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[0:00] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Hi, I'm Jennifer Ashley Tepper. And I am Joe Iconis. Today on the podcast, we're going to be talking about a song called Jeff, which is sort of based on true events. It is true events-ish. It's based on true feelings and it's inspired by a place I used to live and some of the things that happened in that place. If you know the person being sung about in this song, please get in touch with us ASAP. And also sorry. So Jeff is part of, I guess, another playlist that folks can make from their album of songs that are a person's name, which is a genre that we love. So this is a song that uniquely was inspired by an actual human kind of.

[0:52] Joe Iconis: Yeah, no, based on a real person, based on real events. And so I lived in this building called Herald Towers on 34th Street. And it was like my first real apartment, not like it was, it was my first real apartment. And the beginning part of my career where I sort of first was, it had come into my own, and was doing the Iconos and Family Shows and was working on Black Suits and Rewrite and Thinks Through and Bloodsong. All of that stuff happened at this apartment. And so the apartment really felt like a central hub for very many years. And that building, it's three separate towers. It used to be an old hotel. At the time, it was actually like a fairly, it was like, it had a nice lobby and the building itself was gross.

And so the towers are very close together. And so my window essentially lined up with the window of the neighboring tower. And in that other window was a woman who was often naked in her apartment. And so I would find myself not, you know, not like binoculars watching, but just sometimes like you couldn't help but notice, you know, in the same way that like somebody else, oh, there's like a bird out the window. It's like, you can't help but notice, oh, there's a naked person right there. And I always thought that that would be a really interesting setup for some kind of song.

[2:37] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: And I think I thought, I initially was like, oh, this is an interesting setup for a song, because that sort of New York thing of like, oh, we're all living on top of each other. And like, oh, my gosh, there's a, you know, a naked woman across the way, feels like the setup for the sort of musical theater song that I hate.

[2:55] Joe Iconis: Like, it feels like it would be the setup for the sort of musical theater song that would be all about like, you know, this guy, like, like getting his jollies, like looking at this naked woman.

[3:04] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: It's funny that you think of it like that. Because as you were saying this, I was like, you know, this is not only so universal, like we all are walking around in New York and seeing strangers out the window doing things we might not if we weren't living somewhere together. But it's also like this was happening in the 20s. Like, you know, it's what I was picturing was like a Greenwich Village review of like,

[3:20] Joe Iconis: oh, yeah, that's fine. Yeah, the Greenwich Village review.

[3:24] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: You were focused on what you didn't want to do with your own song, but that's how I got it.

[3:28] Joe Iconis: Yeah, the actual, you know, the actual experience of it is like, yeah, you know, I love songs about, about, right, you know, I love not songs about, but I just love, you know, the idea of us, of people living in the city and living so close together on top of each other. And I love, you know, apartment buildings, like their apartment buildings themselves are like, you know, they're like containers for short stories, you know, they are. And it's like, like the, you know, the construct of an album is like a thing that holds all of these characters and these stories and these snapshots into lives. I mean, that's an apartment building, you know, and it's like, I love that all of these people are just, you know, they're only separated by a wall, you know, or a window or whatever.

And, you know, a window, looking at a window is so funny, because it is, it's like a, you know, it's like a stage or something. And it's like, it's, it is this, like, it's this, this, this, this portal. And there's something going on over there. And it's really no different than a, you know, than a TV or a film screen or a proscenium.

[4:28] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: So yeah, which is all just to say that all of those ideas and those things were kind of popping around in my brain for a while. And then, and then I wrote this song.

[4:39] Joe Iconis: I'm fairly certain that it's so universal that there's no major sitcom that took place in New York for like at least two seasons that doesn't have this as a plot line.

[4:48] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Oh, yeah. Like, it's on Friends. It's on Seinfeld. It also weirdly, because I like you spent a lot of years in the NYU dorms, and then like, didn't move out and have my own apartment till after graduation. I feel like in this apartment in Herald Towers might have been the first time that I ever really was like, Oh my god, someone's right outside the window. I'm like, we shouldn't be seeing that. And like, I for a while was like, No, I just wanted to be part of the history of the song. So like, I didn't actually see her like, No, I saw that girl walking around naked.

[5:13] Joe Iconis: Yeah, I remember specifically a night when we watched the Chorus Line documentary, right when it came out every little step. And I remember like, looking at me like, Oh, that girl's walking around naked. Yeah, we're just watching Chorus Line documentary. And she became a song. I think it's incredible that whoever this woman is, she's walking around somewhere in New York, probably still and doesn't know that there's a song about her. She has no we could all just have songs about us and not know. That's a, that's a good idea for a song.

[5:40] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: So this song in terms of like performances, who has performed the song over the years?

[5:46] Joe Iconis: So the first time the song was performed, it was at the Beachmen as most of my songs were performed for the first time. And I sang it. I sang it. And then the first time someone who was not me saying it was Jeremy Morse, who's on the album, singing it. And he, I think he sang it for the first time at Barrington. Yeah, we did a concert at Barrington. And I needed another song for Jeremy, he was already doing the song of mine called The Dirty Little Things. And I wanted something else for him. And I was like, Oh, what about that naked, that naked girl song? Maybe he would, you know, he would do something with it. And then he much like Chris, the singing Broadway here, I come for the first time and kind of reinventing what that song was.

I feel like Jeremy reinvented Jeff and really turned it into a song that feels weighty. And you know, I mean, he's just he's an actor. I'm not an actor. I'm you know, I'm like a performer and I can do my own stuff. But Jeremy turned it into this like three act play of the song and gave it this weight. And yeah, and, and, you know, many other great actors have sung this tune. Seth Ellister does an amazing version of it. And many people, Will Roland does an amazing version of it. But yeah, Jeremy was the person who kind of took it from being like a sort of weirdo, obscure tune of mine to, to something that a lot of people, a lot of people know, and I think can really relate to. And it's another song that it's very, very, very literal for, for, you know, 90% of the song, very literal. And then the ending is something that people always ask me about, or whenever people like sing the song in a master class, it's always so fun for me to like ask.

[9:15] Joe Iconis: I guess I thought about this. I do remember you performing it. Um, obviously there's quite a few times where you perform a song first in public and then it goes on to be performed by actors and then maybe also by you sometimes like "Broadway Here I Come" or there's so many examples. Um, are there ever songs where you're like, this is a song that I only really want an actor to perform? I don't want to do this myself for an audience. Like, obviously, there's stuff like "Sheila Nail," which is like, in context, a very, you know, epic production number sung by a young woman. It's like, it doesn't have anything to do with like the type of the song, like a person would sing the song. But is there ever anything where you're like, this is a song I only want an actor to perform?

[9:52] Jeremy Morse: Yeah, oh my gosh, for sure. So many songs, so many songs. And it's actually, it's more the opposite of that, that I think about it. For me, it's less like, oh, this is, this is a song that I'm writing that I only want an actor to perform. And more like, oh, this is a song I'm writing that I could potentially sing.

[10:09] Jeremy Morse: Yeah, you know, it's like that, those are the ones that stick out to me. And like you said, it has nothing to do with the actual, you know, character. That's always been something, you know, in my work that I've always kind of like separated the, the, you know, the attributes of the character or the person who I'm writing about and the person who could potentially interpret that. And so, um, yeah, and so like, "Sheila Nail" is a song that it makes sense for me. Vocally, acting wise, whatever. And I think it's, and I think it, I can communicate the song to an audience in a way that's different than when someone like, you know, Kelly McIntyre performs it. But it works. And other ones just don't, just don't work, you know. And sometimes I'm not sure. And sometimes like, I'll try a tune, like I've sung "Ammonia" a couple times, live, and it's fine. But it's not, it's not the same.

[11:05] Joe Iconis: Right, right.

[11:06] Jeremy Morse: Because, because some, I mean, musical theater, and I'm someone who, you know, I've said it a million times, I love actors. I'm always going to be someone who responds to an actor first. I'm always going to be like excited by an actor who can communicate a lyric with their, you know, with their acting. And then like singing is a second thought to me. Always, always, always.

[11:32] Jeremy Morse: However, you know, it's like a song. And so it's usually better if you can sing. You know, I'm like musicals, I think they tend to be better if the people who populate them can actually sing, which isn't always the case. And so I, you know, I'm fine. But I guess, you know, a song like, "The Actress."

[11:53] Jeremy Morse: The Actress, or, yeah, it's just not, yeah, it's not, not, not for me, you know, and it's like, I think that the, like, the voice, it's a tool, the voice is a tool. And that's just the tool I don't, I don't have, or it's, mine is very specific. So yeah, it's that, it's that, it's that.

[12:11] Joe Iconis: How did you pick the name Jeff? Because it's also like, there are some times where songs are named, like the name of the character sings them that it's in the song, and some that they're not, it's just interesting that it's.

[12:22] Jeremy Morse: Yeah, I feel like most of my, most of my first name songs, most of them, then the character's name isn't in the song. So some of them they are, or the character's name is not the main part of the song. And so the idea behind that is always just that, you know, when you look at lyrics on a page in a musical, for, you know, solo, if you're looking at the lyrics, that the name of the character of the person who's singing it is just the top of the lyric. And so for a song like "Jeff," or "Kevin," or, you know, "Helen Sharp," I love the idea of like, the title is just the name of that character. That's all you need, just that, you know, that heading. And I think that I picked the name Jeff, because it just sounded like a, like a nothing special name.

You know, it's like, there is nothing remarkable about this man. There's nothing, you know, there's nothing like, I felt like he was a, that he was an incredibly unspecial dude. You know, where you like, you would never like look twice at him. And I like that idea of just like, this man, who's the world's, you know, most sort of like, beige guy, losing his mind in his apartment, and going through this whole journey, and breaking into someone else's apartment, and, and falling out the wagon, and then falling out the window.

[13:55] Joe Iconis: This might be our only chance to do this. So I don't know if you want to, but I want to know who lives in that apartment now. And I feel like putting this out there in the world might be our only chance. But there's no bad thing that can happen from you saying an apartment you used to live in. What was your apartment number?

[14:07] Jeremy Morse: Oh, yeah, it was 10B2. If you live in 10B2, which now I remember. 10B2. Yeah. Let us know. I don't know what will happen. But I'm just curious.

[14:20] Joe Iconis: Yeah. Wouldn't it be amazing if it was the girl? How would that happen? I don't know. She was like, oh, I was always looking at that apartment because I admired the drapes in that apartment. Like I wanted to live there.

[14:30] Jeremy Morse: Yeah. Yeah. That apartment. Yeah. 10B2. 10B2. Let us know.

[14:37] Joe Iconis: Jeff.

[14:41] 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/albums to find out even more information about this podcast, more ways to watch, more ways to listen and check out my album.

[15:03] Joe Iconis: 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/albums for both audio and video versions of this podcast and to listen to the album.