If people in the audience request something they know we do, we usually find a way to work it in. We've sometimes even sung it to the person who requested it, after the show, if it didn't work out. For short, festival sets, it's a little harder to work in a last minute request.

In the folly of my youth I did a solo set in a bar where a bachelor party came in and sat in the first bunch of tables. Between passing out "novelty" squirt guns and other tasteful gag gifts, the future groom asked if I could do something by Simon & Garfunkle. I apologized and said I didn't know any. Every 20 minutes or so thereafter he would say to his buddies, "is he going to play some Simon & Garfunkle or what?" I tried to not let it get to me but finally, I said,"I don't know any f***ing Simon & Garfunkle, if I did, I would have sung it long ago." (I had not yet learned the rare, unreleased, song story mentioned above).