‘Philadelphia! I came from Philadelphia!’

For a few moments, Ingrid Michaelson is caught off-guard. With an embarrassed giggle she fumbles, thinking aloud with some “ums” and “ahs” before finding an answer: “Atlanta, I’m in Atlanta!” she exclaims.

It’s not the first time the New York City-based singer-songwriter-pianist hasn’t known her whereabouts.

“I had this really embarrassing moment on a radio promo tour last summer and I think I traveled to my 17th [city] in like two weeks. I was getting off the plane and I was approached by a woman who said, ‘Do you know if flight blah-blah has landed? Were you on that plane?’ On the spot, I couldn’t remember where I had flown from. Most people know where they’ve been. I saw her half an hour later and I was like, ‘Philadelphia! I came from Philadelphia!’ She just thought I was insane.”

The self-possessed 30-year-old wasn’t worried the stranger might be right. After all, in five years, Michaelson has released three albums and a lengthy EP, and her next disc (due by fall 2011, she says) is in the planning stages. Add in a perennial touring schedule, and brain-blips are assured.

“After awhile, you just go with the flow,” she says. “It’s almost for self-preservation, I think.”

Get it while you still can

Michaelson’s new iTunes-released single “Parachute” is not on her 2009-released album, “Everybody,” and it probably won’t appear on her next one, either. “It kind of exists by itself,” Michaelson says. “It’s a bit too pop-y for me, and Cheryl Cole, over in the U.K., did a cover — or she put it on her record. She was the first one to release it, so I can’t really say she did a cover of it. It’s like I’m doing a cover of my own song.”