If you have never heard of the Dresden Dolls, you are seriously
deprived and living under a boulder the size of, well, Dresden!
But for you unlucky souls, let me introduce my two favorite people…
Amanda Palmer and Brian Viglione.
The Dresden Dolls play what they call “brechtian punk cabaret”, and what I call “the most awesomely different and disturbing music ever created”. While Amanda plays the piano and does vocals, Brian plays the drums and creates such a mood with his playing and expressions that you can’t help but laugh. Together they make the most creative music ever heard by human ears, and maybe by alien ones too!
Amanda, the girl with the sweetest smile and sexiest snarl, won my heart forever at a concert at Liberty Hall in Lawrence, Kansas. She was well on her way into that pumping bloody mess well before the concert, but seeing them live was about all I could take. After the show, they were signing autographs, and I was so enthralled with being close to her that I couldn’t say a word, just numbly hand over my cd to be signed. The way she looked at me I think she thought I was completely crazy, or completely stupid. Either way, she was half right, because I felt both afterwards!
I first became interested in the Dresden Dolls when I heard their song “Coin Operated Boy” on our local alternative station 96.5 The Buzz, here in Kansas City. I hadn’t bought a new CD in years because I didn’t feel right buying one when I didn’t know if I’d like the whole thing or not. To buy a Cd for only a song or two when there’s 4 small mouths to feed would be a waste of money to me. But when I heard Coin Operated Boy, I had to have the album. Now, that song is one of the ones I like, but far from my favorite. It’s just a taste of what they can do…the CD was awesome, and I can’t say I have a favorite song on it, it’s all so good.
This is the pic used on the album cover.
There isn’t a song on the CD that I can’t identify with (well ok maybe one or two but they’re still great). The songs are:
Good Song: this one reminds me of thwen I left my son's dad...and he tried to come back
Girl Anachronism: what girl has never felt like this before?
Missed Me: I dated a 21 year old when I was 14...nough said
Half Jack: i'm bi, and i have a lot of bi/gay/trans friends, so this song went over well lol
672: still trying to decipher the words she’s mumbling during this one…don’t know what it’s about but it’s sure pretty….
Coin Operated Boy: that's my kinda guy
Gravity: one of my faves…the world really is kinda topsy-turvy at times…
Bad Habit: one that I can’t relate to personally, but still a great song
Perfect Fit: again, what girl never felt like this?
The Jeep Song: everyone’s fave, reminds me of something but can’t place it….
Slide: another one I can’t relate to, but an excellent example of how music can be art
Truce: another that reminds me of breaking up with son’s dad….a great song
At the live show, I bought the live album as well (it’s the one I had signed). It has some awesome songs on it as well, but my faves are The Time Has Come, Mrs. O, Christopher Lydon, and most of all Bank of Boston Beauty Queen. The entire list is below:
Missed Me
Coin Operated Boy
The Time Has Come
Mrs. O.
Christopher Lydon
Glass Slipper
Thirty Wacks
Bank of Boston Beauty Queen
Will
Truce
The name of the album by the way is “A is for Accident”. Also a must buy if you love the Dolls like I do!
For lyrics to the songs on either album, you can go to their website at www.dresdendolls.com. But I thought I’d list here the lyrics for my favorite songs.
Gravity
Gravity plays favorites I know because I saw
Honest to god officer it's awful
Down at work I'm getting to familiar with the floor
Trading in my talents by the mouthful
Hate to break it to you but it's out of my control
Forces go to work while we are sleeping
If I could attack with a more sensible approach
Obviously that's what I'd be doing, right?
Now, necks are cracking sideways
Hit me from the backside
I am on the white side
You are on the black side
Cut a piece that's bite size
Shoot me from my bad side
If you want a straight line
This would be a good time
Gravity works slowly if we notice it at all
Some of us are getting mighty lucky
aren't we
If you had to live with this you'd rather lie than fall
You think I can't fly?
Well you just watch me, watch me
Now, necks are cracking sideways
Hit me from the backside
I am on the thin side
You are on the fat side
Cut a piece that's bite size
Shoot me from the inside
If you want a straight line
This would be a good time
The sky is always falling down on me
the sky is always falling, falling
Oh the sky is always falling down on me
So officer, forgive me please!
Bank of Boston Beauty Queen
I've tried dolls that were guaranteed sixteen and under
None were very exciting
Sorta like a laugh track
Or wacking off, it gets you off
But it's just not the real thing
Well it's been a decade
Since my pit days
But I haven't shaken it
I sit there like an idiot
Still wrapped up in the old punk protocol
And dreaming that the teenagers
Will think that I'm a radical
And I still wait for the bus to come
Where the high school got torn down
Still expecting to find true love
Among the skateboarders hanging out
In the back of the bank in my home town
And all this talk and no actions
Got me stiff from the tit to the bone
Oh, so I'm living in la la land
But at least I'm not living at home
Same old cat calls, the same old chemicals
same old thrills, stealing stockings from the shopping mall
It's easy enough to grow the fuck up
Happy with the rough cut
Nobody's really looking for a diamond in the rough
But I still wait for my mom to come
And pick me up at HOlly's house
Ten years after they cashed it in
To make a mulit million parking lot
For a 7-11 and Burger King
And I've got pictagraphs, I've got all the phones tapped
It's just proof enough it was indisputable
Love's not good enough
I want pies and graphs
Something that will teach me my arithmatic at last
Better get your kids
I'm on the loose again
And getting more ridiculous
The more I think I ought to get my mind out of the gutter
It's getting dangerous Amanda you are old enough to be the boy he's
My own private highway from the cradle to the grave
I save a bundle skipping middle age
And Saturdays
And I still wait for the cops to come
From the station since burned down
Still expecting they'll pick me up
For all the sins I committed
In the back of a banged up pick up truck
And I've got autographs, backstage passes and
Leather jacket back patches out the
Ask me anything I've got evidence
Single serving sacrine packets
Dripping black with lipstick kisses
And I still wait for the bus to come
Where the high school got torn down
Still expecting to find true love
Among the skateboarders hanging out
In the back of the bank in my
Oh I'm no pedegrast, it's just out of interest
Thank you but I'm capable of getting up and getting dressed
Love's not good enough
I want photographs
Something that will teach me
Time and time and time again
I think I'll dye my hair again
Oh God I'm thirty, no I'm ten
I'm seventeen
And the bank of boston beauty queen
Coin Operated Boy
Coin Operated boy
Sitting on the shelf
He is just a toy
But I turn him on
And he comes to life
Automatic joy
That is why I want
A coin operated boy
Made of plastic
And elastic
He is rugged
And long lasting
Who could ever ever ask for more
Love without complications galore
Many shapes and weights to choose from
I will never leave my bedroom
I will never cry at night again
Wrap my arms around him and pretend
Coin operated boy
All the other real
Ones that I destroyed
Cannot hold a candle
To my new boy and I'll
Never let him go
And I'll never be alone
And I'll never let him go
And I'll never be alone
Not with my coin operated boy
This bridge was written
To make you feel smittener
With my sad picture
Of girl getting bitterer
Can you extract me from my plastic fantasy
I didn't think so but I'm still convinceable
Will you persist even after I bet you
I billion dollars that I'll never love you
And will you persist even after I kiss you
Goodbye for the last time
Will you keep on trying
To prove it I'm dying
To prove it I'm losing
My confidence
I want it
I want a
.......
Coin operated boy
If I had a star to wish on
For my life I can't imagine
Any flesh and blood could be his match
I can even take him in the bath
(alternate line...I can even fuck him in the ass
Coin operated boy
He may not be real
Experienced with girls
But I know he feels
Like a boy should feel
Isn't that the point
That is why I want a
Coin operated boy
With a pretty coin
Operated voice
Saying that he loves me
That he's thinking of me
Straight and to the point
That is why I want
a coin operated boy
The Time Has Come
The time has come to speak of many things
Of jacks and queens and kings
I bared my wrists and promised to begin
But you cut the blade straight in
The time has come: let's play find the missing song
There is something very wrong
Try hard my love do you hear the distant strings
Please remember what this means
Did I come back for all of this?
It seems absurd somehow
With one well placed flick of the wrist
You've really done it now
All of my blind ambition
Left me deaf with perfect vision
The time has come
For things to come undone
That we should not have begun
At last I felt a numbness overcome
And now you turn and run
You have the choice now so decide
If you want in or out
There is too much left for us to try
You can't just give up now
The time has come
To speak of many things
Of jacks and queens and kings
It took that cut to bring me back to life
they're bleeding and they're frightened but I hold out both my hands
No one in the world will ever touch me there again
Mrs. O
oh, mrs. o
will you tell us where the naughty children go
will you show
how the sky turned white and everybody froze
heaven knows how they got into the fireplace
but everybody's saying grace
and trying to keep a happy face
and oh mrs. o
can you teach us how to keep from getting cold
out we go and you watch us as we face the falling snow
what a show with our hairdryers aimed heavenwards
and fifty foot extension cords
you really have a way with words
the truth can't save you now
the sky is falling down
watch the vultures count the hours
april rains may bring strange showers
and oh mrs. o
will you tell about the time they made you go
all alone to the palace where they took your only clothes
we all know
there's no hell and no hiroshima
chernobyl was a cover up
the world is really all in love
oh mrs o
will you leave us hanging now that we are grown
up and old
will you kill me if i say i told you so
we all know
ther'es no hitler and no holocaust
no winter and no santa claus
and yes virginia all because
the truth can't save you now
the sky is falling down
eveything they ever told us
shakes our faith and breaks their promise
but you can stop the truth from leaking
if you never stop believing......
Well, that’s all for the Dresden Dolls page for now…I promise to get more creative and add more later, but I’m trying to just get the site up at the moment…more to come….
And don’t forget to check out the Dresden Dolls page at www.dresdendolls.com!
