Nellie McKay – Mother of Pearl (Feminists) (Chords)

In honour of this song (and in honour of her being so obviously right), I’m going to try to get through this post without making any stupid jokes. It’s not going to be easy.

TED is easily the best thing about the internet. I could bang on about for months. But I just recommend a few of my favourites instead: Dan Ariely, Larry Lessig, Ken Robinson and Elizabeth Gilbert. They also had Nellie McKay along to sing a few songs including this one on her uke.

There are some very nice chord moves in the song (I am NOT going to that joke). It modulates between G and Bb a few times. And it uses the best trick for getting between two keys: lead in with the V chord. So before the section in Bb there’s an F chord. And before the section in G there’s a D7 chord. (If none of that makes any sense to you, How to Play Ukulele Chord Progressions has more info on it).