Cameron Mizell

This video is from last week’s show at Rockwood Music Hall in NYC (pardon the shakiness at the start, it steadies out). The first song is a Lauren Zettler original called “Love”, followed by the Beatles’ “Something” off Abbey Road. Lauren and I are joined by Craig Akin on bass and Elliot Jacobson on drums.

“Love” is one of Lauren’s newer original tunes, which we initially arranged for ukulele and mandolin. You can see/hear a version of that in this short video by filmmaker Dannielle Owens-Reid shot during our trip to Nashville last February. We also recorded a full band version while in Nashville, but that recording isn’t quite finished yet so it remains unreleased. As you can hear, it’s a really pretty, melancholic tune.

“Something” came into our repertoire by way of a recent decision I made:

Whenever I can’t decide what to practice, learn a Beatles tune.

The first time that happened I turned to my iTunes library and played the first Beatles song I didn’t already know. That happened to be track two from Abbey Road. It’s a beautiful song. I love McCartney’s bass line. To be thorough and really explore the tune, I learned to play the song on every instrument within arms reach: guitar, ukulele, mandolin, piano and as you see here, glockenspiel! It seemed like a natural fit for Lauren to sing, and it works really well in context with “Love” both musically and lyrically.