In 2000, Yo La Tengo released a cover of George McRae's “You Can Have It All” and hired Amy Poehler, then a young New York actress and comedian, to pay homage to the Upright Citizens Brigade skit.Spaghetti Jesus” for the single's cover. The song quickly became a staple of the band's discography, but most people hear it in context And then Nothing Turned itself inside out, the studio album on which it appears. Poehler has since become an A-list star, but was happy to revisit this deep cut from her career while she was on hiatus Jimmy Kimmel Live! the previous night. Watch her interview about the whole experience, as well as some jokes with Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash, below.
When asked by Jimmy Kimmel if the red goop on her face was blood, Poehler clarified that it was pasta sauce. “It's the first and only time I've ever been on a record cover,” he laughs. “This is a sketch I did with UCB, my sketch group, called 'Spaghetti Jesus.' The premise of the sketch is that Jesus' face is in a bowl of spaghetti and then someone ate it. We wandered over to see who it was and then this happened. So I guess the good people at Yo La Tengo thought it would make a good album cover…. You know, it was a different era.”
It may have been Poehler's last time covering a record, but it wasn't her last collaboration with Yo La Tengo. The two crossed paths again later during her tenure Parks and Recreation when Yo La Tengo, Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, the Decemberists and Ginuwine all appeared on the NBC program's sixth season finale.
Yo La Tengo released their latest album, This Stupid World, last year. Read about it at No. 38 on Pitchfork's “50 Best Albums of 2023” list and revisit the interview “Forty years later, Yo La Tengo is still going strong.”
from our partners at https://pitchfork.com/news/amy-poehler-tells-the-story-behind-her-yo-la-tengo-cover-art-on-kimmel-watch
