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[0:00] Joe Iconis: I'm Joe Iconis. And I'm Jennifer Ashley Tepper. And on today's episode, we are talking about The Nurse and the Addict. If you ever wanted to have a dance party to an absolutely psychotic song alone in your room, this track by Taylor Trensch will do it. It's inspired by the film and book Misery by Stephen King, and is about addiction and is about writing and is about dependency on chemicals and human beings and fandom. And it's about three and a half minutes too long. It could have been even longer, as I learned from the podcast, and you will too. Enjoy.

[0:58] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: The Nurse and the Addict. This was one of my favorite songs that we recorded. Like in the recording session, I feel like I was like doing a mosh pit of my own in the studio. Yeah, it's one of those songs that is it's one of the more rare songs on the album for sure. Um, you know, it's a tune that I wrote the first time for a Halloween show at the Beachmen, because it is inspired by the Stephen King novel and subsequent film and later stage play Misery.

[1:29] Joe Iconis: Yes. Um, I love this song so much. I've only been able to get through half of Misery, not because it isn't great, but because it scares me. And I feel like I owe it to my boyfriend who made me read the book and also to this song, which is one of my favorite Joe Iconis songs to read it. And thank you for not making the song so that I can't sit through it. It's a terrifying story.

[1:47] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah, it is a terrifying story. Yeah. And the story I've always loved Misery a lot. And the story itself, I just love that Stephen King wrote it kind of about or not kind of like he and he's talked about this. He wrote it sort of about his drug addiction. That's kind of like the central metaphor of Misery. And I really loved how that idea of like, you know, whatever it is, your, you know, your muse or your or your drive or whatever is this thing that is both allowing you to work at a certain level and and wrecking you. I love that. I also love like all the stuff in Misery is sort of about like fandom. You know, there really is. It is kind of like, I feel like it's, you know, spiritually connected to like other sort of like fandom forward things that I love, like King of Comedy and other stuff like, you know, sort of things that are about stalkers, people who are sort of like obsessed with with with the art and the artists, you know, art and the artists who make them.

[3:01] Joe Iconis: Yeah, I feel like we should have done a pop up performance of this song when Misery was running on Broadway, like right outside the Broadhurst, Taylor Trench screaming the musical version of the show. Yeah, screaming at Larry Metcalf. So yeah, and so it's, it's sort of, you know, all of that kind of bubbled up and, and, and created this, this tune, which what year was this? I'm trying to place it. Did it premiered on Halloween? It premiered on Halloween. But I remember when I first premiered, it wasn't like one of those ones that was an immediate hit, you know, it wasn't like, it didn't feel fully cooked right out of the gate. And, and so I did it. And I, I feel like it might have been like 2013 2014.

And then I didn't do it for a little bit. And then we revisited it again, at a musical theater factory concert where Jeremy Moore sang it, which was good. But again, it like never, the song itself, like there's always something about it that didn't quite click for me. And so that that's why I feel like this is one of the ones that really came together in the studio, you know, and sort of like the idea that I had about how to orchestrate it, and sort of like the the kind of maximalist treatment of it, and the typewriters, and you know, there's so much happening on the track. I think that that actually served it. It's like one of the rare songs where I think it's like kind of better not stripped down, you know, I think it's more, it's more itself, it feels more, it feels more authentically, what it's, you know, it feels more authentically itself when all that other garbage is on the track.

[4:40] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah, that's so interesting. I've never really thought about that before. In reference to your songs, like I've thought about it a lot in terms of musicals, like some shows, you could see a reading of at open jar, and it would be just as good or better if it was on than if it was on Broadway. And then some shows need other set, like, you know, it's like Jonathan Larson with Tick Tick Boom, like those songs would have sounded great without a full band, but they needed a full band so that the music could become what it became. Are there other songs of yours that like The Nurse and the Addict you feel like, oh, with full production, like, it's just it requires it theatrically, like, I almost want to say that Ammonia is one only because it's such a different song, whether it's like just a person at the piano or others, but it's good both ways.

[5:09] Joe Iconis: Yeah, but that's one that actually feels like two different things. It's funny. It's like it's, you know, I think for some of them, it's it's more like the production adds another layer, you know, or it's like a lot of the times it's songs that are very sort of genre forward. So like something like like somebody for the killer or out of sight, out of mind, you know, the way that those songs are written, the way that they're constructed, they they have a very sort of, you know, golden age, you know, kind of 1940s or 20s, even chord progression, melody and and and and, you know, lyrical style. And so it's sort of baked into the writing of the song. But there's just something about hearing those songs with, you know, period appropriate orchestration that really sort of like, you know, drives it home.

But I think, you know, a lot of my songs, it's usually the opposite. Like it's usually like you can take away everything and the song works just as well in a totally stripped down way, because that's just the way I write. I write, you know, for a song to be able to be played on the piano and have it have it work. But yeah, there's just something about Nurse in the Attic. I think also because this song is so much about excess, you know, it's so much about about someone kind of drowning in this sort of excess of their own making that it's like it's there's there's just more clarity to it when it's this wall of sound in your face.

[6:44] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Totally. Explosion. I also think and then I'll go back to Nurse in the Attic that Honey is probably one of them in a way like I've heard Honey like bring down the house when you like have played it on the piano at Saturdays and it's just like folks singing and you but it becomes this like Beatles concert when it's done in concert with like the full band with the backup singers with, you know, like whoever's singing it at a microphone, you know, killing it.

[7:07] Joe Iconis: Yeah, that's a that's one. So Nurse in the Attic, we have to talk about the great Taylor Trensch. And I remember so specifically when you like came home from Barrington from doing a concert at Barrington and you were like, oh my god, I met Taylor. It was Taylor Trensch and Anne L Nathan. Like you got to know them at the same time. I don't think you weren't you weren't directly working with them. You can correct me. But like they were in maybe the Bill Cabret and you were doing it and you were like these two people like I have to work with them. I have to work with them. Obviously, you knew who they were already, but it was just like a big moment.

[7:30] Joe Iconis: No, truly. Yeah, I lived with them in a house. I lived with them. I lived with them before I worked with them, which is like the most 70s thing I've ever said. So yeah, so Taylor Trensch and the great Anne L Nathan were in this concert at Barrington Stage Company, which has been an artistic home for me for a very long time. And it's this concert that Bill Finn did called what's the name of it? It's Songs You Should Know by Ridiculously Talented Composers and Lyricists. And so there's sort of a core group of actors. And then I hosted it with him this year. So they asked me to come and host this concert with Bill Finn. We sat at a table. It was very strange, but very lovely. And so in this concert was, you know, Anne, who I had been a fan of, who I knew, and Taylor, who I'd never seen before. And I was so obsessed with both.

[8:58] Taylor Trensch and Jennifer Ashley Tepper: As a human being, I just found him so peculiar and charismatic and interesting that that was so much a part of my initial, you know, being like sort of swept off my feet by him because he's just such an unusual guy and so funny. He's one of the like 10 people who like truly, truly, truly can make me laugh. I just think he's hilarious. He's so funny. Yeah, which is why the first thing that I guess I really did with him was the Christmas show and Mr. Chestnut. He originated the role of Mr. Chestnut. Yeah, he originated the role. That role is that role because of Taylor Trensch. And then you did several other things with him since then. Yeah, and Taylor played Jeremy in the first proper workshop of Be More Chill.

It was Taylor and George. And Lauren played Christine in that reading. Are you talking about the one like at the WME office before? No, that was the that was sort of a bootleg reading. But this was like our first. Oh, right. Yeah. And Davenport offices. I remember. Wow. I do remember that. Yeah. And then we did a big workshop of Black Suits in 2013, I believe. And Taylor was Chris in that. And he's very brilliant. Yeah, I love him a lot. He's good in everything. I've never seen him be bad. And if this performance on the album is genuinely funny, just like everything Taylor does that. Yes. It's so like I laugh when I listen to it. And like, I've heard it a bunch of times. Like, it's so funny.

Well, that's the other thing, too, that like I knew that I knew that I wanted it to be really in your face, really confrontational. I knew that the whole idea was that we were going to have this kind of sonic landscape that was kind of overwhelming. And the song is so aggressive that I thought it would be cool to have somebody like Taylor, who is so naturally funny and so sort of goofy at the center of it. And I think it makes it sort of resonate even more. And when I sing the song, it kind of like it's it sort of starts in an aggressive place and just kind of gets more and more aggressive. And there's like real anger there. But I think in Taylor's performance, the anger sort of creeps in and it's and it's actually it becomes less less anger and more sort of fear, you know, in a way that I think is really, really helpful to the song.

[11:49] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah. And, you know, the end that whole end round. There's there's there's so many songs on the album that ends with a coda, you know, which is like a section of a song that you haven't heard before. I love a coda in general. And I end a lot of songs with a severe amount of repetition because I'm also very obsessed with repetition. And I think there's lots of lots of exciting, dramatic and thematic benefits to repetition. But in this song, in Nursing the Addict, I knew from the top that I wanted it to be this like this like merry-go-round that never stops, you know. And I think, you know, obviously or not obviously, it's sort of speaking to addiction and this idea of like, one more time, one more time.

I'm going to do this this thing one more time. And it's every time is, you know, every time is one more time. So I always imagine that like, you know, I would love if I was if I if I had limitless funds and I was a very famous person, I would love to release like a single version of Nursing the Addict that was on like a on a vinyl and the end, the end coda would just go on for 20 minutes or like it would just go on for however much is left on that side of vinyl. Yeah, because I think that's the idea that it just keeps going and going endlessly. For folks listening at home, like I feel like I want to sing along to the part that the audience sings along to in the concert when I listen to it on the album. So feel free to do that in your homes. But yeah, it is one of those that you just like can't help it.

[13:28] Taylor Trensch: Yeah. I also didn't realize the way you were just describing it. It's very much like that How Prince thing of like you're watching Cabaret and you start to get into how great the song Tomorrow Belongs to Me is and you realize like, oh, my God, it's a Nazi song. You know, it's that where I didn't think of it that way. But of course, it's like about addiction.

[13:45] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah, I mean, and that's, you know, that's that's it. And it's and it's like the you know, Taylor's performance at the end, we did it, you know, we did it so many times, and he had a lot of ideas. And we just sort of let him, you know, go. And, and he's just amazing. It was so thrilling to watch him just, you know, sort of lose his mind and, and then just like scream like that was what he was. And I remember that. But you know, his sort of like final scream during the last time. I remember he was like, he was like, Oh, I just have like this idea about maybe I can just like scream or something. Can I maybe I'll just like do it. And I was like, Yeah, sure. Obviously, just do it. Just like literally screamed.

And it's like one of my favorite things on the album. You know, when it's like when an actress says like, I thought maybe I'd scream it. I just thought he would sort of like give it some more vocal oomph. But it's just a wordless scream. And I was like, Oh, yeah, that's exactly what that's the you know, the natural progression of what this is. It's really so good.

[14:39] Taylor Trensch: It really is just like that Halloween playlist from the album keeps going on in my head as we get to more and more Halloween numbers. There's a lot of them.

[14:48] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: I know. Yeah. Yeah. Are you looking forward to the moment when like a school does it and they split it into two parts and it's the nurse in the attic?

[14:57] Taylor Trensch: Yes, it's inevitable. But you know, the title I actually I'm glad Yeah, I'm glad that you just said the title of it because I remember now that the original title of it was was Annie Wilkes, which is the name of the name of the the woman who is who is Paul Sheldon's fan and captor in misery. And even though I have I have so many songs that are character names and so many songs where the name never appears in the song, it felt it felt incorrect because it's because it's not her, you know. And so then and then it was the nurse and the writer for a while. But yeah, the nurse and the addict just felt like the you know, it's felt like the if that's how we're boiling this down. That's what it should be.

[15:50] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: I really can't think of a lot of your songs that have had title changes. But that's true. Like that does. No, I like shuddered when I heard any Wilkes. That's how much misery did a number on me. But you're right. It doesn't feel right for the song.

[16:04] Taylor Trensch: Yeah, because it's just yeah, it's not that it doesn't like it doesn't Yeah, the song doesn't hang with that. Yeah, the nurse and the addict.