You Can Hear What's on My Lips, But You Don't Know What's in My Mind

This past week, we had some pretty significant snowfall, enough that I was allowed to work from home that day. Beth still had to go to her office, though. While I see plenty of snow, this is the first time in a while that I noticed it really sticking around for a while. It's been very cold this week, so I'm trying not to go out any more than I have to.

One time I did go out was on Tuesday, when Beth and I went to see Nellie McKay at the Laurie Beechman Theatre on 42nd Street in Manhattan. This was a small venue with tables and chairs, pretty nice and not cramped like some other places with tables. Nellie played every song from Get Away from Me in order, accompanied by piano and videos that sometimes had technical issues. Some of them were directly related to the songs, but other times I'm not sure what she was going for. The one for "Ding Dong" had a cat walking around; "Clonie" used a montage of Godzilla, which kind of makes sense in a bizarre way; and "It's a Pose" had clips of "The Aristocats" which did fit the rhythm pretty well.

Footage of salads accompanied "Sari," and she even said at the end, "Let's go get some salad!"

She forgot the words a few times, but was usually able to recover very quickly. And some of those songs really are quite lyrically dense. I believe she was trying to work the names of the tech people into "It's a Pose," and that tripped her up a bit. The Mitchie in that song is her A&R guy, but I don't know who Nathan is. My name isn't in all that many songs, aside from the one from Guys & Dolls and Allan Sherman's "Sarah Jackman." There were also a few covers in the set, opening with the Doors' "People Are Strange," then after the album songs playing "The Best Things in Life Are Free," "Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag" (with the lyrics changed to be about Iran, as they were last time I saw her), and something else I can't remember right now, all accompanied by ukulele.

I got a picture with Nellie after the show, and she said she liked Beth's scarf, although she didn't seem to understand that it was merchandise for the band Franz Ferdinand. Beth did enjoy the show and remembered a few of the songs from when I used to play them years ago, so that's good.