Amanda Palmer is an artist who never creates without a purpose greater than herself. In the music video for Death Thing, she takes her sense of community even further, expressing her gratitude to her Patreon supporters and turning art into an even more deeply shared experience.
The video features hundreds of personal objects sent in by her patrons, including wedding dresses and rings, letters, photographs, diplomas, toys and other remnants of past lives. In a collective ritual of release, Amanda and dancer Coco Karol cast them into the fire. This is not simply about burning memories. It is also about symbolically entrusting your demons to someone else so they can help you destroy them.
The result is a generous, cathartic and profoundly sisterly act in which two women walk through the flames together, accompanying thousands of people through their own farewells. Is there any other artistic gesture capable of moving so many people at once? It could only be Amanda.
The song gives the video the gravity it deserves. Taken from the 2019 album There Will Be No Intermission, “Death Thing” is a funeral piano ballad that blends confession, Brechtian cabaret and art rock, with echoes of Tori Amos and Nick Cave. It begins as an intimate conversation with grief, led by a tender, solemn piano that feels almost completely exposed. Percussion gradually enters, the tension builds, and private grief is transformed into a loud, almost religious ceremony, though one without any clear promise of salvation.
For many people, this will be a difficult song to hear. For others, it may begin to resonate with something deep inside them over time. It may even become a first step towards healing.
Amanda Palmer will also perform three solo piano shows this summer:
29 July, Anfiteatro del Venda, Padua, Italy
6 August, Slaktkyrkan, Stockholm, Sweden
8 August, Kampnagel Sommerfestival, Hamburg, Germany
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