[MUSIC - Luscious Jackson: Citysong]

Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart live from the WNYC studios. Thank you for sharing part of your day with us. Over the last decade, New Yorker, Nellie McKay has released albums covering songs from the great American songbook like The Best Things In Life Are for Free, and Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah, to classic rock tunes like Sunny Afternoon by the Kinks. All with her famous postmodern Tin Pan Alley style. Now on her latest album, for the first time in 13 years, McKay sings her own songs. The album is called, Hey Guys, Watch This. It features heartache along with humor. Joining me now in WNYC's Performance Studio to play some tunes is Nellie McKay. Nellie, welcome back.

Nellie McKay: Thank you so much for having me, Alison.

Alison Stewart: I'm so excited to see you, and I'm really excited to hear some songs from your new album. You're going to start us off with a performance.

Nellie McKay: Oh, I'd love to.

Alison Stewart: What are we going to hear?

Nellie McKay: Thank you. This is called Dreamliner.

[MUSIC - Nellie McKay: Dreamliner]

In the shade of a distant caravan

We all began to sway

In a glade with a sun-kissed garrison

We fell into this play

I never knew

I could love you the way I do

Every slip of the wave a symphony

A tropic dream come true

I never guessed

I could hold you above the rest

For to leave is complete catastrophe

Ah yes, I never guessed

Tag along

Three steps beyond the splendor

I was wrong

A foolish fond dementia

Our only care is to wander forever there

In the lush unbespoken luxury

The hush our only care

I never knew I could love you the way I do

In this paradise found a part of me

A tropic dream come true

Alison Stewart: So dreamy. I have my chin in my hand. Sing more to me, Nellie. [laughter] That's Nellie McKay, Dreamliner from the new album. Hey Guys, Watch This. I just love saying, "Hey Guys, Watch This." What a great name for an album. Where does it come from?

Nellie McKay: We recorded this album in West Virginia, and one of the fellows told me, "What are West Virginians' last words?" Hey Guys, Watch This.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: Oh, no. What brought you to West Virginia to record the album?

Nellie McKay: I've done Mountain Stage Radio Show down there a bunch of times. I got a leather jacket, and I think on your 15th time you get a motorcycle. [laughs] Wait for that. There's a group called The Carpenter Ants down there, and I'd always wanted to work with them. They had a great fellow named Charlie Tee, and I was always waiting for the right time to come up with enough songs to work with them. Then he died, and I really thought, "Ah, you got to move on. You've got to strike if you've got to do it."

Alison Stewart: The Carpenter Ants, I love on their Facebook page, they describe themselves as a chicken-fried gospel.

Nellie McKay: Oh, right. I guess they're down home. I like to take them for mock chicken, the kind that chickens like because you don't kill them. There's this great place called The Loopy Leaf in Charleston. It's one of the best vegetarian restaurants you will ever go to, and they've got beautiful art. They've got such a great vibe there, and they have better-for-you food and junkier food. [laughter] You just fall into a wonderful food coma. If you're ever in Charleston, check out The Loopy Leaf.

Alison Stewart: With the Carpenter Ants, why did you want to connect with them? What made you want to have them be on your album?

Nellie McKay: Oh, boy. They're a bar band, which is great. They get down, they play late, they're funky, and they really love music. We just played a gig together in DC and just their sound sounds like people who most of the time think about music and that's not me. It's nice to play with them.

Alison Stewart: We're going to play, just so people can get a sense of what we're talking about, we're going to play the song Luckiest Mood which the band takes a lead on this. Let's take a listen and we can talk about it a little bit on the other side.

[MUSIC - Nellie McKay: Luckiest Mood]

I used to take my harmon mute

And balance it on one knee

Bouncing like a baby

So eager for us to play now

I'm in the luckiest mood

It's just the luckiest mood of my life

I'm in the luckiest frame of mind

Goodbye to heartache and strife

Someone told me I was a fool

Only a fool to go dreaming

I am in the luckiest mood

It's just the luckiest mood of my life

Luckiest mood of my life

Luckiest mood of my life

Alison Stewart: What mood were you in when you wrote this song?

Nellie McKay: I was down, baby. [laughter] I was dragging. Gee, what was that for? I think it was for our show about Billy Tipton, who was born Dorothy, and then went through her, his life as Billy had five wives. How did he, she swing that? I guess it was the ‘50s. You could get away with stuff. Back then you could cross the state line and be a whole different person.

Alison Stewart: Good. That sounds like a song.

Nellie McKay: Yes. [laughter] Get away from this totalitarianism.

Alison Stewart: My guess is Nellie McKay, the new album is called, Hey Guys, Watch This. It's your first album of original material in 13 years. During that time, were you writing and squirreling away songs for the right time, or did you take a break?

Nellie McKay: Oh, boy. I don't know. The thing is, I can just find the poetry in everything. I think one of the most poetic places in New York is Port Authority. I could just wander around Port Authority for a couple of hours. I love going to Solace's big box stores with terrible fluorescent lighting just to-- I don't even need to be stoned. I just like to pet the footed pajamas. Where does time go?

Alison Stewart: You go into a store, you see something, it catches your eye. You feel like, "Oh, I want to go feel and touch that." You touch that, you circle it, you come back to it. Do you go home and then write about it? Or do you-- I don't know if you have a smartphone or do you write notes in your phone? What happens after you get that spark, that moment, that thing hits? What happens next?

Nellie McKay: Most of the time I think you are not disciplined enough to remember it, and it just disappears, this great idea. Of course, if you write it on your phone, then how often do we go back through our phone and actually take? I remember I read about Larry David that he has a little notebook he carries, and then when he gets home, he puts all his notes throughout the day in his big notebook. I was so impressed by that discipline. Because, sure, I got little notebooks. I don't know where they are.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: That's hilarious. I think we all have little notebooks that we don't know where they are in the house somewhere. If I get inspired and want to write about something, I will sometimes take a picture of it and then send it to myself with a little note underneath to remind me.

Nellie McKay: You're not a picture hoarder, though?

Alison Stewart: Oh, I didn't say that.

[laughter]

Nellie McKay: Because I'll wind up taking five pictures of that, five pictures of that. Every day it's 100 pictures. Then when do you go back over them, honestly?

Alison Stewart: Someone here wants you to make the case that Port Authority is one of the most beautiful places in New York City.

Nellie McKay: Oh, the humanity. It has a bowling alley.

Alison Stewart: That's true.

Nellie McKay: There's a big thing there. It's still a place people come to hang. People from all walks of life are there. They haven't figured out how to get rid of the so-called riffraff, which really are the businessmen. They would consider the homeless or the low-income. People will just go there, and they'll buy some garlic nuts or a cup of coffee and they'll hang to such a degree that now, of course, some places there, they've taken away the chairs, which I think is cruel. They're not never addressing the root of the problem. It's just to hide the problem, whatever the problem may be. If it's mental health then get people help. I've worked around there in the theater district and I just always think there's a lot more truth in Port Authority. I forget the old saying, what's that? A tree grows in Brooklyn and other places, but that isn't it-- Art is beauty and beauty is truth, and that is all you need to know.

Alison Stewart: The idea that there's a lot of truth in Port Authority.

Nellie McKay: Oh, yes.

Alison Stewart: That's interesting. Nellie McKay is my guest, the name of the new album is, Hey Guys, Watch This. One of the things that's so great about your music is that there is a certain familiarity in the way that it's like, "Oh, it's--" I don't know if retro is exactly the right word, I feel like that could be taken negatively and I don't mean it that way, just that it's got a familiarity, it's got a tone to it. It can take you to another time. It can remind you of another time, a good memory. How do you create that sound in the studio? Is it the arrangements? Is it the way that you've written the songs? Is it the way you record them, whether you record them live, whether you record them on a certain kinds of instruments?

Nellie McKay: Yes. Who knows how it's going to come out? That's what's so terrifying, I can never relax into that. Yes, I guess there's good retro and bad retro, and you want to hold onto the good things and let go of the bad, and too often it seems like the opposite happens. If it's good, if it's something we want to hold onto, that's good. There's a recent thing in New York, and I don't know if it's past the budget, I need to call on this today, but they put forth a new budget that cuts Sunday service at libraries.

Alison Stewart: Oh my gosh. We talked about that last night at the NYPL about, and people were so upset about.

Nellie McKay: Oh, you were there?

Alison Stewart: Yes.

Nellie McKay: Oh, really?

Alison Stewart: Yes.

Nellie McKay: What did you do there?

Alison Stewart: Oh, we do a book club within the York Club library, and one of the things that they talked about at the beginning were how people got together and protested about some of the cuts. They got the money back, and then the money's been taken away, and now it's time for people to make noise about the Sunday. It was very sad. I went to the library, and there's the big red sign that says, "We'll no longer offer services on Sunday as of November 26th."

Nellie McKay: Yes. It's a haven, it's a necessity. There's so many things they offer, story time. In this world where things are getting more illiterate, where more and more is taken away from you. I've gone to see movies at the library with a bunch of low-income people. It's the best audience to see a movie with, not with people that are so bored with movies and don't make any noise. These are people who really get into it, they offer free Kotex. By the way, your bathroom's out of Kotex, because when I'm here, I always push the button.

They offer so many services to people beyond, and for people to act like libraries are somehow passe, it's a magical place, the library, and more and more people should be discovering it, not having services taken away. It's just so cruel. I don't know if they've passed the budget or what pressure we can put on, but that can be reversed.

Alison Stewart: Hoping we can hear another song from your album. There's a song called The Drinking Song. It's the opening track. It's a serious song. It's the first one on the album. Tell us what it's about and why you wanted to open your new album with the song.

Nellie McKay: Boy. I guess you just think that everyone can identify with loss, and certainly now just seeing what's going on in Gaza, it just seems like when will people change? When will people turn away from violence? It's just you feel like you got to have something to hold onto because you just feel so disempowered. I feel so impotent and to know my tax dollars are going towards carnage as opposed to a better future for all, it's maddening.

Alison Stewart: Is this the right time?

Nellie McKay: Yes, and they say depression is anger turned inward. I think it's good to have some turned outward, to paraphrase Jesse Jackson. Was it, tears will get you sympathy; sweat will get you change? Sometimes there's room for a tune, too, as Amiri Baraka once said. I think he says it in Bulworth. My mom was once in his play the Dutchman.

Alison Stewart: Oh, really?

Nellie McKay: I've been reading up on him, and he's been giving me some-

Alison Stewart: Hi, Mom.

Nellie McKay: -hope, too.

Alison Stewart: This is The Drinking Song.

[MUSIC - Nellie McKay: The Drinking Song]

There goes my heart, there goes my wrecking ball

Here lies a part I never knew

I say a prayer, I've asked a thousand times

Why you're up there when I'm with you

And I just wanna drink and drink and drink and drink and drink

I just wanna let the spirits help me close my eyes

I'm just gonna drink and never think, just keep on drinking till I die

For my baby's gone to angels in the sky

There goes a friend, I was the lucky one

Here lies a heart that was so true

This is the end, it's something permanent

Here comes the cost of loving you

And I just wanna dream and dream and dream and dream and dream

I just wanna let the memory lift me from this life

I just wanna dream and never scream again, just dream until I die

For my angel's flown to heaven, yes I've lost my loving baby

Now my baby's with them angels in the sky

Alison Stewart: That was Nellie McKay performing The Drinking Song from her album, Hey guys, Watch This. That was you on ukulele. When you write a song, you perform that on ukulele, do you write it on the ukulele?

Nellie McKay: Oh, gee, that was, yes. That was written, a airplane terminal where they wouldn't let my me take the drink out of a flight. [laughter]. Maybe that's what it's really about.

Alison Stewart: Oh, that's so, so if you perform a song, the previous one with piano, if you perform it on the piano, does that mean it was written on the piano? If you perform it on ukulele, does that mean it was written on the ukulele?

Nellie McKay: No, because my mean mother makes me play things on piano I don't want to. I'll write something on guitar and she's like, boo, I guess because she grew up in the '60s, so she has associations.

Alison Stewart: She likes to hear the piano.

Nellie McKay: I think so, yes. It's like we had a song on the first album that had horns and it had strings, and I think she felt the strings were more like women against Vegas objectification scene and--

Alison Stewart: Okay. [laughter] What do you remember about your first piano lesson?

Nellie McKay: Oh, Evelyn [unintelligible 00:17:52]. At Bloomingdale School of Music, I got a scholarship. Isn't that just a great thing to introduce kids to the arts, whatever form of the arts they were, and just what a treat? She was so patient with me, and I'm sorry I don't practice more Evelyn. What do I remember? That's a crazy question. That's a great question. I guess it's always that pressure and performance to get it right. You must feel that with this live show that you can't rewind.

Alison Stewart: Yes. it makes you a little more flexible, truthfully.

Nellie McKay: Really?

Alison Stewart: Yes.

Nellie McKay: That's good. Alison, I'm sorry I don't know, but how often do you do this show? Is it once?

Alison Stewart: It's every day.

Nellie McKay: It's every day.

Alison Stewart: Two hours every day.

Nellie McKay: Oh my, so that'll get you in the groove.

Alison Stewart: Yes. You get in the groove and sometimes something doesn't go well, you just have to let it go, and then you come back and give your best shot the next day.

Nellie McKay: That's good to know you're every day because I randomly turn on the radio because I love the radio when I'm in New York. Now I know it's not just, I always feel like it's just a gift from the universe that's you, but you are on every day.

Alison Stewart: thank you for asking. That's really kind of you. When did you decide that you would do this for a living?

Nellie McKay: I still haven't. [laughter] Are you kidding? The post office used to hire extra people for Christmas. I don't know if they do that anymore. I always looked at Aldi, but now they're all self-checkout, and so gee, now those two options are gone. I guess I'm stuck.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: Who was the first person who encouraged you, who thought like, said, "Nellie, you know what, if you would like to do this, it's a possibility for you?"

Nellie McKay: Oh yes, for sure. I guess it was my mom, she was the least concerned with making a living. She was doing three shifts in a row and she was cleaning toilets. I think everyone else in my life, they were more leery about, she's dropping out of school. I had a relative say children of welfare parents often wind up on welfare themselves. What's wrong with that? It's better than dropping bombs. People have so much creativity in them, but everyone has creativity in them, and we get it crushed out of us, and we're told that we have to always be about the bottom line and then your life is over. Why should you give your soul that way to capitalism? There's a Bertolt Brecht line that goes roughly, "What is killing a man compared to hiring a man, taking his time on life for money?" The longer I go on, the more I realize that you only have so much time.

Alison Stewart: You sound like you love to read.

Nellie McKay: Oh, I love to read.

Alison Stewart: What are you reading now?

Nellie McKay: Oh my goodness. Oh gee, whizz. What was I reading? I think I come back to things an awful lot. Mary Daly's book, Gyn/Ecology. There's a lot of truth in that. She talks about some men being necrophiliacs of the living. That can go to a lot of institutions and things, but it's that idea, what we were just talking about, that there are living necrophiliacs and that you want to watch what you put your energy towards. I can already see it in life, how the corporations take our time and the algorithms, figure out how to hook us, and they deny us sleep.

Alison Stewart: And autonomy because it's like, "I would like to look at something else besides this particular ad that you're feeding me at the moment." [laughs]

Nellie McKay: That's the thing. We're animals, so we're programmed. If we see something and then we click-- and it's messing with our minds.

Alison Stewart: We're going to ask you to take us out on a song from your new album, Hey Guys, Watch This. I see it says Party Song. Does that sound right to you?

Nellie McKay: Yes, correct.

Alison Stewart: Tell us a little bit about it and then we'll hear it.

Nellie McKay: Oh, thank you. Unfortunately, it seems to have had pretty good timing because you just have a vast majority of Democrats, a majority of Republicans, a big majority of both parties, of voters, of people in this country they want a permanent ceasefire right now. This is just one example, but there's so many things where people are in agreement. We're pitted against each other, but we're in agreement. We believe people should have healthcare. We believe we should cut the military budget. There's all kinds of things we agree on. Then the two parties, they work together to do the opposite of what we want. They're using our votes and our tax dollars for this.

It's the George Carlin line that bipartisanship usually means a larger-than-usual conspiracy is going on. Please, I just urge people, whatever you are concerned about, to go to their offices, because it freaks them out. They're not used to seeing constituents. Show up because your tax dollars paid for that office. Don't be intimidated.

Alison Stewart: You know what else? I think that, to your point, and then I'll let you sing, everybody really wants the same thing.

Nellie McKay: Exactly.

Alison Stewart: To be safe, to have their family be safe, to have food, to have housing, to have basic health. We really do all want the same things at the end of the day. Do you want to play Party Song?

Nellie McKay: Oh yes, please.

[MUSIC - Nellie McKay: Party Song]

I went to a party

Stayed there 20 years one night

There were bright balloons, a pale monsoon

Of decadent delight

The people at this party

Were alive or seemed to be

Pretty hearts percuss as coconuts

And gentle was the sea

And I know

You've got to mind your medal

Find that mettle

Patiently

May the fire burn brighter than the blade

Luminate through spires and the shroud

As a silence settles on the big parade

The day that party burns into the ground

Eyes of Hiroshima

All those melted ears and chins

The world was relieved and still agrees

It was worth it in the end

It meant the fight was over

The explicit one at least

As the streamers fell, we bid farewell

To war and welcomed peace

And I know

You’re bound to mind the weather

Time will tether

Faithfully

May the ashes flower from the flame

Coat the smouldering pyre without sound

As we dash upon the vast ash-covered plains

The day that party burns into the ground

Nothing comes from nothing

And I was not twice naive

But where innocence meets common sense

There's far too much to grieve

You who stood for nothing

Now you will not stand at all

 

Copyright © 2023 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.