Fantasy fiction superstar Neil Gaiman and Dresden Dolls’ Amanda Palmer got engaged a few months ago. It’s the geek version of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

But a few years before Neil popped the question (right here in Boston, no less), he wrote these words:

I Google you
late at night when I don’t know what to do
I find photos
you’ve forgotten
you were in
put up by your friends
I Google you
when the day is done and everything is through
I read your journal
that you kept
that month in France
I’ve watched you dance
And I’m pleased your name is practically unique
it’s only you and
a would-be PhD in Chesapeake
who writes papers on
the structure of the sun
I’ve read each one

— read the rest of the lyrics here

Amanda Palmer set it to song. It is the song for our times. Here are the two of them, with Palmer singing:

This is a seriously catchy song. I heard it once on the radio (thanks again, WERS!) and *had* to know what it was. As I described last week, the discovery loop is shortened immensely– you can go from hearing a snippet somewhere to finding out the name to listening on YouTube to downloading it within minutes.

So- the song is called Mad Tom of Bedlam, and it’s based on a 17th century song. The lyrics are pretty much unchanged, but the tune is something Billie Holiday would have knocked out of the park 70 years ago. It’s by Jolie Holland.

These words have been spinning in my head for weeks now:

It’s well that we sing bonney boys
Bonney mad boys
Bedlam boys are bonney
For they all go bare, and they live in the air
And they want no drink nor money