In her song The Perfect Fit, Amanda Palmer sings, I could fix a lot of things / but I'd rather not get into that.
The song, which originally appeared on her band The Dresden Dolls' first album, was one of a handful that Palmer sang solo to a packed venue of Berklee students, kicking off a raw and honest conversation about coping with issues of mental health while pursuing a career as an artist. So it wasn't hard to sense some slyness in that line's delivery, since getting into that was the very reason she had come to campus.
As an artist who always has her audience in mind, Palmer said she took to social media on the way to Boston: I went on Twitter and said, I'm talking about mental health-what do I play? So, this is a crowd-sourced playlist.' She then sat down at a grand piano and kicked into The Perfect Fit, followed by the dizzying Runs in the Family, from her solo record Who Killed Amanda Palmer, a song she says she had mostly forgotten about but was the most requested by her fans when she put out the call. When the song finished she gulped down a miniature bottle of water, then sat down to take questions from the audience and from Leah Driscoll, director of Health and Wellness Programs and coproducer of the events sponsor, the Reach Out Initiative.
After the talk, she closed with a voice-and-ukulele rendition of In My Mind, ending with a resounding delivery of the line, I am exactly the person that I want to be.
The following is an edited collection of the advice and reflections she shared with the audience.
On the Importance of Habitual Self-Care For Palmer, discovering yoga in her twenties was critical to finding the space for self-care. It allows you the chance to step outside yourself for a moment, she said, adding that it was tough at first to make it a habit. Her solution? Just go. Always. No matter what you have to do, unless it is an emergency, go to yoga instead. If you don't go because you have other sh-t to do, you're never going to go.
It took me 28 years to even have the thought that in this moment I had the option of just taking care of myself. Without why,' without I'm going to beat myself up about last night,' without anything. I credit my yoga and meditation practice for all these small moments, like, this where I had the chance to confront myself and my patterns of thinking.
If there's no space, there's not going to be any reflection. And if there's no reflection, there's not going to be any growth.
-Amanda Palmer
On Balancing Vulnerability and Self-Protection Much of Palmers music is predicated on intense personal vulnerability. While this may make some artists nervous, Palmer thrives on it. I protect myself by opening myself up. I protect myself by baring my neck. People don't expect you to be open and vulnerable and up-front about things.
But how does she go about preparing herself to go there so many nights in a row? I think it's a lot of little, subtle micro-decisions that when you're on tour, you just know, and you start shutting down certain systems. I'm sure athletes do it too by cranking up what's necessary and cranking down what's not.
On Knowing When to Put Your Phone Away There's nothing less inspiring than being about to go on to a stage and play music and to look over and see your collaborator doing this [she mimes texting on a phone] when you're about to go connect with a bunch of people, because this [phone] is totally disconnected.
One of the things I worry about in general with our mental health these days-and I'm just as bad as anyone-there's so little space because we all have phones. And especially if you're an artist or a musician who's constantly hustling for a gig, there's this addictive pull that you could always be more productive.
So, for Palmer, it all comes down knowing when to pause everything else and create some space. If there's no space, there's not going to be any reflection. And if there's no reflection, there's not going to be any growth.
Related categories:
News
Related Reading
Young Bluegrass Virtuosos Berklee Today
Fall
2018
Volume
30
Number
2
Night School at Wally's Berklee Today
Fall
2018
Volume
30
Number
2
Bollywood Star Shreya Ghoshal Reflects on Residency at Hogwarts of Music Shreya Ghoshal describes her six-day residency at Berklee as a magical experience, and the students she worked with agree.
More from Berklee Now
Most Popular
Six Berklee Alumni Recognized at Latin Grammy Awards Six Berklee alumni took home Latin Grammy Awards across three categories at the November 15 ceremony.
Latest
Amanda Palmer Says Youre Exactly the Person You Want to Be The singer stopped by Berklee for a candid and empowering discussion on mental health.
Mediterranean Music Unites Artists Across Cultures in Madrid Concert In celebration of Spains multicultural heritage, a small group of musicians from around the world, led by Javier Lim n, took the stage at Madrid's National Auditorium, blending sounds from across the Mediterranean and beyond.
Tom Oren Wins 2018 Thelonious Monk Jazz Piano Competition Berklee student Tom Oren is the winner of this year's Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition.
Read All
Subscribe The latest sounds, stories, and ideas, sent to your inbox weekly.
Berklee Blogs
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Instagram
Snapchat
Soundcloud
Spotify
Most recent headlines
23/12/2025
How guilas Cibae as Dominican Winter League Games Are Locally Produced for Glob...
23/12/2025
BitFire's Jim Akimchuk on Supplying Scalability and Customization in the Clo...
23/12/2025
CAMB.AI Enables European Athletics to Offer Multi-Language SupportPlan is to eventually offer translation into all languages spoken in EuropeBy Ken Kerschbaumer...
23/12/2025
Analysis: As sports media values trend negative, scarcity and quality are king By Callum McCarthy, Editor-at-Large
Monday, December 22, 2025 - 14:08
Print ...
23/12/2025
ESPN, Disney, and NBA Return to the Animated Altcast Fray With Second Edition of...
23/12/2025
End the Year on a High Note and Donate to the Sports Broadcasting Fund Today! By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Tuesday, December 23, 2025 - 12:25 pm
...
23/12/2025
The year is winding down, the weather outside is frightful, and it's the perfect time to escape into a story that warms the heart. For listeners looking for...
23/12/2025
A Zeus motor is hot fire tested at L3Harris' Camden, Arkansas, solid rocket ...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Lightware will exhibit several major product innovations at ISE 2026, including the new USB-C BOOSTER-V1, Google Meet. integration for various Taurus UCX models...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Taking the Stage at Carnegie Hall-On a Global Scale Boston Conservatory Orchestra students reflect on their epic concert marking the 80th session of the UN Gene...
23/12/2025
Back to All News
How Steamy Can It Get? Single's Inferno' Season 5 Pre...
23/12/2025
Back to All News
33 Million Global Viewers on Netflix Watched Jake Paul vs. Ant...
23/12/2025
New technique lights up where drugs go in the body, cell by cell Scripps Research scientists developed a technique that maps drug binding in individual cells th...
22/12/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Presidio's Neerav Shah on the Role of Its Captiva...
22/12/2025
Hitting the bullseye: Sky Sports readies itself for the biggest PDC World Darts ...
22/12/2025
Unique skillset: Bringing new directors to the world of darts at The Worlds with...
22/12/2025
Gravity Media prepares for a flight of fancy with the PDC World Darts Championsh...
22/12/2025
One hundred and eighty: Gravity Media on hitting the production bullseye at the ...
22/12/2025
The Famous Group's Jon Slusser on Fascinating Fans Through Immersive Content...
22/12/2025
ESPN's Meg Aronowitz on Continuing High-Quality Broadcasts of Collegiate Spo...
22/12/2025
ESPN Takes Data-Driven Storytelling to New Heights with MNF Playbook with Next ...
22/12/2025
For a decade, popular German podcast Fest & Flauschig has hosted an annual Chris...
22/12/2025
Paramount Scores Largest Share Increase Among Distributors as Paramount and CBS...
22/12/2025
New multi-year deal integrates Roku's data to fuel Nielsen's measurement suite
Roku gains access to Nielsen's streaming ratings, showing The Roku C...
22/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
22/12/2025
Berklee Wrapped 2025: Our Top News and Stories A look back at a year highlighted by faculty milestones, major film and television projects, Bob Dylan's ho...
22/12/2025
The works of Plato state that when humans have an experience, some level of change occurs in their brain, which is powered by memory - specifically long-term me...
22/12/2025
Partnership integrates complementary satellite data and AI analytics to enhance security, infrastructure, and environmental monitoring solutions for global cust...
22/12/2025
Workflows allow you to create a sequence of planned events which may be added to your template(s) or inserted directly into your sequential or background playli...
22/12/2025
Monday 22 December 2025
Sky extends PGA TOUR partnership until 2029, as Sky Spo...
22/12/2025
Back to All News
Global Anime Hits and New Releases Take Center Stage at Jump Festa 2026
Entertainment
22 December 2025
GlobalJapan
Link copied to clipboar...
22/12/2025
Siobh n McSweeney, Rory McIlroy, Elon Musk, Catherine Connolly, Jim Gavin, Ivan Yates and Traitor Paudie Moloney lead new characters for Callan Kicks the Year 2...
22/12/2025
Winner announced in the picturesque surroundings of Wicklow's Avondale Tower and Treetop Walk
Andrew Trimble wins the show in his first series as coach
Th...
22/12/2025
The 2025 winners have been announced today, Sunday 21 December, for Ireland's largest choral competition Choirs for Christmas hosted by RT lyric fm.
Ove...
21/12/2025
Back to All News
Legoshi and Haru's Story Reaches Its Finale: BEASTARS Fin...
21/12/2025
John Shortt named Young Sportsperson of the Year Kerry are the Team of the Year
...
20/12/2025
Atomos announced the immediate availability of a new firmware update for its Ninja TX GO and Ninja TX monitor-recorders, unlocking ProRes RAW recording from the...
20/12/2025
CJP Broadcast has completed the digitisation of the European Gymnastics tape archive, converting 328 tapes containing more than forty years of recorded material...
20/12/2025
Bitmovin, the leading provider of video streaming solutions, today announced the launch of the Stream Lab MCP Server, to give AI agents and large language model...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
In her song The Perfect Fit, Amanda Palmer sings, I could fix a lot of things / but I'd rather not get into that. 
