Amanda Palmer's 'Leeds United'

Amanda Palmer is one half of The Dresden Dolls. "Leeds United" is off her solo album, Who Killed Amanda Palmer?. The track isn't directly about Leeds but the pounding on the keys, the blaring horns, the voice hoarse from shouting/screaming/singing taps into the riot of football crowds. She explains that the whole idea of turning out to support your team & getting into brawls with each other struck her as "Roman" and a good subject for her. I think this song is also picking at the interface of unruly feelings and the desire for control with lines like

Who needs love, when there's Law and Order?
And who needs love when there's Southern Comfort?
And who needs love when the sandwiches are wicked
And they know you at the Mac store?

Indeed. It gets more intense as the song expands into mayhem. [Football fandom is folded into these retreats from love & then the flip into chaos.] The vocal was, apparently, done in a single take - all the better to sound "unhinged". "My voice was completely in the gutter," she explains. And what a great place that is. Enjoy.



[I should say, this is a preview for my review of The Damned UTD (2009) - I saw it the other week under the promise I'd wait until its official release to publish my thoughts.]