Cricket Blue's Laura Heaberlin Appears on 'The Tonight Show'

Vermont folk musician Laura Heaberlin made a surprise appearance on the December 18 episode of "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon."

Heaberlin, one-half of the Burlington-based indie folk duo Cricket Blue, was selected from the audience to participate in a segment called "Battle of the Instant Songwriters." She and musician Peter Groppe were each assigned a fake song title created by the show's writers and then given one hour to write a real song inspired by the prompt.

"It was a little hectic," Heaberlin told Seven Days by phone. "You have this limited time to write a song, but all the while you're being sent to hair and makeup and people are clipping [microphones] on you."

Heaberlin's song was "Texting With My Mittens On," which she quickly turned into a tune of a hapless would-be lover trying to flirt through texts, only to be thwarted by wearing mittens.

"Hey, it was so food to see you / I'd love to hang again," Heaberlin sang to the studio audience, the holiday lights of the set shining behind her. "It's gettng so cold outside / I'm glad we can be fiends."

Then at the hook, she sang: "Ha ha, LOL / tasting with my kittens on, can you tell? / Never mind, forget what I said / I guess I should have called instead."
"It was a fun prompt to write a song from," Heaberlin said. "I tried to make the song as cringey as possible, where maybe this character runs into an ex and wants to connect but just keeps sending typos."

While Fallon was visibly blown away by Heaberlin's song, the audience ended up voting for Groppe's bluesy "North Pole Dancing." Both contestants took home sweatshirts that said "I LOVE MUSIC," "Tonight Show" notebooks and $1,000 checks.

"I loved Peter's song," said Heaberlin, who had no regrets about coming in second. "I think the real win for both of us was just getting to be on the show. It was such a cool thing to happen."

The experience was fun but also a little "surreal," according to Heaberlin, who drove back home to Vermont from New York City after the episode taped at 5 p.m. — she made it back just in time to see it air at 11 p.m. on NBC5, the local NBC affiliate.

"It was a late night," she said with a laugh. "I'm in my PJs today, but I still have my hair up because a very fancy man at NBC did it. I need to deconstruct it first and figure out what he did."

When asked whether "Texting With My Mittens On" would make it into future Cricket Blue set lists, Heaberlin pointed out that NBC actually owns the song now.

"So if we did the song, I guess it would be a cover," she said with a laugh.