I don’t know if you guys have heard, but MSNBC new correspondent Katy Tur loves Phish…OK, you’ve definitely heard by now–she’s not exactly shy about it, assuming you know what to listen for. In addition to serving as the anchor for MSNBC Live and reporting for Early Today, Today, NBC Nightly News, Meet The Press, and more, Tur serves as the network’s resident Phish fanatic, frequently working subtle (and not-so-subtle) references to the band’s music into her on-air news scripts or using lyrics to trade shout-outs with fellow phan news personality Jake Sherman. They’re usually met with the same odd stares and confusion from her co-hosts–a reaction most fans are fully familiar with in their own lives when their Phish nerd is showing.
This year was a big one for Katy. In addition to her regular TV-oriented reporting, she also published a new book, Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat To The Craziest Campaign In American History, which chronicles her time covering the political circus that was the Donald Trump Presidential campaign. Unbelievable has been extremely successful, quickly becoming a New York Times Bestseller (spoiler alert: she talks about Phish in the book, too).
EXCLUSIVE: MSNBC’s Katy Tur Talks Her Love Of Phish & Sneaking Lyrics Into The News
For her sign-off yesterday, Katy let her Phish flag fly wild and high. She recited a minute-long monologue that, to the average viewer, probably sounded like loosely relevant cryptic poetry. It just so happened that the segment was an extended mashup of lyrics from a long list of Phish songs, although she never mentioned the band by name. Tur wore a cheeky smile the whole way through, taking great pleasure in giving her fellow fans a personalized shout-out hidden in plain sight. As Katy says at the end of the bit: “If you got it, you got it.”
Watch Katy unload a barrage of Phish lyrics for her a year-end sign-off on MSNBC uploaded by YouTube user Bohart Smithson:
Happy Phishmas, Katy! See you at the Garden…