November/December 2007 Issue

Nellie McKay: Obligatory Villagers

Nellie McKay. <i>Hungry Mouse</i>.

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Throwing daggers with a smile, young New York iconoclast Nellie McKay uses a cheery delivery and bright, Broadway-friendly tunes to mask subversive intentions on her exuberant third album. The jaunty piano shuffle “Mother of Pearl” mocks antifeminists who complain, “Can’t those chicks do anything but whine?” while “Politan,” a sultry romantic ballad costarring alto sax great Phil Woods and bebop jazz vocalist Bob Dorough, conjures visions of tropical desire. McKay has a knack for sublime silliness, too, as the swingin’ “Zombie” demonstrates. But “Testify” offers something truly special, a soaring, inspirational anthem about standing up for your beliefs that doesn’t feel like a bunch of lazy platitudes.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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