Human Behaviour
She’s written for Cheryl, had a massive radio hit in the US and almost crashed a Tony Bennett recording session. She’s Ingrid Michaelson.
Ed Power, 31 Aug 2012
Ingrid Michaelson was very possibly the only person on the planet who had never heard of Cheryl Cole when representatives of the Geordie pop maven and serial loser in love got in touch.
“It was suggested that one of my tracks would be a good fit for her,” says the petite Staten Island singer, laughingly dryly. “So my song ‘Parachute’ ended up being one of her first solo singles. She was this huge star and I had no idea who she was.”
Michaelson thought nothing of it until, on a tour of the UK, she switched on the television one night.
“It was the height of all the stuff in the papers about her personal life,” the 30-year-old continues. “And whenever she came up on the news, my song was playing in the background. It was surreal. There was this huge story – and I was a little part of it.”
It’s exactly the sort of unlikely twist that has come to define Michaelson’s career. At every stage, serendipity has seemed to raise its head. Her current hit single ‘Blood Brothers’, for instance, was inspired by a random act of thoughtlessness at a New York recording studio, around the corner from Times Square.
“It’s called Avatar and is one of the last old school places in Manhattan, where there’s room for a whole big band. We were recording on the second floor and you had to go upstairs to use the bathrooms. Tony Bennett was up there, working with Aretha Franklin. It was so incredibly hot – she requests the air-conditioning be turned off because it helps with her singing. So all these bigwigs were in there and I checked it out and as I was walking away some guy ran into me and I spilled tea all over myself. It filled me with rage.”
She sat down to write a song that channeled her fury and, without intending to, ended up composing a paean to universal brotherhood, a tune that asks “Why can’t we all get along?”
“It’s a little hokey and a little cheesy,” she admits. “I’m a little of all of those things. However, I think a lot of people feel the way I do. Nowadays everyone is in a rush. When someone stands up on the subway to give a pregnant woman their seat, I’m amazed. So that’s where it came from – me being angry on a hot day in New York.”
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