The Ballad of the New York Times Amanda Palmer

[Spoken Intro]
It's a cousin of the song I wrote a year ago. Like a first cousin, so they can't have babies

[Verse 1]
They sell Canadian grade A maple syrup in New Zealand
It's expensive but I splurge
So I can put it on our pancake breakfast and
Sometimes I forget to put the lid on and the ants come
Into the kitchen of this AirB&B we've been renting for six months for a fortune and
Sometimes I take a magazine and I escort them two by two
In a little glossy lifeboat into the garden and
Sometimes I just create an ant holocaust and kill them all
With a paper towel
(Fuck the ants!)

[Pre-Chorus]
I don't understand which part of me is kind
I don't understand which part of me can be so goddamn unkind
I don't understand why I'm tired all the time
All I know is that last night I wanted to go to bed by five o'clock
And I took off my necklace
And I turned on the heater
And I couldn't stop shaking
So I put on a sweater

[Chorus]
And I read the New York Times
On an app in my phone next to my sleeping child
And the headlines hurt my mind
Five thousand dead, Cher got an elephant back into the wild
And the light on his face
And his curly-haired head
And I knew I should be reading a good book instead
I can't fit all of all humanity into this bed
With me