Nobody Leaves New York.

Last night, we were walking to the Theater at St. Clement's, where Jim is doing "Zero Hour," when I remembered that "Big Night Out" would be holding their monthly "sing" at the club where we'll be hosting the salon on Nov. 29th, a place called Etcetera Etcetera. Since I hadn't been there before, I thought I'd go upstairs and say "hi" to the host, Jennifer Wren, whom I met back in 2006 when we were doing Big Voice here.

She told me how much she loves singing "Nobody Leaves New York," which is a song I wrote with Amy Lynn Shapiro for the upcoming "Manhattan Clam Chowder." Then she said she'd love to have it in her key.

So we went over to the piano. She gave me a note, and I found her key, which is G. It was originally written in C. So she's up a major fifth. And I was so proud of myself. I'm usually TERRIBLE about transposing on the spot, but we made it all the way through with few mistakes. And she sounded fantastic. I mean, like, FANTASTIC.

So, I told her I needed to be over at Zero Hour since we are having critics in all week on the run-up to the official opening night this Sunday. But that I might be able to zip back over if she'd sing it again for an audience. And that's exactly what I did.

Just as Jim was going on for the second act -- and he was GREAT tonight, by the way. He KILLED the audience; they were with him every moment of the play -- I slipped out and ran over to her event just in time to jump on the piano. And, again, she was amazing singing this song.

But, while there, the young man waiting tables came up to me and said, "Hey, I know who you are. You're Steve of Steve and Jim. The Big Voice. I'm David. I helped you carry your keyboard out to your car when you sang in Long Beach for the Unitarian Universalist national convention."

Small world. I remembered him. He was asking us about making in the business. I told him getting to New York is half the battle, and how happy I was to see him. Then the waitress came up and asked if she could have the sheet music to "Nobody Leaves New York," and I said absolutely. Of course, now I have to transpose it on the score, but I was going to do that anyway.

I love New York. It's like we never left.