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[0:00] Joe Iconis: Hi, I'm Joe Iconis.

[0:02] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: And I'm Jennifer Ashley Tepper. And on this episode of ALBUM PODCAST, we're going to be talking about my song titled, The Song. And it's about a writer who is pledging to not write a song about a special someone. It is an early Joe Iconis song that you will be treated to, sung by none other than Joe Iconis himself. It's a little bit mysterious. You might get some clues about who it's about as you listen.

[0:36] Joe Iconis: You may, but the song is not about me. So don't even think that, because it's not. She says what you've done to me is wrong. It's been your fault all along. And don't you goddamn write a song about me. And I say I will.

[0:54] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: The Song is one of the first songs that I ever heard you play at the first concert of yours that I ever, first Joe Iconis and family concert I ever went to.

[1:01] Joe Iconis: Really?

[1:02] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah.

[1:03] Joe Iconis: Oh.

[1:04] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Well, it was the infamous Mama Cut Me Deeper concert, where you called the concert that because you wanted to write the song called that, right?

[1:11] Joe Iconis: Yes.

[1:12] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: 2008?

[1:13] Joe Iconis: 2000 and...

[1:14] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: I think it was eight. I think it was 2008.

[1:18] Joe Iconis: Yeah, it was February 2008.

[1:21] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: And that, unless I'm mixing things up, I feel like you played the song and it was, I was like, oh, wow.

[1:26] Joe Iconis: No, you're right.

[1:27] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah.

[1:28] Joe Iconis: You're 100% right.

[1:29] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah. Where did the inspiration for this song come from?

[1:31] Joe Iconis: The inspiration from this song came, okay, so I am going to, I'm going to talk honestly about this song. I kind of, when I do this song in concert, I always kind of lie about it. Like I started, it's like a lie.

[1:45] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: It's a bit.

[1:46] Joe Iconis: Yeah, it's a bit. But yeah, that's a crude way, a bit. It's a crude way of saying lie. I prefer to say lie, but a bit. But, but this, so honestly, I have in my life a few times heard from people that they were worried that I was going to write a song about them. And it's not one person, but it's, I had heard it enough that I was like, oh, that's a good idea for a song. Someone, you know, someone writing a song about someone who doesn't want a song written about them. And so, and so it's not just one, one woman. It's something that I had heard and I had heard it, you know, not just from people who I'd been romantically involved with, but people just in, you know, who, who I had had, you know, either shit with or whatever in my life that, you know, it gets, it's like the, it's a thing that people now will like sort of say to my face.

But back then I would be like, you know, like I heard that so-and-so is afraid you're going to write a song about them. Like that was like a thing, you know? And so that's where the idea came from. And, and the ending of the song I had, it was initially like, it was part of the idea. I was like, I'm going to write this song and then I'm going to end it with saying the person's name.

[3:13] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: And the name is just a name you chose.

[3:17] Joe Iconis: Uh, yeah. Emily. But that's, but also like, or maybe it's not, but that's the thing too that I like about this song where it's like, you know, my hope is that people listening to it, it's, you know, people always, people always laugh at it at the end. Um, and I think it is because it's, you know, it, it, it succeeds in both ways. If it is like, uh, I'm not going to write the song about you, Emily. And Emily is the person, or I'm not going to write the song about you, Emily. And Emily is a fake name. And there's just no way, you know, there's no way to know, like even explaining it, it sounds so lame when I explain it, but it just kind of, you know, it kind of makes sense. But yeah, but Emily, um, Emily is just a name that I chose or it is not, not a name that I chose.

Another musical theater writer once told me that that's one of the best names to use in a song. It's just like a very, like, it lends itself to, so I always thought it was funny that, I don't know if you share that opinion. Also, it doesn't rhyme with anything. So I don't know why that would be the case, but yeah. Um, do you, has anyone else performed this song?

[4:19] Joe Iconis: No. Wow. No one has ever, ever, ever performed the song except me. Someone's going to listen to this right now and take it like, Will is going to ask you if you can do it in the next show or something from that. It's so funny. It's just so, I mean, because it's, it's, you know, it's about a songwriter. It just always, you know, felt like, oh, this is a song and I'll sing the piano. And, you know, also it's, I like that, um, you know, it's called the song, which is also like sort of a, you know, it's kind of like a bold title for a song. It's either, it's either very bold or, um, very stupid depending on how you, how you feel about the song and me. Um, but it, I, it feels like a cousin, um, to, you know, album. It's like, it's like the same sort of like calling album, album calling a song, the song. It also sort of feels like a cousin of another song on this album.

[5:12] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: All the mistakes he made about the girl.

[5:18] Joe Iconis: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely, definitely, you know, related and, and the, you know, in a broader sense, them being about, you know, writers, writers who can write their lives, but not necessarily live their lives, which also is something that my show rewrite was, um, like a hundred percent about like the, the, you know, that musical is about is it pretends to be three separate musicals, um, three mini musicals about disconnected characters. But then as the show goes on, it, um, it becomes clear that all these characters are connected and it's all actually about the musical theater writer who the third piece is about who was writing these earlier too. And, um, then has to confront, you know, the real life versions of these characters who he was writing about in the, in the earlier too.

And, um, and there's actually a moment in, in rewrite towards the end where the, the main character, whose name was Joe, um, he was played by Jason Sousa Williams, um, sings this song, uh, this little bit of a song, uh, and he, and he sings, I wish that I was the type of guy, the type who could say whatever he felt. Um, and musically it's, it sounds very similar to the song. And I think that I wrote, I know I wrote the song at the same time I was writing rewrite and it really felt like sort of a natural progression of this idea of a writer who, um, who was, was good like this, you know, I was good writing things down on paper, but not so good actually communicating with other human beings and a writer who is sort of using his writing as both, uh, uh, a wall and, and an excuse to not participate in his own life.

[7:18] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah. Rewrite is interesting. Cause I feel like in the course of recording this podcast about the songs on the very large album, we keep coming across like songs that have never been recorded, which is like, oh my God, even more work to do. But, um, rewrite, um, is licensed rewrite. You know, I saw the script recently at the drama bookshop, people have done it. Like people know about it.

[7:38] Joe Iconis: Um, a lot of those songs haven't been recorded.

[7:43] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: No, most of them. I mean, in rewrite is such a strange show in that it's most of the material in it is the songs are really tiny. They're it's they're so specifically like tailored to the musical that it's, it's hard to take anything out of context in, in rewrite. I, but yeah, it's such a weird kind of like lost musical that, yeah, I would, I would love to both do it again and, um, or, or at least, you know, get a recording of it. I'm excited. It's, it's really feels like a show where if I did it, people would accuse me of ripping off all of these other shows that are like either currently on Broadway or have come out in the last few years. Um, but you know, I got the receipts and rewrite was 2008, 2008, um, AJ Shively, Lorinda Lisitsa, Nick Blamar, Abidia Farah, Lauren Marcus, Jason Smoochies Williams directed by John Simpkins.

Um, yeah, it's crazy that there's so much, there is a sequence from rewrite on YouTube that I feel like there'd be more chill fans found and like they are obsessed with. So you can watch it on YouTube kids. You can watch.

[8:44] Joe Iconis: Yeah. The rewrite slime.

[8:50] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: I wish there was a whole rewrite slime. Is there not?

[8:53] Joe Iconis: No. Oh, wow. No, it's just those. And those, the, the sections that rewrite that are on YouTube, I might be wrong about this, but I think I'm correct. I believe that I believe that Mr. Marcus, Lauren's dad.

[9:07] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah. He did a great job. It looked good to me.

[9:09] Joe Iconis: Yeah. Wow. I believe. Okay.

[9:11] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah. Rewrite. Rewrite. This is not about rewrite though.

[9:13] Joe Iconis: No, but the song, but the song is, it really is like, it feels like it's, it feels like it's part of that show without being part of that show.

[9:18] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah.

[9:23] Joe Iconis: That was such a great concert when my first real Joy Connors Finley concert and you did the song and I believe there was like, there was some action in the audience. Like it was a whole, there was an acting portion of the concert.

[9:32] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: There was an acting portion. So yeah. So the name of the show is Mama Cut Me Deeper. And it was, um, it was part of a series that Ryan Scott Oliver was doing. And I, I, you know, I, at the time I was doing so many concerts, so many Iconis and Finley concerts, I was kind of like, Oh, this one, I want to make this one like a little bit different. I want to sort of impose more of a theatrical structure on, on this. And the, and the, the kind of conceit of it was like, we would start it as if it's like every other concert, and then have these moments of unexpected theatricality. And, and really, it's in a strange way, that concert was like a bit of a prototype for the Christmas show. Because the, you know, the way the Christmas show kind of operates is like, we sort of pretend like it's a, it's a concert, like every other concert, and then it becomes clear that it's a show, that it's like a fully scripted show with moments of very intense theatricality. So yeah, so Mama Cut Me Deeper was like the first time I kind of like dabbled in that, really.

[10:41] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah. Oh, I never thought of that.

[10:45] Joe Iconis: Yeah. But I mean, just, you know, while we're like, while we're in it. So at the time, I was dating Lauren Marcus, but at the time we did Mama Cut Me Deeper. And I thought it would be so funny to have a moment in the show where she and I, she was in the audience, and we did like a question and answer thing. So people could write down a question. And then they come up to microphone and ask me or anyone in the cast a question. And, and so some of them are real. And then some of them I wrote the things that the person was going to ask. And I and I remember I had one where someone like, accused me of stealing a song or like, it was so I was really like, like a very like Andy Kaufman, like performance art thing where it was like, they weren't even funny.

Like someone one was like angry at me. And it's like, you're an asshole, Joe Iconis, like stormed out. And but then with the Lauren one, she and I wonder, I don't remember the setup, but it might have been because of the song. It might have been because of the song. I won't write about you, Emily. So then Lauren came up to a microphone and picked a fight with me, right? And it was like, like, who's that song about? I think that's what it was. And, and we had this fight. And then we broke up at the show. Yeah, which was like a really great, funny idea until we actually broke up in real life. Two months later. And then it felt like that was like, what am I doing? But also like, like, I literally did that.

And that's what the end is like that. That's what it's about. Like, even as I'm saying it, it's so embarrassing, where it's like, I literally wrote Breaking Up with my girlfriend at the time, into the show, into the show, and then did it. But then we got back together. And now we're married.

[12:28] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah, you were like 27. This was like, bad.

[12:35] Joe Iconis: Yeah, terrible, just like cartoon writer behavior. I do have a bootleg of it. I also it's the first photo that you and I ever took together was a stage door pick after this concert, for lack of a better term.

[12:44] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Oh my God, I didn't realize that was deeper, reacting to your bits that you had. Sorry, not bits, lies are lies. All of my lies.

[12:50] Joe Iconis: No, I'm just kidding. Anything else about the song? I was gonna say it speaks for itself. But obviously it doesn't. Because we've been talking about it for a long time.

[12:58] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah.

[13:01] Joe Iconis: The song.

[13:07] Joe Iconis: Hey, thanks so much for listening or watching to my podcast. Do me a favor and go to wherever you just listen to or watch this thing and subscribe or like or give us a great rating or review and then head to bpn.fm slash album to find out even more information about this podcast. More ways to watch more ways to listen and check out my album album. Thanks so much for hanging out. Album podcast is executive produced by Liz Armstrong, produced by Dori Berenstain, Alan Seals, Kim Garris and the rest of the team at the Broadway Podcast Network. Be sure to visit bpn.fm slash album for both audio and video versions of this podcast and to listen to album.