anyway. You are amazing. So is your music.
Have a good time in Singapore.

blahblahblahginer · 4 weeks ago

AFP rocks!! I love you!! :)

Holly · 4 weeks ago

How you described that gig. That's how I felt when I saw you in Edinburgh this year. I think. Like you remember why you were born, and why you do the things that you do. You do it for moments like that. Or at least, I do it for moments like that.
I'm not making very much sense.
You have definitly changed my life. You are the Robert Smith for the Next Generation. It's okay to love both of you at the same time though, right? :)
Hope you're having fun in Asia :)

steveanagnos · 4 weeks ago

Amanda, true, it's amazing how life can pull you away from the things you held so dear while growing up. I, too, feel like a bad fan. I used to follow Jethro Tull when I was in high school. I would travel around and see every show in the area every year. I met the band, hung out with them in hotel lounges in Boston, Providence, and New York, sang Happy Birthday to Martin, and even got on stage as a part of the show one year in Worcester! I cherished those times! I had gotten to hang out with my favorite rock band!!! It was every kids dream, every kids fantasy, and I had lived it! And then something happened, something changed and it became a random show now and then, years would pass between shows. And now I haven't seen a show since.. oh god, I think it was like 2004 or something at the Cape Cod Melody tent. How did this happen? I can remember standing around in Providence after a show talking with my friends about how we would still be comming to see Ian play in small clubs when he got older. Well they are playing smaller venues now, ans at least one of those present in that circle in Providence is still going, still seeing the shows. She kept the promise...I didn't. I let life divert me. Is that bad?, or inevitable? And now I have started following you as best I can over the past 3 years. I was introduced to you by a friend, and I went nuts! I Can't get enough of what you do. I think you are amazing and talented and sexy and.... And i don't want to think of a time when I might not get to shows anymore...how can I keep that from happening?

Stormfilled · 4 weeks ago

Started reading this post, grabbed my old copy of Disintegration (my cassette deck still works! I was relieved) then read more. You made me cry. Cow. Gonna go and phone some old friends. They don't wear black any more either, but they still know all the words.

Tanuki · 4 weeks ago

wow, thanks for making me nostalgic when I'm only 18. And thanks for proving once more that artists can be fans as well, we don't see that everyday. And it made me thought of Rubber Ring by The Smiths, you know "but don't forget the songs that made you cry and the songs that saved your life...they were the only ones who ever stood by you". Rock on <3

Untitled · 4 weeks ago

I read this with 'Untitled' (the live version from 'Entreat', which I prefer because of the slightly altered guitar tune near the end of the song) playing at the background, smiling with tears in my eyes. You captured those strange and complicated emotions so very well, and I sincerely want to thank you for that. So many things I'd like to say now, but it doesn't even matter, cause I know you already understand...
All the best and keep that feeling deep inside of you, always.

Jon · 4 weeks ago

Great read. Even better sentiment. It's great to know that there are other people out there that feel like that too. Thanks for the blog. Thanks for doing what you do musically.

jaymo99 · 4 weeks ago

So, i played Faith during all this...

i read it all, why am i you? so much of what you said rings true for me. I have will and always love The Cure.. saw them the first time when they supported Souxie ad robert played guitar. I was goth.. i had Roberts muppet hair.. wore black suits with white shirt ( had an interveiw from MTV they asked why they dress the way they do.. robert replied.." just makes it eaier to find each other in airports" as he hid behind a large glass of beer. Lol on what must have been the first laptop ever classic... anyway i loved alot of bands i wasnt full on The Cure. My shrine was built to Wayne Hussey and The Mission. I was an american version of an eskimo.. when the mish came on tour i was gone. Every new single, the day it came out i was at Lou's records... sometimes id miss something and when i looked in the Bin and saw something id never seen id turn into a 14 year old gilr.. euphoria i cant discribe... when tour dates were anounced id jump up and down a scream with unbridled joy.... Me and my friend were masters of meeting bands so . to get in position was no problem... i then became friend with the crew... I was musicain.. i wanted to do to other what the mission did to me.move shape explore discover.. go go go ... as the years passed i got into lighting, im good at it . and casue of that im now..in the industry.. like you i got so busy working and touring i lost that kid that loved nothing but music, hell i even worked for the mission doing lights for them for a few years. THAT still was special to me. i mean getting to light my fav band of all time, getting to paly with them at sound check sometimes.. im really very luck.. but yea i got jaded.. so many bands over and over it just becomes white noise. I found my self gong to show and jusr being there.. not swimming in it like before... sad really... there are exceptions and then ... i went to Belgium, A friend was thehouse lighting guy for the AB and sorted me out. Funny id seen you one before in cologne when you supported the Chamelions. sadly i was there to see mark Burgess .. i enjoyed your set alot but Onther of my fave of all time bands was playing so i didnt persue it... if it was just some other band id prolly had falling in love with you then ( im a sucker for women who can sing) anyway... so i didnt knwo that women then was the same one that was singing with the dresden dolls... i like the dolls.. it wasnt love..... funny at first i though u were some wanna be New York dolls metal band... or backyard babies.. i mean you were on road runner.. anyway my friend ingo gave me your cd i heard it i liked it so off to belgium i went.... front row.. i dont know maybe i was hoping youd see me and fall in love ( my girlfriend would understand.. she thinks you hot too) . It was a perfect night.. the brigade in the lobby..devotchka and arrielist and then you and brian.... OMG....you broke me, i was so blown away so euphoric so alive and it all came back..this is why i love music and performance and art... fuck yes someone gets it!!!! Mr jaded road dog did the impossible.. became a fan again... its weird last week i saw peter murphy.. my friend mark plays guitar with him.. sang every song.. and then got to hang out after the gig fucking peter murphy amanda!!!! ive gotten alot of this... looking back even guys from the cure. met robert once as hes friends with wayne toured with roberts long time guitar tech.. friends with another of there long time road crew guys, friends with Porl... im really very luck but yea see what i mean i totally can identify... so i guess this is kinda my open letter to you... thak you amanda, id love to someday work with you, but if it never happens you'll alway be a friend il tape ya any time ya like and most importantly, ill always be a fan. you inspire me everyday and for that I love you!!!!!!! Viele viele grusse aus Köln your pal jaymo xo

Dagmara · 4 weeks ago

oh, that's lovely.
This long live bands are so connecting. I'm 19 and and I saw Cure live in 2008 and the gig was open also with Plainsong with was fucking great. The best opener indeed (after 5 years maybe).
Anyway. It was a sweet sweet letter you wrote.
Greeting from Poland

Scarlet · 4 weeks ago

Thanks so much Amanda!
Thanks for shearing this with all of us!
:D Sometimes we all forget that musicians are also people
and i guess, like you said, sometimes musicians forget that their fans are also people.
You're the best.
Thanks so much for your music, i'll be a true fan <3
Love u so much, Scarlet.

Emily · 4 weeks ago

I'm sorry but I had to steal a portion of this to post in my own person blog. I swear to God Amanda that we should have been besties in highschool, or arch nemesis. You wrote out my entire highschool experience. That entire period that feels like it happened eons ago. You put into words my disillisionment with the goth scene, and finding out that I don't have to wear one color to paint me as the truly unique snowflake I truly am (and we all are). Thanks for being you lady. The one difference? I have never seen The Cure. Oh, and I'd totally scream and flail and take people's hands and dance the tango if I ever did. Do. I will I'm sure someday. I always say I will.

Kristina · 4 weeks ago

Damn. My stomach is wet because I just cried so hard reading this. Yep, with the exception of dates and super-personal details (and the small difference that I'm not a famous muscian), I might have written this. In fact, I think I have used some of the exact phrases you did---"closest I ever came to a religious experience," foremost among them.

I know better than to wear any makeup to a Cure show, because I spend the whole time simultaneously weeping and smiling so big my face hurts. I don't know exactly why I cried so hard reading this post, but yes yes yes.

I've been working through some old trauma stuff that finally bubbled up to the surface this past summer, and in so many ways I feel like I have died and become a completely new person that I'm still getting to know. I have recently wondered if this new me still "needs" The Cure in my life (Robert Smith, Mr. Rogers, library books, and my cats literally saved my life). I wondered, a bit nervously, if I'd still feel the same about the music. In the last few days I thought about listening to The Cure, but decided not to. I didn't want to find out the magic was gone.

Well, reading this has pretty well convinced me that it is still there. I still am a fan. I will still pay ridiculous amounts of money, compromising my normal values, to support shady people selling front row Cure show tickets. I will still buy every album. Funny, but this feels like a great relief.

Anyway. Yes, yes, yes. You are so right on about the Realness, and another reason I cry is thinking about how much suffering and sorrow people carry around with them and try to cover up or run away from by any means necessary. I feel like I've waged and am still waging a war against *something* to assert my Realness in the world. I wish more people were Really Really Real.

Thanks for this post. Thanks also for what you do. You are another beacon of Real. And that would explain why, over the last decade (god I feel old), you (with the Dolls and solo) have been one of only two or three artists/groups that actually emotionally moved me in any way. Which I guess would also be why I read your blog sporadically.

I have been to your shows, which I enjoy immensely, but which I confess have not made me weep from opening note to house lights up. Only Robert has that power. At your shows I see hordes of people younger than me who remind me of me years ago, and I have thought on multiple occasions: "Thank dog for Amanda Palmer. She is saving these kids' lives like Robert Smith saved mine."

AmberbreeCK · 4 weeks ago

Amanda-Pandabear,
All the cUrefans are reading this from COF (Chain of Flowers). My friend Debi is also sending FB messages directing them to your blog. Niiiiice, ain't it?

Too lazy to sign in,
A to the B to the C to the K

Dreamer · 4 weeks ago

There's a painting on the wall in my head. Well, not so much a painting as a photograph, blown up large and hung in the living room of my Dream House. It's a perfect piece of art, taken from front-row, stage left.

It's a night show. Robert Smith is a few years older then he now is, but he's still got that electricity. He's added a touring keyboardist to his band again, and is experimenting with some new/old arrangements. The Cure fanbase is abuzz that the new keyboardist is a woman, and rushing to google her name.

This photo is from one of her first shows with the band. It's remarkable how perfectly the photographer captured her performance-induced musical trance. And Robert is looking at her, smiling with approval.

It's a gorgeous image.

Amanda might be the first real master blogger the world has ever seen. This letter is art. Pure and simple.

dyllang · 4 weeks ago

Wow. I can't believe I just sat here and read through that entire thing. First off, wow. Second, thank you. It was like reading my own thoughts written down on paper. But instead of Robert Smith, you, Amanda Palmer, inspire me to create music, to share my pain, to be vulnerable.

kukla · 4 weeks ago

Your music now make me feel the same way as the Cure did when I was 16: like I wasn't the only person that felt this way about things. Thank you. By the way, I had that same Cure poster when I was 19. My a**hole boyfriend tore it loading it into the car one day. He couldn't figure out why I was so upset. Shapes of things to come...

Curse_it · 4 weeks ago

How lovely. My idol writing to my idolized man celebrity :)))

Curse_it · 4 weeks ago

How lovely. My idol writing my only adored male celebrity :)))

Bethany · 4 weeks ago

Babe, know that you are one of the few people whose music has spoken to me the way The Cure's does. Someday I will see you live and know the same ecstasy.

PS, I got "4:13 Dream" for Christmas and it is wonderful. But it's not "Disintegration."

Otto · 4 weeks ago

Two words. Thank You.

Raven · 4 weeks ago

thank you for sharing that. i need to go think on those things for awhile. take care, and i hope you can keep that feeling. it's a beautiful thing.

Rachael · 4 weeks ago

Beautiful! You express yourself and write so very well. I enjoyed reading this very much not just because of what you wrote, or because of the feeling of sympatico I get from what you wrote, but also because of the way you write.

The older you get, I am finding (and I say this at the ripe old age of just-turned-41), the more things like this (these revelations you're having) happen if you're open to them. How wonderful that you were able to stop, take a breath, open yourself up, and find yourself again.

Thank you for sharing this. By the way, I didn't stop to put music on before I read this, but in my head I was still listening to the Pink Floyd CD (A Saucerful of Secrets) I'd just heard in the car as I drove home through a snowstorm.

angela · 4 weeks ago

I could have writen almost the exact same letter, except I'm a visual artist, and I perfected the "kiss me, kiss me, kiss me" cure font, even went through the loss of fandomship. I did not make it to Coachella, though. Would have loved to. Also since my late 20's (I'm now 32,) I started wearing all sorts of colors, sometime even pink!

Name · 4 weeks ago

That's how "Push" makes me feel too! I love you! Thanks for sharing this with me. Every one of my 8 or 9 Cure shows has been an absolutely religious experience for me. I hope you get to see you play soon, too. Seriously, you and The Cure are the only two acts I even care to see these days.

Name · 4 weeks ago

that made me cry and made me very happy

Name · 4 weeks ago

This is so deep.

I hope Albert Camus tours the UK sometime. I'm really curious now to hear him play.

jack shit · 4 weeks ago

amanda, thanks for being so bold as to (continue to) confide in this way. yr raw honesty, courage and engagement is an inspiration - and it remains frightfully rare.

yr having the guts to shed ego (t)here and admit the dreams that fire us all, through time - and folly, directly is a great thing. i sensed that you could do with such a spell in sydney, from the first.

i absolutely know that longing for silence that arises in response to the enveloping wall of noise in the biz. it's also our internal racket - striving, surviving, locked loading...

it's unimaginably important to regularly allow for solitude and space - even amongst a throng. trust yr instincts and find mystery more often!

we're kids - forever, til we die. get lost, abandon yrself, find surpise, begin again.

that's life, love.

inside and out - you've got it*

*cue nina - i've got life!

xxxx

csdaley · 4 weeks ago

This blog made me cry a little. I have had a really bad week. Music & friends have gotten me through it. I am older than you Amanda but your music has meant a lot to me. I can't thank you enough for it. I will buy everything you do. Without music I am lost. I am happy that you reconnected with yourself. Thank you for everything.

Name · 4 weeks ago

The lady in the blue top looks lovely.

procrastinating · 4 weeks ago

Good God, I've felt majority of this too. Actually, it reminds me something...
Freshly 18 at a secret dolls gig on Oxford street. My best friend and I (obviously the biggest fans in the world at the time) had managed to get to the front of the gig at the fine price to wait on Oxford street since 10am before the gig. Of course, no one even showed at the club until about 9pm that evening. Brian empathised with us when we told him about it backstage, much much later that night.

Also, I burnt my toast twice while reading this entry. -_-;

Sharona. · 4 weeks ago

Amanda,
your letter has opened the flood gates of my 15 year old self, growing up in the south of Sydney, never feeling smart, pretty, talented enough, never knowing where I fit and with who. The only thing that spoke to me was music and more importantly Cure music.
I'm not famous and I don't have fans but I can say the passion of your feelings match very well with mine. I left the Cure during the end of the mid nineties until 2007 due to life getting in the way, I lost myself, but I have re-connected and doubt I will ever leave again, no matter what they do in the future. I still love Robert Smith much to the amusement of my 13 year old daughter who thinks I should be past all that but he represents so much more than just an image. I can't thank you enough for your beautiful letter, I hope you get a response from him. Sharona.

midnight_faerie · 4 weeks ago

Amanda,

I am sitting here typing this with tear-stained cheeks and "Lovesong" in my ears.
You pretty much described my teenage years (minus the sexual escapades. I was an awkward fat girl.)
I found The Cure as a comfort, a way to release the pain, a way to escape the hell of my home life and high school. Robert's voice lulled me to sleep every night, and woke me every morning, I'd sleep with my tape playing and start it when I first woke up. I adored him on a level that I didn't even understand then. I just knew that music was my place to hide, to learn about myself, to understand the random thoughts rattling around in my confused teenage brain.
I own every album The Cure has released. And to this day, when things look the worst, I can pop in a Cure album and it helps.

And then I discovered The Dresden Dolls. I had just relocated a year before to Michigan from Washington State, I was depressed, lonely, isolated and just feeling kinda yucky. I had given birth to my youngest child just six months before. I was at the library browsing through CD's when I found the self-titled Dresden Dolls album. I looked at the cover and smiled because I was struck by how beautiful I found the photo. So I checked it out, came home, put my kids down for their nap and I popped it into my computer. I listened to the first song and I was pretty into it. And then Girl Anachronism came on. Listening to the lyrics, I instantly felt like someone reached inside my head, had been documenting my life, my awkwardness, my mother's attempts at having me exercised (she thought I was possessed because I loved the Cure. Go figure.) and I felt a familiar feeling. That feeling that someone else on this planet just might understand what I was thinking and how I felt. That was 2007. I was 31. You struck me so hard, with that voice, with everything.
And then when you released WKAP, I was struck again. That album really hit home with me.

I guess in all this babbling, all I want to say is I can't thank you enough for showing us who you really are, showing that you're not just some icon on a stage, you're a living, feeling, thinking, fangirl in your own right.
I love you so much for everything.
I hope Robert reads this.
And I hope he responds to you.
And I hope that someday I get to meet you and tell you how you've moved my world with your art.
And how you've affected my daughter for the positive.

Love you always,
~B.

robertauld · 4 weeks ago

'I listened to you and thought: THAT. I want to do THAT. Whatever he’s doing. Whatever he’s making me feel….THAT’S what I want to do to people someday.'
Amanda, you do this, THAT, to me...every single day.
I meet you and make a fool out of myself, but I always feel so much better after.
Seeing you live, my life, what's happenning, has no significance anymore. There's just the music. Just you, beautiful you, on the stage.
The next time you play in Boston after NYE, if I get to see you again after the show, I will give you a letter. A letter like this that you wrote to Robert Smith.
I will write you a letter, because I love you.

Adrianna_Delgado · 4 weeks ago

I am now deeply inspired to compose letters to the 4 artists who have moved me to greater heights the most - Robert Smith (yeah, me too), Thom Yorke, Maynard James Keenan, and YOU! I love you, Amanda!

trickssi · 4 weeks ago

As I sit here in the corner of my college's crappy painting studio waiting for gesso to dry, I keep rereading this and, like others, realizing that the Dresden Dolls and your solo album have affected me in such a visceral way. In fact, before reading this I graffiti'd my locker with "SING FOR THE TEACHERS WHO TOLD YOU THAT YOU COULDN'T SING." Your art has become a huge influence on my art. I almost can't work in the studio without it. If I can't have Yes, Virginia while I carve away at huge copper sheets, I can't function. I have to sing along to "Backstabber" as I rage about my unfair professors and take out my anger with the drypoint needle. By the time the album full-circles to "Sing," I realize why I'm still doing this art nonsense. And moreover, it's you reminding me every time that I have to be brave. I have to do whatever I do because I Like It; it's not supposed to be for those rude professors or classmates. Your piano reminds me that nothing I do is worthless. Fuck what everyone else says--we deserve to do what we love to do, we deserve to speak how we want to speak, we deserve to exist just as we are.

I just thought you would want to know. Your letter was so passionate that I couldn't stay silent after being a lurking fan for five years. It'd be a travesty not to let you know how you inspire my everyday life. (Additionally, one of those copper plates has you on it, and I had been hoping that if a good print came out of it I could send it to you in exchange for all you've done for me. Fingers crossed!)

marco · 4 weeks ago

what you wrote made me cry as well. i felt exactly the same when i fell into the Cure world. they still have this power to me. thanks for reminding me why i love them so much, what they meant to me. they really changed my life. and Disintegration is the best album ever.

NeveLynn · 4 weeks ago

Amanda is to me as Robert Smith is to Amanda.... if that's an analogy that makes any sense whatsoever.

hearts-of-lavender · 4 weeks ago

Amanda, thank you so much for sharing this letter with us. Many of the things you mentioned about the love you feel for Robert Smith rang true for me as well, and one band was on my mind the entire time I read your letter. I'm so happy you went to the show and was able to remember and feel all of the wonderful things you experienced all those years ago. I'm sorry they were even forgotten. I can't imagine not loving music or listening to music as much as I do now, and I'm sorry you even went through that. There are times when listening to your music that I think the same thing you thought while listening to The Cure. I myself would like to make people feel all the amazing things I feel in those moments, and I wonnder if I'll ever get the chance, be it through music or some other art form. Even if it's just one person, I want to touch someone and fill them with the things I feel when listening to you, my favorite band in the entire fucking world (The Birthday Massacre), even the powerful things you feel when you listen to The Cure. I hope I can someday. Just know that I'm going to continue being a fan and sharing your delicious ear-candy music with the unfortunate souls who don't know about you yet. Oh, and F.Y.I., I happen to be a goth, and I think you were going to the wrong fucking clubs if no one was talking to you, or even attempting to. And we don't wear all black anymore; we are in fact quite colorful now, so you may have been looking at some goths without even knowing it. That, or they were just having a casual day. If I was old enough to go to clubs when you were attending them (I'm 19 now), and if I were living there instead of California, I would've gone up to you, talked to you, and fucking danced my white ass off with you.
Keep being fucking amazing and filling my ears with your sound and my heart with feelings I can't even begin to describe.
I'll call you later.
-Sara

hearts-of-lavender · 4 weeks ago

Amanda, thank you so much for sharing this letter with us. Many of the things you mentioned about the love you feel for Robert Smith rang true for me as well, and one band was on my mind the entire time I read your letter. I'm so happy you went to the show and was able to remember and feel all of the wonderful things you experienced all those years ago. I'm sorry they were even forgotten. I can't imagine not loving music or listening to music as much as I do now, and I'm sorry you even went through that. There are times when listening to your music that I think the same thing you thought while listening to The Cure. I myself would like to make people feel all the amazing things I feel in those moments, and I wonnder if I'll ever get the chance, be it through music or some other art form. Even if it's just one person, I want to touch someone and fill them with the things I feel when listening to you, my favorite band in the entire fucking world (The Birthday Massacre), even the powerful things you feel when you listen to The Cure. I hope I can someday. Just know that I'm going to continue being a fan and sharing your delicious ear-candy music with the unfortunate souls who don't know about you yet. Oh, and F.Y.I., I happen to be a goth, and I think you were going to the wrong fucking clubs if no one was talking to you, or even attempting to. And we don't wear all black anymore; we are in fact quite colorful now, so you may have been looking at some goths without even knowing it. That, or they were just having a casual day. If I was old enough to go to clubs when you were attending them (I'm 19 now), and if I were living there instead of California, I would've gone up to you, talked to you, and fucking danced my white ass off with you.
Keep being fucking amazing and filling my ears with your sound and my heart with feelings I can't even begin to describe.
I'll call you later.
-Sara

marco · 4 weeks ago

what you wrote made me cry as well. i felt exactly the same when i fell into the Cure world. they still have this power to me. thanks for reminding me why i love them so much, what they meant to me. they really changed my life. and Disintegration is the best album ever.

Aespir · 4 weeks ago

Amanda,

I've always loved your blogs. They've always been so interesting, so heartfelt... But I never seemed to feel the connection to you that other fans seemed to feel based on their comments and such.

Not anymore, and not just 'coz I was a Cure fan in high school, too (although I was a fan in the "Bloodflowers" era. Be sure to give it a listen! It's my favorite, and probably always bill be, just like "Disintegration" will probably always be yours...). I went through some of the same things you described when I was in high school and a little beyond... I feel like I understand you a lot better now. I finally feel like you're a friend that I just haven't met or talked to yet, like many, many of your devoted fans seem to have felt like in ages. Thank you for posting this.

And thank you for inspiring me to put the Cure back in my playlists. I just realized while I was thinking about your album that I almost let this autumn pass without listening to "Bloodflowers" while taking a walk on a sunny, orange and red-treed afternoon. This used to be a practically sacrosanct tradition for me... I hope it's not too late this year. There's been a lot of rain lately, many of the trees are naked, and I'm worried I won't get another sunny afternoon before everything's just brown and dead and ready for snow.

BerthaBlue · 4 weeks ago

Damn. You totally just made me cry. And yet I can't stop grinning and thinking of how FUCKING GLAD I am to live in the time of internet and blogs and Twitter and that I have fallen in fan-love with someone as awesome as you.

Strangely, I have totally described your shows as religious experiences. Pretty impressive, coming from an atheist :) Can't wait to come to the East Coast tours in a few weeks!

Meaghan · 4 weeks ago

amanda- i don't know if you'll ever read this. it's okay if you don't. completely okay. but in case you do read it, i just wanted to let you know that you are so beautiful and wonderful and absolutely amazing. this touched me so much, and it really summed up the way i feel about certain bands. specifically your band, your music. it really is amazing. please never stop making art. <3 i hope i never become a Bad Fan, but if i do, i hope i get old and you get old an i get to go see you and remember how wonderful you always were. you would probably be a really funny old lady. sorry this is longer than most comments. <333 we'll never leave you, though. just so you know. no Bad Fans hereee!

Cassy · 4 weeks ago

I feel as though what The Cure did for you at fourteen you did for me when I was that age. I hated the people around me who seemed as though they had nothing important to say. Everyone just talked at you or about you. Your music made me believe that someone out there shared that unique exprience that is being on the outside looking in. Telling people to eff off because they didn't understand they just couldn't. The first girl I ever had a crush on she had green hair and wore black. She liked your music I thought it was a sign no one else knew who The Dresden Dolls were, at least not in my town. She was beautiful and we had sex. A few weeks later I wrote her a poem and she in turn told me to go kill myself , she didn't understand. Your music has lead me through a lot of dark patches in my life. While my parents were yelling at each other and breaking things I always had your music to turn to and block out the bad things around me. Alot of times your music has given me hope for something better, there just had to be something good out there if someone could write and sing the way you did. And there was something better waiting so thanks to you I stuck it out and look back on the first time I heard your music and it makes my heart flutter. So I thank you Amanda for being my first and only musical love just as Robert Smith was for you.

klingonpixie · 4 weeks ago

That was beautiful.

Kiah · 4 weeks ago

You have no idea (well actually you do) how creative and special you are Amanda Fucking Palmer! I wanted to say that the same way you feel about the cure is the way I feel about My Chemical Romance! They changed my life for the better! I was lost in the wanna-be-like-everybody-else place and then when I saw My Chem live for the first time at Denver University Event Center, I knew what I wanted to do with my life. And they directed me onto the path of what has become my life. (i hope that made sense) Yes I am sixteen and still a teenager but I am not one of those fan girls (no offense people) that just want to meet my favorite band and scream at the top of my lungs. No I want to listen endlessly to their music and raise my arms in the air and close my eyes and let there music entangle there roots in my heart.
Well that sounded kinda corny but it's true and I am not afraid to say it. Amanda Palmer I love everything you do, you inspire me to be me and start living my dream! Which is to write music and travel the world! You are truly an Amazing human being and I am so thankful that god or whoever has created someone like you so that you can show people what it means to really love music! And to be themselves and be ok with that! I love you with all my heart!
P.S. I grew up listening to the cure and in my mom's room she has always had to REALLY BIG the cure posters and one of them is the boys don't cry poster that you had in your room! The other one was of just his face and it was huge, it was getting old so my mom took it down long ago but I will always remember looking at the picture and thinking this guy is cool!!!! : )

mousehouse · 4 weeks ago

If Rolling Stone magazine does not contact you within 24 hours, 48 at the outside, begging you for permission to reprint your letter to Robert Smith in full, word for word, then it is no longer relevant.

truth · 4 weeks ago

Well love you don't know Mr Smith at all if you worship him, lol. Talking of blowjobs i read on
a site couple years ago about him and this girl. She didn't want to and he was forcing her head into his groin, what a nice guy. So maybe you read it and thought hmm maybe i should mention i'm skilled in that area lol. I heard he's not fussy so your in with a chance.

Greta · 4 weeks ago

I think if I ever meet you we will dance together. Whether you remember me from post to post or not (I mention it a lot), I love to dance. It's pretty much my life right now other than trying to get into college. I dance for a lot of reasons, for my adoptive dance family, to satisfy my need to be in the spotlight (more commonly known as conceit), for seeing where my artform will go, but also because it's so wonderful to just lose control of your body and to see what it does in response to the music. I've spent years training my body to move a certain way and to put choreographies together to create just the right effect with the audience... but there are always those moments when you're in your bathroom doing makeup and this really wicked song comes on. A minute later you realize that movements are coming out to match the music and that you've been dancing with your toothbrush. Or you're onstage performing, just improvising to some favourite music and all of a sudden the six minute piece is over and you're on the floor in a dramatic finish. It was a six minute blurb of magic that gave some calm, a time where your body just takes over and your mind can truly rest.

SO the point being that we need to dance together. Sometime. Somewhere. I'll make it work.
And I'll bring brownies.
Because everyone dances better on cupcakes or brownies.

Warmest wishes
-Greta

Jason · 4 weeks ago

WOW. That was wonderful. I am 31 and right with you about finally finding "my band" in the Cure, I've had the same experience with Plainsong, the same with goth culture leaving me cold. I love everything you say here.

I haven't lost touch though. Their latest album is the best in 10 years, so it's the perfect time to come back.

janela · 4 weeks ago

Thank you. You are so articulate and amazing in your ability to express what so many of us share inside. Part way through I was crying so much I couldn't see the screen and was glad my roommate is out, how do you explain bawling over a blog post? One that is truly positive and celebratory? But I think for many of us who had that same teenage obsession with the beauty and emotion of the Cure's music it would be hard to read this and not well up. When I was sixteen I slept overnight on a sidewalk with my best friend Stephanie to be one of the first in line to buy Cure tickets, we were horrified at the thought of the show selling out before we could get them! I have the most adorable picture of her holding the tickets smiling sleepily in her RISD sweatshirt. During the time of Disintegration I remember seeing them at Great Woods in Massachusetts during a thunder and lightening storm, it was such a powerful convergence of sight and sound, nature and human expression, truly giving many that feeling of why we are alive.

Thank you for reminding me of all of this and the absolute intensity of these lifeblood experiences.

Kris Nelson · 4 weeks ago

What a great piece of open writing. Naked. Vulnerable. And very relatable. Something similar happened to me in the 90's. After Steve Hackett left Genesis in 1978, I felt very disenfranchised by the music that "Prog" groups were putting out in the '80s. Peter Gabriel however seemed to continue the artisitic spirit and so I followed his work until about 1993 when it seemed like the art gods/goddesses of Gabriel, Kate Bush etc. were disappearing into reclusivity. The 90's were a black hole of utter crap on the radio for me. Sorry grungy folk, but I never liked Pearl Jam or or Nirvana or Screaming Trees or Alice in Chains or any of that rock wanna-be bullshit. The Legendary Pink Dots and maybe Radiohead were my saving grace. In the 2000's, King Crimson, Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush, Gong etc. put out some albums and I realized that it wasn't them who'd abandoned their work, it was me who had abandoned theirs. Soon the old ones will be gone and it's up to me and others of a different generation to make sure that their contributions to music aren't in vain and that they will continue to be honored in the years to come.

addictivepoison · 4 weeks ago

"I desperately needed someone to believe. Someone who was telling the truth. As far as I could tell, nobody else was. The teachers and family around me were stupid, lame suburban pod-people, allowing themselves to be spoonfed the cultural koolaid. I was fourteen, I was an opinionated little twit, I wanted to feel and to scream, I needed allies, comrades, back-up, and I was pissed that I couldn’t find any."

I still feel this way. High school long gone, married for 2 years, all grown up, so to speak, and I still feel this way. I miss the things that used to make me feel. The things that reminded me that sometimes life was worth the trouble. The things that I was so passionate about I had to remind others I wasn't on drugs. Sometimes I had to remind myself I wasn't on drugs. I read this while listening to your music, making the experience all the more inspiring. Needless to say, it moved me. I wish I could go to one of your concerts, stand in the crowd, and belt out your songs, feeling at one with something important, something real _K_

Ryan_Anas · 4 weeks ago

<3
will now go to bed with nothing else in my head.
really, <3

Limbolinda · 4 weeks ago

I love you i love you i love you.
Your my one favorite musicians that i can feel/read & relate to.
I love you,& promise to never leave you. Or in the case that i do leave you for a while,i'll find my way back to you & right you a letter. I'll find my way back if i do stray because, YOURE my soulmate.
On the plus side,i prob wont be becoming a busy rockstar anytime in this life. So you can rest easy.
I live on music & your shows are never the same. I'll always have interest in going to a show of yours & to meet you after....although i've met you 4 times already....because you make me feel at least that i'm not your job i feel not hesitated to walk up to you. Although i technically am [yourjob], i've come to understand that i am to a certain level & admire the amount of passion you show despite,each night.
Thanks[for the billionth & not last time]
I love you.

fuzzpsych · 4 weeks ago

"...the eternal promise that this time the guitars will jell like TNT and set off galvanic sizzles in your brain "KABLOOIE!!!" and this time at least at last blow your fucking lid sky-high. Brains gleaming on the ceiling, sticking like putty stalactites, while yer berserk body runs around and slams outside hollering subhuman gibberish, jigging in erratic circles and careening split-up syllables insistently like a geek with a bad case of the superstar syndrome" Lester Bangs.

Like Lester, you get it. You understand. How the music can be everything, there is sometimes nothing without it. I'm 44 now, and it has always been there for me when I needed it, when no one else could be.
I've never been a massive Cure fan (although I am listening to "Disintegration" on the headphones right now), but that's not the point. It can't be the same band for everyone. Hell, some people never find a band, some of them don't even understand why they should.
Right above where I'm typing this is the picture of you in ecstatic bliss, and I recognize that face from the other side. That has been me, face to the ceiling, arms outstretched, while My Bloody Valentine played 25 minutes of noise, while most of the crowd ran for the exit or cowered in the corner. Or while Jesus and Mary Chain let the feedback reign. Or Tori Amos is alone with her piano. Eventually, I'm pretty sure it will happen at one of your shows--I haven't been able to catch one yet, but I will. I've totally fallen in love with "Who Killed Amanda Palmer", and probably with Amanda Palmer, too. Although I'm pretty sure we'll never get married. ;)
You are one of the people who make music, not because they think it will make them a lot of money, or that it will get them laid, or that it's cool. You make it because you HAVE to. These kind of people have always been my favourite artists--the ones who would sound like they do whether no one was listening, or everyone. Because your people will find you. Those of us who need this, who find music to be the truly honest art form, the one that cuts to our soul like nothing else can, we will find you. And thank you for existing, and doing what you do, because it is so rare. Kristin Hersh has it. I do believe Robert Smith has it. And dammit, Amanda Fucking Palmer has it too.

Your open letter made me cry at work today, but in a good way. Because you understand, and can express it so damn well. Just like Lester.

Kimber H · 4 weeks ago

You don't know me and I don't know you,
But WOW, just wow. You have more passion in one experience,one memory, than I have in my entire being!
The sheer depth and passion of feeling in this letter just blows me away!! It woke up someone deep inside of me, the person that I had buried, the one who wanted truth,beauty, reality. Something solid and true and infalliable. Your letter while not written to me, has inspired me. Reminded me to shake off the chains of complacency and LIVE! Thank you, thank you for sharing your soul.
Rock on, Amanda! Rock on!
I'm going to go find "Who Killed Amanda Palmer?" anyone who can write the way you do is an absolute artist! Beautiful!

theansweris42 · 4 weeks ago

Floored.

Thank you, Amanda. Thank you for such a personal journey into your life and for, through it, forging such a deep connection with us fans who feel like this encapsulates everything we've ever wanted to say to you or anyone else we've admired so vehemently.

You won't be left. And, god forbid, if it ever does happen, you'll be getting one of these coming your way.

id · 4 weeks ago

Having never received a fan letter for anything (and why would I?), I don't really know whether this one ranks among the best of them...but I'd be willing to bet that it does. It runs the whole gamut of the fan experience -- the achingly personal history, the obsession, the longing for connection, the disillusionment, and, at long last, the moment of synthesis when you can look back and reclaim the best part of it, reminding yourself of why you wanted this music inside your head in the first place. And it tells the person it's meant for something more magical and moving than just "You're awesome": it says, "You made a real difference in my life and I love you for it."

Hearing that from someone can make your heart splinter into a thousand pieces on the spot.

Defixiones · 4 weeks ago

Holy fuck.

This is like...THE Fan Letter to end all fan letters.
AFP you sure have a way with words.

@ Andrea - yep, this left me destroyed as well. Not entirely a bad thing, it's just that I miss the huge fucking rush that music used to give me. It's not the music's fault, I'm going through a shit phase, is all. I hope one day to feel that rush again though, living without it is exhausting and painful.

jack strang · 4 weeks ago

AFP, you have just inspired me to post the letter I wrote to trent reznor when I was 15 (with additions from when i saw NIN live earlier this year).

seriously. you are a flippin awesome human being. I think I'm going to buy your album now.

thank you.

bryan · 4 weeks ago

that show you wrote about was in 1989, it was the prayer tour supporting disintegration. the cure did not come back to north america until 1992 on the wish tour.

kellifer · 4 weeks ago

Amanda, you make me brave. I may not love you forever - and people change and grow apart more often than they grow closer - but right now my heart prickles with it. As nostalgic tears trickle down my face and Love Song plays in the background, I feel a hope that has been forgetting to call me back for a long time. I am blessed to have momentarily found peace with your words, your music, and your tired seeking eyes. Thank you and may someone always call you back when you need them.

Pere · 4 weeks ago

Beautiful post, AFP; I was misty all through. Thank you for writing it. I suspect though, that many people might feel the same way about Neil :)

s2tigger · 4 weeks ago

Your letter made me cry the whole time. It is amazing. Tears well in my eyes as I type even now. Thank you for putting into words a feeling that can only be understood by two people who connect on a different plain. The Cure has always made me feel the same way.
I had originally seen my first glimpse of The Cure right after my family got MTV. I remember seeing the Close To Me video and being entranced. A friend of mine from school (John) had an older brother (Rob) who used to sit in his darkened room with candles burning rocking back and forth in a rocking-chair. I thought that he was weird, but I remembered the posters on the wall in his room. They were The Cure, right? Yes they were... So I asked my friend John to ask his brother Rob to record me that song on a tape I planned to bring on our 8th grade field trip to Washington D.C. It was one of those multi-color Maxell or Memorex tapes with the colored triangles on em. He didn't just record one song for me, but the whole Head On the Door Album. Somehow he also recorded me Love & Rockets - Earth, Sun, and Moon. I listened to that tape for the entire trip. My Sony Walkman had auto reverse, so I didn't even have to flip the tape. I probably went through a couple sets of batteries listening to that tape over and over and over. I was hooked (bad Vanilla Ice reference). When I came home I wanted nothing more than to spend time at John's house. Yes, I really liked John. For that matter I really liked Chris and his parents. But there was something special about Rob. He was odd, but the music he listened to was amazing. While he played me many different bands, we always ended with The Cure. From that point forward I became "The Cure". I grew my hair out and started to spike it up. I bought combat boots. I bought posters, postcards, stickers, and buttons. It was late 1988 or early 1989; my girlfriend Sara and I bought tickets with Aissa to see the Prayer Tour. I snuck in a micro tape recorder to capture the event. The recording is HORRIBLE, but you can hear some interesting audio. You see, I had recently broken up with Sara because of an incident with Frank. Unfortunately we had purchased the tickets for The Prayer Tour prior to our breakup. I didn't care what the circumstances were; I was going to that show. Needless to say, tensions were high due to numerous circumstances that evening. We got pretty good seats because of my father (Lewis) and his relationship through M.C.A. with the Byrd's. They used to be very big in the Cleveland concert scene prior to our current monopolies, but that is a whole other story. Anyway, back to the show... The lights dimmed, the spots came on, and they rose over the audience like a slow searchlight. The chimes rung and echoed. Then, out of nowhere the lights flickered and exploded. The rays washed across my face as tears streamed down my cheeks. Nothing else mattered. I was one with The Cure. All of those long nights listening to tracks 1, 14, 16, 17, and 18 from Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me on repeat, lighting incense stick and cone one after another, smoking cloves, and laying with my arms crossed over my chest like I was in a coffin. The time spent had meant something. It had payed off. It had all led up to this. The culmination of all my efforts, the end (yet the beginning) of my journey.

I guess all that I really meant was Thank You.
Thank you to The Cure and all those that pointed me in the right direction.

Stuart Zellman
S2tigger@adelphia.net
Hit me up with a message if you feel the same.

Rick S · 4 weeks ago

What a beautiful letter. I never ever EVER read anything of such length anymore - unless it's a book - because I always feel too busy or anxious to move on to the next thing I need/want to read. But I read this all the way through and enjoyed it immensely. More importantly I think you made me remember (realize?) some of the reasons I liked the Cure when I was in my teens. Thank you.

bre_anachronism · 4 weeks ago

I have copied and pasted so many pieces of this to my own personal journal that I probably should have just saved the whole thing, but one thing in particular keeps replaying itself in my head, over and over and over...

I tried to write songs like you. The THINGS you sang, the way you weren’t afraid to peel yourself open and purge, seeth and cry about the brutal feelings that we ALL HAD but weren’t expressing, that is why I loved you. All other music fell short. You were Real.

I listened to you and thought: THAT. I want to do THAT. Whatever he’s doing. Whatever he’s making me feel….THAT’S what I want to do to people someday.

This. This....this is it. This whole thing, I feel like I might have written you the very same letter. In fact, I know I did. Shorter, less well put (it was rushed, but it felt so urgent that it made sense), but it's the same sentiment.

You are my Robert Smith.

You are my Robert Smith, and I promise to never, EVER leave you...and if I somehow do...I promise, when I'm 32 and you're still kicking ass on stage, I will stand in a crowd, stare up at you, and feel everything I felt the first time I saw the Dolls live. The first time I heard "Ampersand". The first time I heard "WKAP". I promise this.

-Brianne

Oh, and by the way...Robert Smith once hit on my father with the specific purpose of freaking him out. My dad's band, Radio London, opened for them in Chicago, and as Mr. Smith came down the hall, my father did a horrified double-take (Italian tough-guy, or so he liked to think of himself when he was wearing girl's leather pants onstage), to which Robert Smith replied by winking at him and saying, "Oh, you are a CUTE one, aren't you?"

He acts like he was offended. It's his favorite story. Probably mine too.

Kai · 4 weeks ago

It's nice to be reminded that people were meant to feel. Beautifully done. Thank you and good luck. C:

Polly · 4 weeks ago

I feel really lost, Amanda.
I am 17 years old, this is the first time i really listened to the cure. I dont know what to say..im in tears.
I think i feel the same way you felt when you were looking for someone. i have friends, people around me - people that love me, but i dont understand them. they all seem the same, they all seem to balance on the surface and dont seem to question things like i do. maybe im am crazy, or maybe i think too much. i dont dress any different, perhaps i want to..but i hate the surface. i love the music, the people i know dont listen to the things i listen to.. i love the velvet underground too, maybe im weird for not knowing or loving the chart music- or maybe everyone else is weird. i dont even understand how this internet exists and i have no idea if this makes sense or not - it doesnt to me.. im not sure what im trying to say! amanda, its not just your music that im fascinated by, its you..the way you react to things, how honest you are, the things you do, the way you love , the way you connect with people. you are like the person i am inside, or perhaps the way i wish to project to people, i understand you which makes me feel slightly human. i have strong views i never share, or if i do they get shoved in my face because either they are ridiculous, or i cannot explain what i mean. everything is such a pressure, im in such a muddle...and if you read this - im sorry for all the words and spaces that didnt make sense

thankyou amanda, i will keep drawing and i promise to practice the keyboard until we can get our piano back...sending this will be a leap

and my foot has pins and needles now, wait my leg..
xxx polly

Bjorn · 4 weeks ago

It is truly insane how you can write these words; these beautiful words that I too feel, but never can express, I cannot even say these words.
You are an amazing soul Amanda Fucking Palmer.

Christy_S · 4 weeks ago

What a wonderful letter to Robert. I can honestly say that my letters to him never reach more than one page. Mainly because by that time tears of joy and or sorrow have soaked either the paper or the keyboard. I was lucky to find the Cure when I was 7. I once received a kiss on the cheek from the fabulous Robert Smith after a show on the Kissing tour. I treasured the red smear of lipstick on my cheek for days, refusing to sleep lying down for fear of it rubbing off, or to wash my face. Luck hasn't been with me in grown up life though and there have not been any more red streaked lippy marks from him upon my cheek. ::sigh::

I do not think that I ever dreamed he would dump Mary for me. She is far to beautiful and I too average. I did, however, hope that we would be the best of friends...the knid that could sit in each others presence without uttering a word for endless hours. I would have amazing dreams of the two of us sitting in the sand, or on a grassy hillside, just sitting, quietly, smiling, starring off into the distance at the ocean of stars above and glance, knowingly, once in a while, at each other. It's like he was my soulmate but not the romantic type, so much more than that. It was always like he knew what I wanted to say but I couldn't express and he did it so amazingly. So much more emotion and power than I could have ever dreamed. It's like trying to describe a word in another language that doesn't have a translation...that's what his music is. Not just his lyrics but his music. The melodies grab you and rock and lull you into opening your entire being... you can't hide yourself from the music. You have to let it in. It's surreal. It's incredible. Robert Smith is, in the truest meaning of the word, awesome (awe inspiring).

Emily S. · 4 weeks ago

Amanda, you've perfectly summarized how I have felt since I first heard the Cure the summer before I started high school. I'm a Junior now, so compared to you, my Cure journey has just begun, but I just can't get over the brilliance of everything Robert Smith and the band have created. The Cure is pure bliss in every single way. I still get the jittery feeling you talked about, going to the record store and seeing a fresh gem of Cure vinyl. I went to the famed Electric Fetus record store in Minneapolis, MN for the first time this weekend, and walking over to the 'just arrived' section, my eyes spotted "Entreat" the live album for $8, mint condition vinyl. The way it was on the very front of the stack, it was like it was placed there for me. The same feeling hits me every time, that little kid over-excitedness that grips me each time I get a new cure goodie. And when I got home and placed the needle on it, it was like hearing The Cure for the first time again. Utterly breathtaking. A few weeks ago I got a smaller version of that same Boys Don't Cry (New Voice Club Mix) poster that was your shrine. The way you described it, I will never look at that poster the same way again. I feel more connected to you and the rest of the Cure fan world when I look up at that poster at night in my room. Anyways, thanks for sharing your story. Nice to see someone else who has a genuine passion for The Cure in the same way that I do.

PsychopathBunny · 3 weeks ago

Wow.. this is so weird. I feel like I've been reading my own personal rantings of the past few months. I understand you so deeply, because this is what AFI has meaned to me.... and also how I felt like I had abandoned them.

All my life I've been an outcast. Now, I'm okay with it, and kinda happy about it most of the time, but for so many years I've fought with the feeling of not belonging anywhere, not having real friends and basically wondering why does the world seem like such a different place to me than to most of the people. In the middle of all this mental havoc (for those who get it, pun intended), AFI came along. I discovered them in one of the days I was at my lowest. MTV played one of their videos (when they still played decent music) and I was instantly hooked. Their music made a direct connection to my soul that I had never experienced. It's wasn't long until I had gotten a hold of every single one of their cds, knew every word of every song thay have released, and became a member of the official fanclub (The Despair Faction). Their music saved me in a way I can't even begin to describe... It helped me deal with everything I was going through at that time, made me feel safe, even connect me with other people. It saved me from killing myself. And yet, I grew apart from them. I'm still not entirely sure how did this happened, or when did it happened (it was sometime around last year, with college + boyfriend + multiple ocuppations) but I did, I abandoned the very band that meant the world to me. Although I never stopped listening to them, I stopped being the devoted fan I used to be. I didn't feel strange at that time, but then out of nowhere (for me, at least) I got an email that said they were releasing a new album. I was like whaaat? When did this happen? I started getting involved once again in the AFI world, wondering all the time why had I abandoned it in the first place. Their cd is out now (Crash Love!!!) and it's fucking awesome. The first time I listened to it, I felt the familiar comfort of their music once more, the welcoming shivers down my spine with every chord of the songs (it also helped that I listened to in in what had been a really, really crappy day).
Now, after listening it over and over, and analyzing everything I realized it is a process. It's natural to grow away from the things we loved once, because they will come back when it's the right time for it. I accept now that I might not be as involved in the AFI world as I used to be, but that's okay. It's part of the process. I've grown, gotten into different things, but I will always love them, and they still represent a very important part of my life.

Thank you for posting this letter Amanda, it helps to put things in perspective, and I don't feel so alone in my thoughts, knowing that there are others who feel the same way. I love The Cure too n__n. I hope Robert Smith gets the chance to read this.

venison · 3 weeks ago

i'm a shell

Nona · 3 weeks ago

I love you.

amandaflintoff · 3 weeks ago

"Gothy little Amanda" = very fucking hot, actually. :-P

I was looking at my baby Palmer last night and thinking that if I could go back to my responsibility free, fun, careless, happy teen years, I might.

Would you?

If you could trade in everything you have now to feel how you did in that last photo again, would you?

nevercryanothertear · 3 weeks ago

I feel the same way about New Order/Joy Divisions Bernard Sumner, and Depeche Mode's Martin Gore. Amanda, even if you're note writing songs, you're still immensely talented. The pure emotion you let out here shows your love and appreciation for another artist. Ironic how he can be considered a peer now eh? Perhaps one day, you'll take up the Keys, that I so miss from the Cures songs. Whatever you may pursue, whatever you may put out, you have my respect and support.Not that have any time, but if you ever care, you could check out my myspace, and see my writings as well haha. Take care, and keep on making beautiful music.

Valerie D. · 3 weeks ago

Dear Amanda,

I never want to stop loving you and your music. I am glad you wrote this letter because it was beautiful to hear in the words of an artist, how important music and the amazing talented people who make music are. You said that you expect your fans to be committed to this relationship we are in, and I want to let you know that, despite my extreme committment phobia when it comes to sig. others, I do want to commit to a relationship with you and your music. I hope to experience what you described in your letter myself at one of your performances this year.

Love,
Valerie

Name · 3 weeks ago

I crid so hard that my kyboard is compltly soakd and no many lttrs ar fuckd up. Th ons not orkin anymor ar , , , ; , and . ky-fuckin-board!

ROBRT SMITH IS GOD! Amanda too! HAT A DIVIN LTTR!!!

Connie · 3 weeks ago

I have never gotten into the Cure but your letter is beautiful and made me cry because the words are so raw and honest. Thank you for writing and thank you for sharing.

henbur · 3 weeks ago

Different generation, same response. Remembering when my friend Jeff played Bob Dylan for me in his bedroom when I was about 14. Then the bands and music as my life. Escape from the 'so called life' that I had. Thanks for expressing that feeling that music gives that makes life so exciting and real. I still remember seeing the Smiths live in London at the GLC free concert, or seeing Elvis Costello at the Hope and Anchor. Oh, I could go on, although you express it so much better. Just know that the feelings don't stop with age, we just can understand them a bit better with experience. I'm sure my daughter the musician will tell me all about the Dresden Dolls, and btw I once had a girl friend from Crawley. Thank you.

CJ · 3 weeks ago

When I heard that Leonard Cohen, The Cure, and My Bloody Valentine were all booked at Coachella (alongside you in the Sat. slot next to TVOTR), I too decided to make it into a vacation and booked it from across the continent, in a snowy Toronto haze. I'm 24 and for the last 8 years those three fucking acts have become inextricable from who I am as a person. Solely them, I have devoured every single one of their albums, singles, posters, poetry, books... Thank you for writing this, Amanda. Add my name to that collective experience--on Sunday night I connected in to something I don't even remember feeling before. And I didn't even care about that cube in the Sahara, or Throbbing Gristle. But hearing My Bloody Valentine's 20 minute noise bleed into Public Enemy was pretty cool.
And your set at Coachella was in the more memorable pile, although regrettably, I wish I hadn't fallen into a k-hole a mile long after the third song. Sorry. We all have our Bad Fan moments (and Bad Drug moments too, I suppose).
And to make a similarly embarrassing confession, back when the Dolls were really starting to make some headway and the S/T came out (post-Dots tour), I maybe. Sort of. Harbored the same Robert Smith fantasies towards one AFP. Your music resonated some way, or some THING, in me, that thought only if given the same space, the chance, you would recognize. We would relate about Fiji (or something) and teenage Cure fandom, and laugh at the Moz' violent nauseous wave of mutilation over a hotdog. And then the first time I saw the band, it all clicked. Everyone seeing the Dresden Dolls, and years later, just you, felt that way. Which ok sucks when you realize that the one thing you hold and connect to belongs to other people and not just you, but, in a hundred more ways, it's pretty awesome.

Guest · 3 weeks ago

Amazing letter, just amazing.

Have to admit, being a guy, the idea of Amanda and blow jobs makes my head explode, in a good way of course! How was the first one disastrous? or is that referring to the idiot never calling you again?

DesO · 3 weeks ago

So many of these things, I just assumed were things that I felt. I mean, just me. No one else in the world could get how I feel, could they? No one SHOULD, right? I mean, Robert did...but he was the only one who could reach inside that way and tear everything apart...but make it feel okay.

I was lost in high school...and admittedly, I'm still lost at 31. There are connections here, and yet it feels like its so far away. It's funny...we're united by so much, yet never find each other...the millions of us, (and there are millions), will never so much as pass each other with more than a glance or a nod. It's funny...but this is what I needed. Just to hear someone else put into words things that I myself am maybe too ashamed to show, well it's wonderful, really.

So thanks, Amanda. Thank you for being so open and honest to us...and for voicing what most of us probably internalize, never finding the right way to externalize it. Cheers.

Robert McKay · 3 weeks ago

Amanda,

I don't think I've ever loved anything as much as you loved The Cure. This letter made me cry for the way I've never allowed myself to be swept away in that emotional current. I've felt broken for several years because I've been disconnected from emotion. Thank you so much for writing this.

I want more than anything to learn to be this in touch with my feelings and to love with an abandon that makes me feel a little bit embarrassed. I'm trying to do that with my writing now. It's the one thing I know I've always wanted to do. Now I just have to fall in love with it the way I've never let myself before. It deserves nothing less than my total devotion.

I'm writing for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and I'm scared. I'm scared that I won't take complete advantage of the opportunity and that I won't finish my novel. I'm scared that I'll never do anything meaningful with my life. I'm crying as I write this. You Amanda are my Cure. You've done so much for me in so little time that I'm not sure how to express it. I've never felt this way about a singer/band before.

My main character in my novel I'm writing in November was inspired by a Yeah Yeah Yeahs song, but she's a ukulele playing busker in honor of you. She's going to rock hard and not give a shit what other people think unless they are lifting her up.

If I finish it I would love for you to read it one day, but it also terrifies me that it might suck. I guess that's the chance you have to take when you are doing something that you love.

Well, I'm starting to ramble so I'll stop. Just know that I love you Amanda Palmer. I don't know every little thing about you and ever lyric to your songs...yet, but you have changed my life. Thank you.

Tym · 3 weeks ago

I read this and am transported back to my first Cure Show -- Disintegration Tour, Great Woods in Mansfield (which it isn't called anymore), Shelleyan Orphan opened. Is that the one you were at? I paid $80 for tickets, which was an ungodly amount back then, but we had 8th row center stage. Some poor idiot sitting behind us was passed out drunk and threw up, exiting the show even before it started. I stood in that puddle of goo most of the night, and it was worth it.

Thank you for reminding me of my own defining Robert moment!

Marco · 3 weeks ago

Listening to the first live version of underneath the stars has made all memories FLASH ... and indeed got me back ... but Im missing the keys as much as one can miss them ... anyhow: the past is always heavier than the present ...

LilyTangerine · 3 weeks ago

Dear Amanda,
You are beautiful, your words are beautiful, your thoughts and feelings are beautiful.
The experience you've written about here is precisely why I've dedicated my life to music, thank you for reminding me of that.
Love,
Quinn

draka · 3 weeks ago

I recently rediscovered a long dormant love for the Cure too. Your words ring very true to this grown up woman who forgot a lot about my 13 year old self for a good while.

Two comments—first, I like what you have to say about some teenagers wearing their misery on their clothes, while the rest are just miserable inwardly. I think we do well to remember that this holds true in adults as well. Not that we are all miserable all the time, but that everyone has their shit that they are dealing with. So let’s be gentle with one another.

Second, it hardly surprises me, but it is absurdly tragic for someone like you (for whom music is obviously so important) to get burned out by your job. But it is a job, with good stuff and bad stuff, just like everyone else. For people like me, the rest of the world is reality, but music is escape. I can still imagine that one day I’ll meet Robert Smith and live happily ever after (of course he’s married and so am I, but never mind). We all need an escape, right? One that is decidedly NOT grounded in reality. I’m glad you found yours, and hope you can continue to find it—in Cure music, and elsewhere.

Melanie · 3 weeks ago

Oh gods, thank you so much for this post. You perfectly described exactly the way The Cure makes me feel (and always has). I've never seen them live, but now I'm going to bust my ass to make sure I get to the next show. Thanks AFP. You rock.

tenshikurai9 · 3 weeks ago

"I spent a lot of time wandering around disoriented in goth clubs in boston, new york, all over germany….sitting at a dark corner table, nursing beers and smoking, waiting for a song I loved to come on so I could dance, alone. I liked dancing. I would close my eyes and forget. I would abandon myself. But I never met anyone I liked or who liked me. In fact, almost nobody talked to me, ever."

That sounds downright Goth of you right there.

Meanwhile my life, for various reasons, never allowed me to fall in love with a band and be able to expose myself to the entire album from much of anyone till after high school (mostly because I didn't have time for a job to get the money till then.) So between college radio, MTV before the music videos died, MTV2 before the music videos died, video-on-demand, and music documentaries on the Sundance Channel were my main music flash points from 13-19.

Otherwise it was the art films my parents exposed to me on Bravo when I was a child, were part of casual conversation with my mother, on the Sundance Channel in my teens, reviewed in my Sr. year film crit class, and occasionally watched in the theatres that provide my moments of being profoundly moved.

(Not with the first art film I remember seeing on a big screen. The film adaptation of "I am a Cat" that I saw with my mother at the Boston MFA at 12 or 13 has me complain to this day about the cat not narrating his story till the end of the film while the newspaper serial had him narrating his life from the beginning.)

tenshikurai9 · 3 weeks ago

I almost forgot, seeing "Girl Anachronism" on the video-on-demand list was one of those music flash points. Then I forgot about you two. Then I got online and remembered the band since I was searching for Goth music/music with a Goth following and re-fell in love. A is for Accident and the Dresden Dolls CDs are permanently in my music collection even though I'm shite at hearing lyrics and perpetually unable to sing a single song in it's entirety instead of chunks of them.

... · 3 weeks ago

=)

mimsmithfaro · 3 weeks ago

Loved this. Is it sad that at 40 years of age I still feel like this?
"As far as I could tell, nobody else was. The teachers and family around me were stupid, lame suburban pod-people, allowing themselves to be spoonfed the cultural koolaid. I was fourteen, I was an opinionated little twit, I wanted to feel and to scream, I needed allies, comrades, back-up, and I was pissed that I couldn’t find any."

I love the fact that your mom has kept your room like that all these years.

My daughter is 14 and is so longing for a place to belong. We are coming to see you in Philly this month. We can't wait.

leslie76 · 3 weeks ago

sometimes i feel the same, as you...

i loved robert smith and co since 1992. all begun with the single called high, and the friday song. in november, exactly 17 years ago, i bought the wish album on mc. this was my first ever cure official item, ( and i gave it 4 years later to a girl, who became my girlfirend a short term.)

i have now 3500 cure items. i bought everything and i tried to exchange everything, and i tried to have calendars, lps, singles, limited, not limited, very limited, photos, curenews issues, etc.etc. i have now 200 kg of cure...

i wrote a cure poem book in 2003 with a friend. most of my poems were influenced by robert band.

then i lost somebody. 2 years ago. a girld called brigitte.

actually, i became dead since then. and i tried to reveal myself with roberts dream, thoughts, nad music.

i had to reborn. last year. i made it. but this man is not anymore the same as 2 years ago. i adore to the band but not die hard anymore.

17 years. jesus, how much thoughts, minutes, concerts, feelings. etc. but in vain. i am not happy.

robert, you can't make me happy. and i dont have the right to be angry to you. jut noticed, that i have to change on myself.

thanx for all i love you so much. ever more than i was the hardest die hard cure fan ever can be...

i am crying now. a boy with 33 years, listening the disintegration song.

when we both of us knew,
how the end always is.

love

take care

leslie from H

2009.11.1 (11111)

lost forever in a happy crowd

Sheling · 3 weeks ago

Oh, Amanda, you silly bastard:

""I listened to you and thought: THAT. I want to do THAT. Whatever he’s doing. Whatever he’s making me feel….THAT’S what I want to do to people someday.""

That's what you ARE doing. There's this vulnerability to you that, perhaps, you don't see. You're so busy being a defensive-bold-intrepid-inventive workaholic that you don't seem to get it. There is a seam of fuck-it-all integrity to you that seems to make you uncomfortable yet is SO vital to who you are. You spend so much time reaching out to us, explaining (almost defending) yourself, getting to know us, trying to find new ways forward that you're missing the best part of it all - to many of us, you've become the new Robert Smith.

I'm the same age as you (give or take a couple of months), and Robert Smith and TMBG were the cornerstone of my musical adolescence (as well as Jane's Addiction and Faith No More, neither of which I've been able to give up), but people grow older and scenes change. New people come to the forefront and build upon what went before.

This is what you have done; its not just about being an honest artist. It's not just about a level of devotion to fans and art. It's also about love - on all levels, to all involved in the existence of art, from the creators to the production team to those who will ultimately consume it. The internet wasn't accessible when you and I were teens; we couldn't reach out to Rob Smith and Perry Farrell in the same way I can write this letter to you. And I love those guys with a fierce and lasting passion, but the "relationship" I have with them pre-exists the web and seems reluctant shift.

A lot of artists find this new pseudo-intimacy frightening or consider it to be a waste of time. But you've grasped the new medium and are the living example of how it can be used as an integral part of the creative process. And while "fearless" is perhaps a bit of a stretch, you've certainly done it openly, honestly and without qualms or regrets when it backfires. Jesus fucking Christ, look at the recent "Pay me what you think I'm worth" debate - there aren't many others who would have the balls to challenge the system so openly.

But you don't seem to get it, even after all this time. You're not our idol - not some vague, distant figurehead who hands down our musical mana from on high. You're a living, breathing, feeling person who needs us as much as we need you. It's not about glory with you; you seem to be always hoping to be "good enough" for us - but, honestly, it's about time you saw that you have entered many of our lives in a way that we've never experienced before: you're a partner; an intimate; a dearly-beloved friend, whether we'll ever meet you or not.

I can't name anyone else who is able to project themselves so honestly and completely from such a great distance.

It often sounds, when you write, like the next thing you really want to say is an apology. Blog entries should be long; they should be brutally honest; they should provoke discussion. And yours most of all, perhaps. I think it's a wonderful, magical thing to read the number of comments that say stuff like "I've never heard of you" or "I've never listened to your music before" - what does that tell you about how your words are being received these days?

Don't change, don't apologise anymore and, for fucks' sake, don't ever forget that you're the Robert Smith of the digital age, balancing hyper-media saturation with an incredible level of intimacy that allows perfect strangers to write shit like this to you.

Stay sassy x

trixygrace · 3 weeks ago

peering into your thoughts through this letter reaffirms some very important peculiarities about the human condition and you as an individual artist. robert smith was a household name growing up. my eldest sister (who is roughly the same age as you and was considered "mod") turned me onto the cure when i was very little, and my mum gave me a cassette of disintegration when i was 13, as if slapping a band-aide onto my little, aching soul. i fully endorse robert smith to discover this letter from you, and being the fine gentleman that he is, appreciate the pain and beauty within it. thanks for letting us hear you on this. love! xoxo
p.s. your sultry gaze in the first polaroid is really cute

Zuphillious · 3 weeks ago

Amanda-This was a wonderful read! I saw you in Chicago when the Dolls opened up for NIN. You guys stood out by far as one of the most interesting acts that I have seen open up for NIN, and I've been to a lot of their shows throughout the years. Your voice is so unique and so powerful and deep. If I could be a singer I would love to sing like you! So as far as I'm concerned you haven't let anyone down by following your passion as a musician. I think Robert Smith would understand ;)

Most of my grade school/high school days I was the only one that seemed to know The Cure passionately (and obsessively) out of the people I knew. However, even though I never found any one who was as passionate about them, my friends and acquaintances really accepted my interest and just knew me as the girl who loved The Cure. I found out years later that some of my friends who I have reconnected with tell me that now when they hear a Cure song, they think of me and most of them have admitted that they like some of their music. To which now I feel proud that other people may realize how versatile their music really is. I even had to make a mix tape for my Mom after she heard me playing their music on repeat all those years! Oh, and to which she actually came with me to their concert in June :)

I may not be as obsessive about them today (I'm 31), I may not wear their shirts all the time anymore or hang their posters like I used to, or even listen to their music everyday, but it's ok, know I will never stop liking the Cure. They will always be my favorite band and hold a spot in my heart.

Your posting has let me relive all those days and nights of a crazy teen, studying their lyrics, reading all sorts of books about them, practicing my english accent with my friend and watching all their videos on repeat. Those were wonderful times and the feelings always come rushing back at their concerts!

Thank you for being you!

trixie · 3 weeks ago

i loved this. from start to finish. i felt every emotion you described, i know the urgency, that feeling of almost thinking that some kind of supernova would happen if only this creator of music/lyrics that touched your heart so much would even just lock eyes with you. best fan letter i've ever read. i really hope that it reaches robert smith! please let us know if you get a response!!

dteel · 3 weeks ago

You are amazing, prolific and through this letter, made me a true fan. It echoes my own life and coming of age with Robert Smith, and I thank you for sharing this glimpse into your own life. I love what you do, and think you would make a fine 5th member of The Cure! Though I think what you have done on your own has impacted many people in the same way.

Andrea Fryer · 3 weeks ago

I went through the same exact thing with the goth thing. "So these are supposed to be -my- people" but despite dressing and trying to act the part, was largely ignored and got the cold shoulder from "the regulars" at the goth clubs. Those folks were fucking scary! Now I'm 40 and I've actually talked to some of those people from the old days - the ones I didn't dare approach and who just stared judgmentally from afar, and they've revealed that they thought I was just as scary and had wanted to approach but were too scared of rejection. So who knows how many of those folks were in the same pointy black, buckled shoes we were? Then again, there were also the truly mean ones like the boy who ripped your hair out, but I think they must have been on drugs.

As for "abandoning" the cure and not being aware of their material for the past 7 years, well same here and I am not even a musician. For me I think it was because the albums started to change into something I could no longer recognize. But have I felt guilty about it? Have I been left feeling like a traitor? Yes I have. I think I'll need to do the same thing as you and listen to everything I've been missing out on.

As a teenager I was never in love with Robert to the extent that you were, I guess I just never assumed myself even near to worthy and "didn't even go there" - instead it was just a feeling of admiration and love for the way he was and the music he produced. And like you, I admired the fact that he had the balls to make both the sad stuff as well as the happy go lucky stuff, a very brave thing in a time where it was deemed super uncool by followers of such music. I guess that honesty is what got to us with such a passion in the end. When they played Helsinki (with the Cranes as warm up band) in 1992, that was my first Cure concert and I painted a huge painting of monster that was both scary and endearing at the same time. (similar to another one I'd made at the time http://www.andrea.net/portfolio/art/01.html )I remember putting the finishing touches on the train and people staring, but I didn't care. At the concert I tried to find someone who I could give the painting to who would deliver it to Robert, secretly hoping I'd get to give it to him myself (ha!). I found one of the security guys and he took it off my hands, but I highly doubt Robert ever got it.

Thank you for writing this letter. I hope that Robert reads it some day and wouldn't that dinner with exchanged stories be even better!

eatingdust · 3 weeks ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxZX8LpFOKo children love Robert smith too

Cera Lawrence · 3 weeks ago

This is just amazing and beautiful, Ms. Fucking Palmer. I was probably a little too old for the Dresden Dolls to get me the way the Cure got you (it was Tori Amos for me, in the late nineties) I still feel your lyrics and music keenly, have held myself as though my stomach would split open from the truth of the line "The attention just encourages her," have screamed with your fans at a concert while we all jumped up and down singing your lyrics along with you at the top of our lungs. I'm so grateful that you and Robert Smith and artists like you are here to let us ride the stuff you're tapping into. It's so needed, it's so necessary.

I'm so grateful that you experience your artistry the way you do, and that you are so open with so much of your motivation, your emotion, your own life. I know (or at least I hope that) you keep plenty of privacy for yourself, but enough of your life is open for *it*, also, to be art.

I just want to say thank you.

Paul · 3 weeks ago

I share your passion for The Cure, and probably could create an equally revealing piece on the matter from a guy perspective - but to do so is unnecessary, because you already honed in on the key points.

*Finding a unique band that speaks to you is unique in itself.

*The lyrics of The Cure are not limited to a categorical term like ‘goth,’ but rather the subject matter is so universal that all types of people can relate – And I cannot help but falling on the same words you used: Honesty, being alone, and being afraid.

*And to be able to recall specific events from your past because of a musician truly makes that musician an iconic figure.

I find myself relating to your letter so strongly – that I cannot help but to question where are the people like you at? Apparently all at the Coachella show, which I regretfully missed.

So this brings me to you..

I was extremely surprised to hear your recollection of The Cure. You see, I discovered Dresden Dolls through a friend who fancied you guys a lot but not The Cure; and admittedly I thought that I’d sensed some Cure influence. And if I had to pinpoint the influence, I would say 1983-84 (Japanese Whispers, The Top including their bsides from that era) – But in all honesty, I thought it might have been purely coincidental (and it might be??). I did check on google, out of curiousity, for your influences, but nothing from The Cure came up.. And the covers that you did with Dresden Dolls were Black Sabbath, Radiohead and the like. And if I’m not mistaken, I even ran across you making some off-hand comment about Cure fans in general way back.

So yea, after reading this blog, I have an odd urge now to listen to the Dresden Dolls sense I found that I have an unexpected passion in common with you. My reaction to this blog is probably similar to your reaction to your friend who shouted at the television after hearing Cartman claiming that Disintegration is the best album ever. So yes, I now have a strange crush on an unreachable 32-year old Boston woman. Thanks. And truly, thank you for that letter – and perhaps we will meet in our next lives.

And a question: Would you say that The Smiths and Depeche Mode have the same impact on you? Because they don’t quite do it for me.

T.C. · 3 weeks ago

So I've never been a fan of The Cure. I mean I didn't hate em. I didn't even dislike them. Had friends that were into them pretty good. Just never hit me the same. I probably never gave them much of a listen or a fair shake. But I did and do love music. And you've really hit that home for me and even rekindled it in a way. Thank you for that.

threerings · 3 weeks ago

Amanda,

You're apparently only two years older than me and I had a very similar experience growing up with The Cure as my favorite band, including the foray into wider Goth culture in my 20s. I think I've always recognized in your music that you and I shared a musical background and appreciation. I haven't ever forgotton the Cure, and I've been to see them 4 times now, but seeing them last year reminded me so forcefully of all the things you're writing about here. How great music can be, what a live show should be, truth and beauty and love and all of that. Anyway, that is to say, YES.

Love you, love the Cure.

brennabrenna · 3 weeks ago

The feeling of
"here you are, I see you, I feel you, your music is rushing through me"
is so, so fucking amazing. Thank you for sharing this with us! So much.
Sometimes life passes by to quickly to love something so intensely, or
even remember why you loved it with your whole heart in the first place.
So.. thanks for reminding all of us about that. and thank you for making us
feel the way robert smith makes you feel.

<3

Jeff Love · 3 weeks ago

Thank you for this... I'm 34 and have been married to the cure since standing on the beach. I even have a son named Simon. Reading this brought back so many memories. Head on the Door font, RS drawings, wall sized posters. I never left, I can't, I owe him too much to leave. It's the weirdest thing but I love that I chose the cure to grow old with. I hoped you enjoy the Dream album... Seeing the band on stage and getting the plug pulled was epic.

Thank you again, you represented us well. Perfect.

Kerri Peek · 3 weeks ago

Amanda I remain devoted to you entirely, but still just an aging goth.

Savannah · 3 weeks ago

Amanda:

Thank you, and wow.

(I'm a bit speechless at this point, so I'm really trying to just pack as much emotion and impact into those words as I can, instead of leaving some rambly comment. Just. Know, I guess, that this letter was very powerful and that it moved me to tears. More than once. And made me laugh. More than once.)

You're an amazing person, Amanda, and, again, thank you.

Ash · 3 weeks ago

Man, I can relate SOOOO much to those feelings of a time gone by. From one ole xgoth to another that travelled many a land and PLENTY of goth clubs in between. I broke my heart laughing when you mention the 'new' Cure fans wearing 'PINK'. I still have a phobia of pink. Rock on Amanda...

dani · 3 weeks ago

...i dont have anithing to say. Just...thanks, you are so fuckin great for writting this. Im 14, i live in Argentina, its hard here to get anything of the cure, i just have internet, but its not the same...I feel sometimes exactly like you...you make me remember why the cure its so great.

Thanks, honestly and purely, thanks

Silena · 3 weeks ago

dammit i don't know were to begin from, i wanted to type so many things reading that letter

for me, seeing the cure live was a different experience than yours [ after all my "cure" were the dresden dolls] , like a rite of passage, the beginning of my new life as an adult
...however
i was amazed because at least half of it is identical (in meaning, feelings and stories) whith the letter i had written for you after the first time i came at one of your concerts (at Dublin)

I've often contemplated whether you would relate to my letter, and i always concluded that no doubt you would, ...despite my reassurance it still made me happy to realize i wasn't mistaken

I'm working on sending it to you someday

p.s. you won't remember, but i'm the girl that gave you a painting of you and brian when you first started touring (at the Dublin and then Belfast show), and i've been meaning to tell you
I WANNA MAKE ART WITH AND FOR YOU!!!!!

(ok gotten that out of my system!)

Love
Silena

lisacondemi · 3 weeks ago

Oh, Ms. Palmer. Don't you realize? This is how I--and I'm sure almost everyone reading this--feels about you. I cried starting at Blood Valentine, and stopped crying somewhere in the middle because it was so exhilarating realizing that I'm not the only one who feels this way. I'm not the only one who has heard fresh music and felt that spark underneath their skin, that spark that itches to get out and dance and sing and scream and break down and live.
If I ever were to meet you... I doubt I would be able to speak either. You have changed my life, and I love you.

Basia · 2 weeks ago

I honestly love you for this letter.

Basia · 2 weeks ago

I honestly love you for this letter.

cuckoo · 2 weeks ago

Thank you so much for sharing this.
It made me remember just how it felt to be a lost and lonely teenager saved every day by my favourite bands. I didn't get into the Cure until I started going to those clubs after turning 18, but their music meant so much to me then. My strongest memory from those nights is bawling my eyes out after the boy of my dreams went into the bathrooms with the girl in the blue wig - and then Love Cats came on, one of my favourite dancy tracks, and all I knew is that I had to dance and sing and FEEL it all out of me. The music just carried me away and made everything okay.

Music determined everything in my life once. I'd forgotten how all that felt. I think I need to go out and get that feeling back.

xxx

Dee · 2 weeks ago

Thank you for sharing this beauty with us.

Chrissy · 2 weeks ago

I only made it half way down. Fucking lovely :)

bloodtrainfromtokyo · 2 weeks ago

:)

LeeVi · 2 weeks ago

AFP, you truly are fantastic...LOVE THIS LETTER!!! Thank you for sharing...OH, and the next time you're back in San Diego, and for some odd reason you need a place to stay, you and your crew are more than welcome to stay with me...YES, some may have to sleep on airmattresses but I promise all will be comfy, cozy and feed...and we must not forget the beverages :)

LeeVi · 2 weeks ago

Well GOSH DARN IT!!! I meant all will be FED, FED I SAY...not feed. However, I will indeed "feed" you if necessary :)

Andy B · 2 weeks ago

That was a truly, truly brilliant letter. For me, like many people who have already commented, I'm sure, it brings back brillaint memories of the wild eyed savagery with which we used to follow bands when we were younger, and yes, in the same way, the ferociousness of just how we *needed* to get more information about them, falling wildly upon every morsel we could get our hands on. Being stuck in an English boys boarding school from the ages of seven to eighteen put a severe crimp on my ability to go out and research, and every new album or tape that someone brought in from our own musical pantheon was shared around, played a million times, and copied incessently, until some were merely a vague tune in the background of a static hiss.

I'm still madly in love with muic, although there's *something* which has ebbed slightly - perhaps it's the ease of getting hold of new music these days, giving you so much choice you end up with a library of thousands of albums, some of which you've barely even played, instead of that tape box of your teens, with where every tape's been played a million times. Thank you for reminding me of those long evenings, sat listening to every word intently, staring up at the posters on the wall, wondering just what those people were like in real life - not the greatest of times, but it's funny how one forgets the parts of them which were good.

I'm really sorry to hear about your whole bad goth experience. I still rate myself as being something of a goth, and to hear of anyone being treated so badly by people, let alone the types I associate with, appalls me entirely.

So, thanks for sharing, and thank you for reminding me. I'm off to listen to all my old Cure LPs again. And again. And again.

Cat · 2 weeks ago

I fucking you love to bits. This letter is one of the most beautiful things I have ever read. I love Robert Smith so much, so much. I am a devoted fan to The Cure, The Dresden Dolls & Amanda Palmer, I promise to never, ever leave you. You sharing this made me so happy, reading it all, I just fucking love you. xxx

Chris · 2 weeks ago

Dear Amanda,

I hope so much that he reads this, and is as moved as (or, most likely, more than) everyone who has read it so far has been, including myself. This letter just made my day -and- got me interested in The Cure again for the first time in a long while. I noticed someone who commented before me said, "Today is the day blogging became beautiful" and I couldn't agree more.

On a semi-side note, during your original WKAP tour, you came to the city where I live (Vancouver, BC, Canada. I hope so much that you had a good time here), but I was eighteen, and you were playing Richard's on Richards, so I couldn't go. I hadn't ever really traveled a whole lot before, let alone to the States really, but I decided, as soon as I heard about your show, "Fuck it! I'm going to Seattle!".

I wanted to let you know that no concert I had been to before or have been to since has entertained or moved me as much as the one I saw you play at The Showbox.

Best decision ever?

Best decision ever. I just wish I hadn't had to leave right after the show, so maybe me and the two fellow Vancouverites I'd heard there could have met you.

I hope you come to Vancouver again at some point so I can possibly tell you how amazing and inspirational you are to me in person, and how much you've helped me throughout my ongoing love affair with your music.

Thank you so much

caladhiel · 2 weeks ago

I'd just like to thank you so much for penning this letter. Aside from highlighting similarities I have found echoed in my own past upon reading your own, it has reminded me of just how indescribably special it is to have such a connection with a band and the music they create, and how important it is to immerse yourself in that world, if only once in a while. It has also reminded me of moments I had upon first discovering The Dresden Dolls; the tears of rage that spilled from me as I listened to Slide, singing to The Jeep Song with my best friend, even trying with frustration to key along in time to Coin-Operated Boy on my dad's upright piano. Things I could go much deeper into if I had a million words to do it with. But what an artist can give to you is so much like love, and seeing your open and brutally honest words is like hearing a reprise to the music they've given you. I'm so glad that you have been able to reconnect, and if something in my life makes me drift from the bands that have helped to make me who I am, I hope I have the same oppertunity as you.

Emily · 2 weeks ago

Thank you, Amanda. It makes me so happy, knowing that I'm not just a stupid 20-year-old who ought to grow up and stop losing herself in a band's music. I have christmas lights hanging in my room, too: they're lighting up The Smashing Pumpkins, Nine Inch Nails, that photo of you crowdsurfing at Coachella, and a little band called Assassins.
I saw The Cure, too, about a year and a half ago with my best friend, and it struck us that we were some of the youngest people there. Nobody we met looked down on us for not having been born yet when Disintegration came out; they were thrilled that kids continued to rifle through used CD racks, pick up something by chance that was so important, and love it themselves regardless of the date published.
Anyway, thanks again, because this was something that I really, really KNOW how it felt. I can't think of much to reply with because I feel like there's not much that can be said after you.

Tobi G. · 2 weeks ago

Amanda,
Your letter touched me deeply as I am, like so many others, a Cure fan. In fact, the music of The Cure, was my life soundtrack as I made my way painfully growing up as well. The first time I heard The Cure, I bought a cassette of Disingration on a whim. I remember sitting in a wingbacked chair in our livingroom with my walkman and headset and hearing the fullest heart-exploding with a bittersweet happiness sound. A sound that I had never heard anything like. Music that could make you feel even before the first word had even been sung. Music that grabs your heart and won't let go.
Now as a 35 year old, I listen to everything under the sun. It was only last year that I came upon your newest album with intrigue. I caught the Twin Peaks play of the title and found it interesting. After first listen, I was in love. In love like "Disinigration" love. A masterpiece I'd say. Keep doing what you're doing, Amanda. I love it and it's full of spirit and soul. See ya at your next NC show.
xoxo

rivergirl28 · 2 weeks ago

beautiful!!

gothspider · 2 weeks ago

I am 29.... have been looking recently at the beginnings and the ends of my life.... NIN may have been my mix tapes of youth... but you are and always will be my Robert smith. Now you know. If you ever recognize me (I have been to almost every Denver concert) don't discount me because I dress in black... (I just always have) you saved me in ways I don't yet know how to tell you and when I figure it out... I WILL write you a letter telling you... even if YOU never read it... and if you ever want more New Orleans bread pudding just let me know and I will come leave more in your tour bus... -Mira ...the lost girl...
gothspider@aol.com

mpd · 2 weeks ago

Holy fucking shit.

Wow.

Jdi · 2 weeks ago

Amanda,
I wish I could invent a new language to express myself accurately and originally. I somehow want to believe I'm different; that you have touched a place in my heart no one can understand. I'm coming to realize that this magical, secret corner is inside us all and it is people like you (maybe a handful in my own life; you, and people I actually know and deeply respect) who poke at this hidden little wound, I guess you could call it- and help heal it.

You help heal it by not only how we identify with your words, but how we can then identify with each other.--because we really are all the same. I know this because what I am saying now has been said a million times to you, to Robert, possibly to Britney Spears pre or post shaved head, even on annoying posters or greeting cards. My point. Just a thank you.

nicbridges · 2 weeks ago

Amanda, you are fucking awesome. You are real. You are true. I love that you want the connections, the experiences, the moment. I love that you write it down and send it out into the world.

I can't wait to see you when you come to Australia, hopefully you'll be somewhere near me. I'll come to your show and lose myself in the moment. And maybe find something there too.

landathelost · 2 weeks ago

jeez amanda, don't break my heart again. as an outsider who had/has no reason to be, music was the only place where i have ever felt a sense of community or belonging. sometimes when my favorite artists put out new albums (you, dd, tori, conor) i can't listen to more than a couple of songs at a time, cause it HURTS to hear something so beautiful, so honest, so speaking my language that I want to tell everyone around me, who are not music fans and do not care why it is important and who look at me with their dumb bunny expressions and I wonder why i even try anymore. but it's not about them it is about me. i can't imagine what it is like to create music, (too much like math in which i never excelled) but I know what it is like to crave those eight bars, that melody, that emphasis, intonation, swell and fade out that make me feel a part of something. it's like getting lost in a book, lyrics and melodies create places you can go and I loved this letter and i thank you for sharing.

efyyness · 2 weeks ago

Thank you for this, Amanda <3

kate · 2 weeks ago

thank you for writing this. it make my excruciatingly similar experience i had at fifteen feel lighter. Im not going to forget this letter.

Anika · 2 weeks ago

I read all of this. From start to finish, with the songs. I loved it all. Despite my having been a Bad Fan to you lately. You reminded me of... in no uncertain terms, what it is that I am doing with my life. What the thread that holds it all together is. My need to create and shape and share my experiences - my need to connect with people who GET IT. My art. My writing. My blog. You were the one who inspired me to start blogging. And it has changed my life and corrupted me forever. I cannot thank you enough. I was one of the people who wrote you a letter on ripped-off spiral-bound school-notebook paper with the refrain “I know you’re busy. You must get lots of letters like this. You must hear this all the time….” One day I will write you something better. Something as moving as this. I won’t forget you or what you did for me.

Lots of love.

A.

tyaremko · 2 weeks ago

Amanda, Amanda... how DO you express yourself so universally? I'm a whole 54 years young (!) & weeping over your sweet tribute/confessional/revelation to Sir Robert Smith (THE poet laureate of my life).
I found the most moving aspect of The Cure's performance at Coachella '09 to be when ThePowersThatBe cut their electricity for Decent Curfew Procedure's Sake... my god, those Boys who dared to cry just kept playing thru their lil' amps as We The People helped provide the required/respected/renewed vocals. At that moment, I finally realized what The Cure & heArtwork in general reveal: that we, so beyond the media & hype & idolatry & protocol & bullshit & devolution & electricity itself: WE reamain the heart, the feeling, the emotion... the BloodFlowers. It's a sadjoy within that I've had a great difficulty expressing until your words cracked my heart open. The same deep water as you, indeed... kiss me goodbye... Love you forever.

Sincerely,
Tom "AnkleBoot-autographed-at-Coachella" (tell me you remember & make my day!) ;-))

realcurefannotsomebullshitone · 2 weeks ago

i wonder if robert has posted a restraining order against you?
the words narcissistic and stalker come to mind after reading your detailed but meaningless letter of self gratification and I am sure you have had plenty of practice giving blow jobs over the years, so at least you have a 'job' to fall back on. I am sure that's your true calling in life not music since you eloquently put how jaded you are i wonder how impressed your fans who have bothered paying to see you play with all your heart and soul even though it's being like a machine. You make brittany spears sound more talented at least she knows she's good at pretemding. Your letter made me never want to buy any of your music. You even look like your faking it your picture but I am sure you have had lots of practice.

grund00n · 2 weeks ago

Dear realcurefannotsomebullshitone,
You're that mean goth guy from germany, ain't you?
Peace.

tyaremko · 2 weeks ago

Jerk yourself off some more, fella. Your relevance is in your hand.

hecatemacbeth · 2 weeks ago

I can still say that I am not amazed at how many hateful people exist on the internet. You missed the entire point of her post. It's not to relish in the fact that she gives good head - it's about the music. What she connects to her OWN life. It seems that you're fixated on those portions of her blog - jealous?

blahblahblahzzzz · 1 week ago

A restraining order? What a kook!

Paolo86 · 2 weeks ago

That was the most heartfelt letter I've ever read .I doubt there are many artists who love what they do for a living as much as you do (one of course being Smith himself)and who speak with such passion and familiarity with their idols and their fans as well.I too am in a phase where I do not enjoy going to gigs as much as I did .But I think that's a passing phase that sooner or later every gig enthusiast deals with. As for you saying you've been a bad fan, sometimes in life we feel like we disappointed a person we love and we straighten our mistake,only to find out that our love for that person bigger than ever so in the end the mistake you've done has brought some good things with it . It made you recall the great admiration you always had for Robert Smith and it allowed you to put it into words for him to read .Now I hope he reads this letter as soon as he can, because I'm sure he'll be struck with awe by the beauty of your sincere words and the depth of the love you feel for him,as much as we all did. Take care , Amanda . You deserve all the happiness in the world .

Greetings from Italy,
Paolo

chrissandalls · 2 weeks ago

I saw you play the spiegl tent in melbourne. and you toppled faith no more off the top spot for best live band Id ever seen. you, the danger ensemble and a piano beat mike patton and his merry men! the cure are awesome, but you carry the torch now Amanda. lead on.x

Father Ribs · 2 weeks ago

Amanda,

Eight hours from now you will grace us in Burlington; it's been a long time coming for me. The sound track to my life has many performers, but every one is precious and a part of my soul. Thank you for being a part of what makes me, Me. I won't say "Don't ever change", but I will say "Don't ever stop being whoever it is you are".

grund00n · 2 weeks ago

I'm all misty here. I love you Amanda Palmer.

hecatemacbeth · 2 weeks ago

I couldn't have worded a better response.
In all honesty, I worked at Hot Topic for TWO years and was rather conceited at all of the kids that came in wanting any and everything NOT goth then picking up albums and going "WTF is Robert Smith/The Cure/BAUHAUS/etc" and quoting the most popular lyrics they discovered off of the Metropolis mixes.
Shortly after that, Yes Virginia/Dresden Dolls was constantly being played on our stations by my Assistant Manager who didn't agree with me on a lot of things but tried to tell me how amazing Bauhaus was for "Crackle"...and I admittedly shouted "that is their "MIX" cd" and was further irritated by her constant playing of "Coin-Operated Boy"...
So, I fell out of love with Dresden Dolls and your voice. :( I left Hot Topic, left the store that it first began as and turned into an eclectic mix of neons and bad haircuts, and found you again with your covers of Umbrella, Few of My Favorite Things, etc over at Limewire. :)
You are my release at lunchtime when I'm having a shitty day. I really appreciate how open and in your face artistically you are in your lyrics.
I look forward to seeing you in Falls Church, VA, and hopefully we can hug and talk about how silly we were as teens. :)

aesthetic · 2 weeks ago

This was so perfectly said, thank you so much Amanda...

~A 26 year-old "goth" DJ from Atlanta... ;-)

catalyst_echo · 2 weeks ago

Amanda,

I felt the same way about Robert Smith and the cure, nearly exactly as you described (minus your own history in the music industry...) ... I haven't heard the new album yet... I also strayed from their good graces. On your recommendation, I am going to stop being a bad fan too. Because fuck... I really loved them in the day. I painted my entire AP Art portfolio while listening to "Staring at the Sea" ... I had deep, abiding relationships with several of their songs. I wish I could relive the same glee I felt when I found an original mint copy of "3 Imaginary Boys" for a dollar in a used record store. I look up now at the album which I have framed in my office and a hint of that glee resurfaces... (I have a CD to listen to... I try to avoid scratching the few records I actually own by displaying them. Plus, I don't own a record player anymore. That thought just made me really sad, actually....)

Onto Amanda Fucking Palmer.

I wish I had time to speak as eloquently as you have just done about what your influence has recently done for me lately. I will try one day or perhaps I'll try to draw it for you.... I also work in music (though on the design, styling, photography, stage show production and videography end) and I have felt a similar "ant hill" tendancy... I help make shows happen so I know what you go through. Caught up in small points about make-up and hairstyles, I rarely enjoy the final outcome unless I am performing too.

And I am an artist so I see art all day... art online, art offline, art everywhere... art blurs. but you have been speaking out for artists, your recent controversial blog posts reminded me never to sell myself short and I fucking love you for that. I wish I had more of your unwavering confidence ... I wish more people called me Catalyst Fucking Echo (some do... but I've been laying down on the job of being me lately. I want you to know that you are a big part of my motivation to stand the fuck back up).

Your online prescence speaks to me directly, reminds me about what I thought the internet should be like when I first began designing for it and posting my own stuff.

I always loved the Dresden Dolls. As an LA, CA transplant from the East Coast (New York, Northampton, MA, Jersey... various places), I felt like I had a special line in and a responsibility to play your music here... of course they already knew. The LA scene is pretty savvy, hip to the Dolls, hip to Amanda Fucking Palmer. You have some lovely fans out here, but I am sure you already know that.

And I knew you had a solo career but it is only recently that I've been able to get out of my general malaise about new music to check it out. You are a big part of getting me out of that malaise.

And it only seems fair that I tell you, especially because this very post has helped even more.

I hope you'll be in LA to play live soon. I'll be watching for dates.

Sarah · 2 weeks ago

That was really sómething..

joooo1 · 2 weeks ago

O h the joy, and the tears.
x

Kite · 2 weeks ago

You made me fucking cry. Really. Those things you say about, it's smth so close and so familiar, and your words are so true - I couldn't express better my own thoughts and my own feelings.
Thanks for being who you are. And you know, I felt the same strange extasy on your show in Moscow - being absolutely sober =)
You are amazing and I love you from the bottom of my heart.

Sara · 2 weeks ago

Amanda,

Thanks for the hug. That Coachella changed me too.

Here's the picture from the MBV set:
http://hphotos-snc1.fbcdn.net/hs035.snc1/3274_7...

Knowing where you're coming from,
Sara

andy · 1 week ago

Amanda,
Thank you for writing this. I had forgotten how AMAZING a Cure concert is. I get the same feeling at a Dresden Dolls show, and especially the shows you did in Seattle with Estradesphere a few years ago. I agree Disintegration is the best album , but think The Kiss is one of the Best Songs. I envy you the time in Cochella. again, thanks for the words

monabliss · 1 week ago

That was the best fan letter ever. I'm a little older than you and thus the band and artist that was all mine, that connected me to a world outside the one I was growing up in was Elvis Costello and The Attractions. I just saw Elvis this summer at The Greek supporting his album Secret, Profane and Sugarcane.

Thanks for reminding me how much I loved and still love The Cure.

Marlee · 1 week ago

Dear Amanda,
It took me so long to get around to actually reading this because, frankly, I abandoned you. I became a member of the bad fan club. When I was 14 I started listening to the Dresden Dolls and your music just clicked with something inside me, This time last year I was posting on the shadowbox multiple times a day and checking this site every day hoping for a new blog post. When you started your twitter addiction I opened my own account just so I could follow you. I googled and wikipediad (is that a word???). You were such a huge part of my life for the past 5 year. I wanted to know everything AFP. I wanted to be your biggest fan. And then life happened. I'm not sure exactly what happened or wht but I stopped my frequent shadowbox visits, I would check into your blog once a month and skim the entries I had missed, not really reading, mostly just looking at pictures. When I heard you were playing a show in Northampton I decided I might as well get a ticket. It's a short drive from my school and we don't always get the best music in my area so why not? Being at the show last night brought me back. I remembered why I fell in love with you in the first place. Though my journey with you has not been as long as your journey with the cure (I'm only 20) this letter you wrote could just have easily been written from me to you. All the things you said about trying to write songs, and dancing at concerts, and yes even the whole goth thing are so close to me and so true to me. And last night I danced and sang and screamed like no one else was watching. When I got back in the car at the end of the night for my 2 hour long drive home I blasted WKAP and No, Virginia and the dresden dolls self titled like my life depended on it, and in a way it did. I played truce and boston back to back and belted them out alone, the only car on the highway at 1:30 am and in my loneliness I felt like I was a part of something. I remembered what it was like being 14 (I also grew up in a suburb of boston, it really can be soul crushing) and how even though alot has changed I haven't really changes. I am not that different from that 14 year old I used to be. I still need you. So thankyou for bringing me back to you.

Love,
Marlee

June_Miller · 1 week ago

Okay.

Shit.

Sorry.

It took me a long time to reply to this, but I honestly actually read it all the night it was posted. And I've been rereading it since then (along with the other newbies, of course); I just haven't had A: My own computer or B: Any privacy with a loaned computer. Now I at least have the latter.

...

This letter captures how I feel on so many unbelievable levels. As a fan, as an artist, as an artist who wants to make that their living for life (4 lyfe), as a fucking person. Every fucking thing, Amanda Palmer.

And that is EXACTLY why this letter isn't plain ol' narcissism: You put it up so we all can relate to it on any or all of those levels. You put it up to make us feel that it IS worth a damn, at the end of the day, to keep striving for what you want to truly be. So fuck the haters.

This letter brings me hope. Thank you. I've been needing more of it lately.

Amanda. I want to email you. I want to cry about my job and how much it makes me feel like less of a person, let alone a woman, a lot of the time. I want to cry about how I strive to have a living closer to yours, filled with different stresses and joys. I want you to tell me it's GOING TO BE FUCKING OKAY!

You are really, really busy, though. And that's cool.

And I have to keep working to get to that place. It's up to me to make the heaven of hell. And that's why I don't get to keep up with the fast-paced world of AFP. And I'm sure you know, that doesn't mean I don't want to. When you say you enjoy the idea of your fans still trying to keep up with you throughout the years, you know they do. You're right: We're all getting older and getting jobs and making our own livings but the really hardcore fans (re: bad-asses) are going to keep track however they can. It's hard not too, these days.

Ah, the pre-internet.

How interesting it must be to think of all the fans you encounter round the globe--and what the possibility of them being like you in this letter, a fan wanting to engage in one of their heroes, playing at the same gigs as them, someday making a name of their own--must be for you. Fingers crossed for the future.

...

And amen about that Feeling.

It's amazing every time.

Whenever a band does cause me to feel it (it does tend to fade, unfortunately), it's awesome.

It's what makes some people say 'YES. I WANT TO MAKE OTHER PEOPLE FEEL THIS. I CAN DO THIS TOO.'

...

Well played with the pack of Sherman's.

(Good call on not bringing up Moz at any point.)

I'm also sorry I didn't post this on Halloween as a way of saying 'Happy Halloween.' I suck, sorry. I wasn't even able to cut my hair on All Soul's Day. I was Nick Cave for Halloween.

Carry on, Ms. Palmer. And thank you.

edit: P.S. I feel kind of dirty mentioning this, but you were a really hot goth girl back at like, 15. And I mean, it's not like you're not still. But you know. Yes. I'm ending this comment.

Frank · 1 week ago

This world needs more Amanda Palmer. I love you more each day.

pmm · 1 week ago

I finally read this. Thank you for sharing. I completely relate to nearly every statement you made here even though I'm not a musician (a little singing and violin playing in the past does not a musician/artist make). The first time I heard your music, I think it brought me back those ecstatic feelings of first hearing The Cure, as well. I'm feeling guilty for taking my old shrines down, which my parents had left up, but at least it's in a scrapbook. I, too, hope to be a better fan...I'll try.

I've also been wondering if you were the person who played The Smiths at Toscanini's in Harvard Square in the late 90's. I loved getting chai there and I loved the music choices, but I was always too shy to befriend the person behind the counter. It's nice to know that you are less shy in your 30's and since I'm in my 30's, maybe there is hope for me, too.

faerygirl23 · 1 week ago

Oh Amanda,

This letter moved me, in more`ways than i can express, because I'm not a writer like you. Before you suggested to put on my fav Cure album, I had already qued up Disintegration on my pc. I knew what I was in for. I've been waiting to read this ever since you first mentioned it months ago, then with life being all crazy lately, I forgot, so it was a nice surprise tonight. Like you I had the cure plastered all over my walls through junior high and high school. I had my own click of friends which we referred to ourselves as "the Cure babies". I was a west coast goth, attended all the goth clubs in LA. The scene was interesting, a lot how you described it. It felt like the only place i could be myself, accepted. I was a very shy, a quiet goth. I felt like i found myself in the music(especially the Cure). I had the same reaction to Plainsong live. I was only 10 rows from Robert. I was 16 and uterly in love with him too, and fantasized about meeting him, but way to shy to fathom it! That was a night I would love to go back to in a time machine. Unforgetable.
Like you, after Wish, I explored other music, industrial mostly. Although,I would come back to the Cure when I was feeling nostalgic. Then Bloodflowers came out and I reconnected. Then, last year, May, I think, I bought a 5th row ticket to see ol' Robert in San Jose. It was AMAZING. I cried and danced. I was so close to him, I could see his pupils, and those lips. They played 3 hours. Un fucking believable!
I felt 16 again. I was the only one dressed up, with my cat ears. I was surrounded by Silicon Valley conservatives, but i didn't care. I'm sure Robert noticed me;)

Also, I just want to express how grateful i am. Thank you so much for sharing this letter. It came at a very important time for me. My best friend died 9 weeks ago. She introduced the Dresden Dolls to me 7 years ago. we went to your shows together in SF. She loved you SO much. In many ways you and her are alike. Your love for music, art, and LIFE. I am grateful she introduced you to me. I will always have that. She was a Cure fan too, one of the oldest. She saw them in Orange, Paris. The one where Robert comes out on stage with a wig on and then took it off to reveal his new short haircut. She was actually there! I used to have her tell me about it over and over again. So reading your letter just reminded me of that. I thought you would love that;)

Amanda, I just want you to know that you are doing exactly what Robert does. You make your fans FEEL. I am so happy for you and your life!

Your devoted fan always,

tARA

velvetseas · 1 week ago

Amanda,

I second what someone already wrote...we'll never leave you. At least I know I won't. I saw you last night in Falls Church, and having only been a solid fan of yours for about a year (thank you random thing happening on twitter), your openness and willingness to connect to us, your fans, has quickly made you my current favorite musician. And last night, seeing you on stage, you became a moment.

I was there last night, alone, and stood off to the side. When you entered through the audience, you stopped next to me, sang a note, took a swig of beer, and continued on stage.

<img src="http://www.flickr.com/photos/liveontheearth/4119340991"></img>

As the night went on, I couldn't help but look around me at all the younger girls and wish that I had you in my life at that age. Sure, I had my bands, and they affected me deeply. But I've never seen myself so much in an artist until I found you. And last night, wishing I could live some years over again...thinking of all the times I half-assed things and other things I never finished...wondering how I got this old and still hadn't found myself...seeing you sweat and sing and rock... I realized that you are my band of the moment. Not "moment" as in another band will come in and take your place tomorrow, but "moment" as in this time that I'm on the brink of turning 30, as I'm wondering if I'm ever going to get married & have kids, wondering when the fuck I got old enough to get married and have kids... You are my soundtrack now, and the person I will think about forever when I think about being 29 and remembering who I was and what I was doing. You're the sound of my life as I have begun to finally strip the shit away and find "me".

I'm crying right now thinking about it. I'm still emotional over last night. You were amzing, and beautiful. And as I stood there in the crowd, alone, with your voice floating through my ears, I was crying and thanking you deep in my heart for being you....and for sharing you with me. With us.

Thank you for blogs like this. And for blogs about nothing. And for photos of you sleeping and eating. And posts about thing you like and want to share. And pics of you with your friends. And everything here, there and everywhere.

Much love and respect,
Allison

velvetseas · 1 week ago

I had to come back and add this.... I just made some hot tea, and the tag on my tea bag says "Oneness is achieved by recognizing your self."

Kimbo · 6 days ago

Hey
I got "Disintegration" a couple of weeks ago, under the influence of this letter. Like many of the commenters here, I was really moved by what you've said. I cried, actually.
I connect with music that same way.
And now I think of this blog every time I listen to The Cure. :-P
Thankyou so much for sharing this. :-)

H. · 4 days ago

Mademoiselle Amanda,

It took me a bloody long time to read your open letter. But it was worth it. I wanted to post my comment right after reading it but it took me another 3 weeks to do it.

It's all odd and bizarre...

You are the last artist I've discovered recently. How come?

I've met this latvian girl, Sarlote (for Charlotte), last year in Brussels at some Polish bloke's birthday party. We got on well together even if she was nearly half my age (call me old bast*rd). She told me that her dad names her Charlotte because of The Cure's 'Charlotte Sometimes', which is one of my favourite song from my favourite band ever. We stayed in touch via email for a few month. Sarlote was doing this audio-blog which consists to send to her pals a new mp3 everyday. Good idea, in'it? Amongst the 100's she sent me there was just a few that I kept and the one I liked the most was 'Another year', from you.
That song went into my Ipod along with a thousand Cure tracks.

I remember watching a video, on a French website, of you singing 'Inbetween days' before your gig at 'Le divan du Monde' in Paris. That was the first time I saw your face and thought : So, this is her! She looks cool but what a shitty cover!

I bought your CD only a couple of months ago. They had it at the FNAC store in Lille (north of France) along with those by the Dresden Dolls. I listened to all and choose yours as the DD stuff was not my cup of tea (or my glass of wine, for a French man as I am).

As every CD I bought I started listening to it a week after.
And I loved it. Then all of it + stuff I could find on the internet went into my Ipod. It was my favourite companion while hiking on the Basque Country coast this october.

End of Act 1...

I remember listening to The Cure on the radio in 1982-83. 'Let's go to bed', it was. The year after, in may '84,was my first ever concert. The Top tour, in Marseilles, where I lived ans still live. I was 13 year old. I remember seeing U2 later in october, the same year, at the same venue, for 'The unforgettable fire' tour.

I bought The Top album on a wednesday evening of 1984. My auntie took me to the local mall to do so. I saved enough money for it (about 12 USD in 1984! a lot for a teenager), but I knew my parents would yell at me if they discover it. So, I had to hide the vynil LP in the wardrobe and wait until they were not home. I remember running back home from school the next day around 11.30 am to play it on my dad's stereo. Yep, I still remember those things, nearly 25 years later...

I didn't really liked the record, especially 'Give me it'. But 'The Caterpillar' was my favourite. Because of that out-of-tune piano intro which was at the opposite of what I learnt at the classical music school by that time.
It's started from here...

I'm not gonna describe all the memories I have from this time til now about The Cure. I can write a book about it. But still here's a few important details of my Cure life.

In 1985, The Cure went really big in France. They were a lot of people dressed up like Robert Smith with the same hair cut. 'Les Corbeaux' (the Crows). I was one of them. Exactly, I was what the French called : a Curiste (visitor at a spa in English). A Curiste is not a Goth, a Batcave, a New wave guy, he just loves The Cure!
My bedroom was full of posters. Not enough space on the walls? Nevermind, up the ceiling! My bedroom is now my mum's office as a therapist! I was trading live bootleg cassettes and sold them to buy new Cure records. It was like a home company. I made a lot of money out of that business, but all of it was put back into my Cure collection. I can tell in the 90's I had probably the biggest Cure records collection in Europe.
I was also busking with my guitar on the streets of Aix-en-Provence, playing mainly Cure songs. Easy to make money, easy to pick up girls. And because I wrote all the chords sheets and tabs, I sold them to buy another guitar. Hey, a fender Jazzmaster like the one he used on Three imaginary boys!

On november 11th 1986, I met Robert Smith and his girlfriend Mary Poole for the first time in my life. It was the last day of the recording of the 'Kiss me kiss me kiss me' album in Miraval, south of France. Robert was driving his 4 wheels Lada car and was wearing glasses, real spectacles.

I met him again in 1989 in Spain in San Sebastian. It was after the show and was signing autographs. I had no paper but my high school diploma notification on me. It was my turn. I said, instead of my name, 'for Number 6 from the Village'. He looked at me, puzzled, and wrote my words from the TV serie 'The Prisoner'. I never ever wanted an autograph of any members of any bands I like.

I was helping on a few French Cure fanzine from 1989 til 1992. And during the Wish tour in '92, Robert offered me to interview him, backstage at Le Zenith, in Paris. That was my first backstage pass and aftershow party. We talked about music of course but also football and other stuff. He invited me for the rest of the tour. I was travelling with my mate, Cho, we had no money but enough to pay for the car's petrol. We travelled all over France, Belgium, Germany, England on national roads (motorways have tolls in France), were eating and drinking for free at the aftershows and slept in the car.

Robert also invited me at the 1993 XFM festival in Finsbury park, London. My mates from Carter USM were opening for The Cure, it was surreal. And so, I was on the road, following the band in 95, 96, 97, and so on until now. Except the fact that I don't sleep in the car anymore! I travel by plane (thanks to the lowcost companies) and do Couchsurfing instead. My hosts love me as I always have a VIP ticket for them to come along with me to the gig.

Surprisingly, I have no pictures of me and Robert. Don't really need that. But I have good memories : The after show party at the end of the 1996 tour in Birmingham, many soundchecks around Europe where the band ask you what you wanna hear, Robert covering Bowie's 'Quicksand' at the Gmex soundcheck in Manchester, UK, being backstage at Benicassim Festival in Spain where Radiohead's guitarist is like a fan amongst others, watching The Cure on very private 200 only people gig and having Billy Corgan as my neighbourg, etc...

But hang on a sec! How can I travel like this and have so much time off?
Easy, I work in the music area! Not pop or rock or anything. I do sound design for theatre and dance shows. And how come? Because of The Cure. I write and play music as a pleasure but don't get any money out of it, my income's coming mainly from theatre plays.
Still, wanna throw an ear to my actual stuff: www.myspace.com/noneforthefirsttime
There's a Cure cover, how couldn't it? But you're already know that, Amanda, cos your one of my friends at myspace:-)

I made a record that I gave to Robert in Berlin last year. Telling him thank you for all those years and for, despite him, helping me finding my way.

End of Act 2...

Voilà, Mademoiselle Palmer, I could have written more and more, but I'm starting to get bored. I've always been a Cure fan and will always be. I sometimes wake up in the morning and tell myself : Hum, I'm in a Seventeen seconds mood today! I also dream of The Cure! They're part of me, and I know that I'm not the only one. I'm a Fan but I don't consider myself as a groupie. I've never stop talking to someone at Cure aftershow while suddenly a member of the band turned on. I probably saw more than 150 Cure gigs. And it's always a good excuse to be back on the road and visit my mates all over Europe when The Cure do a tour.

And when you asked your blog followers to play 'Disintegration' while reading your open letter, I played your record. Because my experience with The Cure is different then yours and not sharable. It's like I suddendly realise I never have a girlfriend who was really into The Cure, and I like it better (wrong, once on a theatre tour, I ended up at a woman's place and slept in her bed with a huge poster of Disintegration above me - but one night stand, that doesn't count). Or, I never play a Cure song at a friend's party. It's too much private... I just keep that for me, well may be not tonight.

I must bugger off now, nice to have spend some time with you. And may be next, it would be me, who'll write an open letter... to Amanda Palmer.

All the best and bonsoir.

Hxx

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