Thoroughly Modern Nellie

If Nellie McKay were a bird—and who’s to say she isn’t?—she’d be one of those seemingly frail buttercups that charmingly flutter about with an undercoat of biting contempt that can dumbfound the mightier birds right off their high perch. She might even be a kākāpō (one of the world’s most endangered birds), because there’s just no one like her.

Take her majorly fed-up song “Identity Theft”: “Because I’m tired of being sweet and nice/Fuck you once and fuck you twice/Show your passport, get that stamp/Funny like a Nazi camp,” which is a full-blown, belty jazzy pop number but also pretty damn punk rock. Or the satirical “Won’t U Please B Nice” from her first album, Get Away From Me, written when she was 19 and sung in her most prim voice: “Give me head or you’ll be dead/Salute the flag or I’ll call you a fag.”

McKay can turn a phrase with the best of ‘em. This is a songwriter who writes such intricate and clever lyrics you’ll have to squint your ears to catch all the wordplay. Her music often incorporates rap, albeit with a style that’s more Rex Harrison than Snoop.

Many of her songs are like tumbleweeds, offering soaring ideas with sharp points, like the whirlwind “Columbia Is Bleeding,” a protest of the university’s testing on animals. (McKay, who is vegan, is the recipient of PETA’s Humanitarian Award and the Humane Society’s Doris Day Music Award for her work dedicated to animal rights.) You’ll hear cheeky lines like “Lookin’ for some kind of closure, all I’m findin’ is Ray Bolger,” along with bursts of sass like rhyming “Attila the Hun” with “cinnamon bun.”

With all her teeming talents, McKay has been known to say, “I’d rather end factory farming and vivisection than ever write another song.” On the phone before a tour that’ll take her to Astoria, Eugene and Portland, among other West Coast dates, McKay shares the exciting announcement that new music is a-coming later this year.

Since four of her five most recent albums focused on songs by other artists, this is tremendous news. “And it’s about damn time,” she jokes, adding that she may even share something new at the Alberta Rose, though this tour is not about the upcoming stuff. She doesn’t say too much about the new music, other than that it was mostly recorded in West Virginia and is “a mix of things, an amalgam.”

After a brief chat about her friendship with the late Dave Frishberg, famed jazz pianist and Portlander, she welcomed a tip about the wonders of Kate’s vegan ice cream. “There’s this problem with touring that it’s just always the food,” she says. “You can’t possibly get to it all. I should do an eating tour.”

McKay’s live shows are predictably unpredictable. She’ll fly through songs old and new on piano and ukulele, and often takes requests. That can be a bold move for someone with such an expansive catalog; not every song is on the tip of her tongue.

“I just wish I knew them all,” she says. “Someone might have come from far away and might have hired a babysitter, they paid for gas and dinner and, you know, they’ve taken all this time, maybe there’s that one song they really want to hear. And then you can’t remember how to play it.”

Her singing style is gorgeous, going from lilting and lovely to commanding and fiery. Does she like her voice? After a short pause, she says, “Yes. I like the high operatic stuff.” Is there anything she can’t sing? “Not so good at the gospel.”

When asked what makes a song worthy—in the vein of Joni Mitchell’s adage that it can only be considered good if listeners hear themselves in it rather than the songwriter—McKay thinks for a second and quips, “That seems like a lot of guessing.”

As for songwriting, her outlook about it is, “I don’t know if it’s bravery or arrogance, because really, you know, there’s enough music, there’s enough books. I have enough. I have enough books just in my house to last till I die. I wouldn’t need to do anything else. Just try to get through all those books. I think you probably help people more making vegan ice cream.”

SEE IT: Nellie McKay plays the Alberta Rose Theatre, 3000 NE Alberta St., 503-719-6055, albertarosetheatre.com. 8 pm, Sunday, April 16. $28, $32 at the door. Minors OK with parent or guardian.