Meet Nellie McKay. Nellie says Hello.

"This is your day,
to buy a paper,
draw a mustache,
make the mayor a giraffe."

~ Suitcase Song

Singer/ songwriter Nellie Mckay's history is nearly as eclectic as the music she's become known for composing. Mckay was originally born in London, England in 1984 to a director father and an thesbian mother (making a career in entertainment a no-brainer for the artist). At the age of two, McKay and her mother moved to New York City where they would live for about 10 years. In 1994 though, the two would move to the Pocono mountains in Pennsylvania- a more than adequate place for any teenage girl to play out her high school days. When it became time for Nellie to move onto college, she decided on the Manhattan School of Music, putting our heroin back in the fine state of New York. So, being a singer/ songwriter, McKay must've blazed through music school with floating notes and flying colors, right? Well, not exactly...

After two years in the Manhattan School of Music, McKay became apathetic and disengaged causing her to discontinue her enrollment. After dropping out, the artist underwent a brief stint as a stand up comedian in New York City, also playing piano to pay the bills. Nellie's career didn't seem to be heading in any direction, that is, until she caught her big break.

February, 2003: McKay was opening for the Trachtenburg Family Players at the Tonic bar when Jay Ruttenburg from Time Out New York magazine took notice. One enthusiastic article later, a myriad of record companies began bidding for the artist, with the eventual victor being Columbia records. Roughly one year afterwards, Nellie McKay would release her first full length studio album Get Away From me.

The songs from McKay's first album truly displayed the artist's stylistic diversity and strong interest in social intitutions and political engagements. The piano ballad "I Wanna Get Married" for example, gives a tongue-in-cheek assessment on tying the knot. "I wanna get married," Mckay sings in deadpan. "That's why I was born." Other songs like the angry white girl rap of "Sari" and the disco of "Waiter" draw their lyrics from political issues- the latter being about a young woman's dissillusionment over reading a news story declaring a U.S. victory of Iraq. "Maybe it's history/ Maybe it's victory/ Maybe it's you!" sings McKay over a steady drum beat. Many of the songs from Get Away from me displayed the artist's burgeoning talents- both behind the piano and behind the notepad- and really give a strong identity of the focused and gifted artist that Nellie McKay is.

Her second album, tentatively titled Pretty Little Head, hasn't been slated for a release date, mainly due to a squabble between McKay and Columbia records. After Nellie had finished the album, the record company wanted to cut nearly 20 minutes off of the top of the LP- something McKay wouldn't stand for. The quarrel lead to Columbia and McKay heading in seperate directions. News on the subject of a new publisher for the album is slim, but we certainly can assume that whenever Pretty Little Head is released, it will be exactly as Nellie McKay intended it.

Those looking for a passionate and relevent artist couldn't go wrong with McKay. Whether she's prodding the piano or crooning about Capitalism, it's hard to deny that Nellie is one girl who knows her stuff.