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

[0:02] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: And I'm Jennifer Ashley Tepper. You're listening to the ALBUM PODCAST, and today we're talking about "Social Worker," which is a song from my musical The Black Suits. This song is sung on the album by Nick Blaemire, who originated the role of Chris in The Black Suits in New York. And you'll get to hear a lot about the journey of this song on this episode.

[0:50] Joe Iconis: "Social Worker" is another song from The Black Suits, but this one wasn't cut. This one is in The Black Suits. It also, you know, we're in a string of songs on the album now that started with track 27, "A Guy That I'd Kind of Be Into," followed by "Joey's Punk Rocker," now "Social Worker," which we'll talk about on this episode. And the next episode is "I Was a Teenage Delinquent." It's like a four-song run on the album of songs that are actually from shows or were cut from shows, all of which are sung on the album by people with kind of a differing history with that show.

[1:20] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah, accurate. Was that purposeful in like kind of planning out the order of the album?

[1:26] Joe Iconis: It was. Yeah, it was. It kind of felt like once we get to the sort of back half of the album, we start to find more songs that are, you know, sort of orphaned from shows. And I feel like the album gets like even more kind of like familial as it reaches its back half where it's like the people's relationships to the songs that they're singing get sort of even more, you know, filled with history and legacy and all that. And then there's more like sort of like shout-along chorus songs. It just feels like there's more people around. And yeah, so it was kind of intentional. And they all just kind of hang together really well in a strange way.

[2:16] Joe Iconis: This one in particular from The Black Suits, "Social Worker," was not cut, still, you know, in The Black Suits. And Nick Blaemire, who sings it, of course, originated this role in the SPF production of The Black Suits.

[2:29] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah. And when I think of the character of Chris in The Black Suits, I do think of Nick. He's my first, the first Chris I think of.

[2:40] Joe Iconis: Yeah, it's such an intensely beautiful, you know, version of this song. And we've been hearing Nick sing it for so long. I feel like, though, there was like a gap in time when Nick did not sing this song and would sing other songs when he was in your concerts. And am I right?

[2:54] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Like, yeah, I feel like there was like a comeback for Nick Blaemire, "Social Worker," and then it made it on this album. It was like we retired it for 10 years, like pop stars do that, right? And then we brought it back.

[3:05] Joe Iconis: It definitely. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it was retired for 10 years. You know, I think it was the thing of like, you know, when Nick first sang it, right, he was at an age where he was playing teenagers and things. Right. And so it kind of felt like, oh, yeah, he's singing this like teenager song. And then it's like, you know, you get a little bit older and then it's kind of like, oh, this guy's not quite, you know, 15 or however, however, you know, the age that he says in the song. And so it's like you want to I feel like you naturally or, you know, for an actor as great as Nick Blaemire, you want to like take a step back maybe from some of like the teenage stuff. And then I think when we sort of, you know, came to it again, it's kind of like, OK, we're far away enough from it now where it feels a little bit less like, oh, why is this guy still playing a teen and a little more like, oh, this guy has some perspective on the teenage experience and can sort of sing it with a new point of view.

[4:09] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: There's a very like special moment for Black Suits fans and like Iconis family insiders in this song where the characters sing something one line about the 18th of September and people call that Black Suits Day and they wish each other a happy Black Suits Day based on, you know, Chris saying that date in this song. So I always think that's kind of a cool moment.

[4:27] Joe Iconis: I love that it's Black Suits Day.

[4:34] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah, maybe one day if The Black Suits ever finds itself in a proper run somewhere, it will coincide with September 18th, Black Suits Day, and maybe there'll be T-shirts or something.

[4:46] Joe Iconis: I hope there will be T-shirts. In fact, the craft of this song I want to talk about and get into because it's very much I feel like it's such a good example, something that you would study in lyric writing and, you know, musical theater writing class because it's written as though this character for this character sing it. It's written for this moment in this musical. It's written for this character of this age. And it's specific in the way that, you know, pushing the glasses up my nose. It's like the thing in Ragtime of mother in "Back to Before" singing about fairy tales because that's that character's vocabulary. Like what exactly does this character read, see, think about? And so this song like is such a great balance of being conversational, feeling like this teenage character is experiencing it real time, and then also like accessing words that they would say to their friends, but really using those words to articulate their situation as they would articulate if they could perfectly. So I don't know. There's just a lot going on in the lyric craft of this song that I think if you're someone who studies lyrics, you could, you know, get excited about.

[5:57] Joe Iconis: Thanks. Thank you for that. Yeah, I, you know, I wrote the song when I was a student at the graduate musical theater writing program and actually. This song. I believe was written in a Bill Finn class where I had to use specific words.

[6:24] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Oh, wow. Good job, Bill.

[6:25] Joe Iconis: I think so. I think so. But. Yeah, but I, you know, I've always like I've always had a real distaste for songs that feel like the characters singing them are using vocabulary that is not their own. I've always really in my songwriting, you know, for theater, tried to put words in the mouths of my characters that feel like words they might actually say or, you know, words or phrases that they have access to. And I think that sometimes, you know, people can't always articulate beautifully what they're feeling, but they can try. I think the amazing thing about musical theater is that even if people don't have the words, the music gives us the information, you know, the music gives us what they're feeling, even if they can't quite sum it up to describe it.

And I think that "Social Worker" was a sort of early song of mine that where I felt like it really clicked what I was trying to do and these ideas that I had about the sort of musical theater I wanted to write and how I wanted to write it. I feel like "Social Worker" is a good it was a successful swipe at that for sure.

[7:44] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: It's also, I think, really special in terms of how The Black Suits is represented on this album because, as you've said, you know, you weren't going to do all the songs from The Black Suits. You weren't going to do "Blue Hair." Hopefully at some point there will be a Black Suits album. But, you know, we've already kind of gone into how Annie Golden singing "Joy's Punk Rocker" carries on a bit of the legacy of The Black Suits. And "Social Worker," which, again, like Nick Blaemire, you know, brought that to life and originated the role of Chris in New York and is so incredible at the intensity of it and all of it. And then it's kind of like a little hint of what's to come when we get the original Black Suits cast at the end of this album singing a song that you'll hear about on a future podcast episode.

But it just feels like it's sort of like, you know, sprinkled in a little bit of the legacy of The Black Suits throughout this album, and that this song kind of helps you point towards the later moment on the album.

[8:40] Joe Iconis: Yeah, for sure. And it's, you know, The Black Suits is such an important piece of my life. You know, it's like The Black Suits was like how anyone in the theater was introduced to me in the first place. It's where I met so many people who have gone on to, you know, become my greatest friends and collaborators.

[9:03] Joe Iconis: I mean, you know, Annie and Lance Rubin and Jason were in the first ever reading of The Black Suits while I was a student. That's how I met all of them. Lauren Marcus did a one-day table read of it. That was the first time I ever spoke to her. I mean, just countless people have sort of come through Black Suits. The story of The Black Suits and its kind of life in New York and beyond, I think, really would be kind of its own podcast, because it was really quite an insane journey that I still feel the repercussions of, or the waves of, or something. So yeah, so it feels appropriate that it is represented on the album as much as it is, and sort of as sprinkled throughout as it is. Yeah, it feels right. And it feels like that's representative of how it functions in my life.

[10:07] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah. And it's also, I mentioned three of the four Black Suits songs on this album. The fourth to come, which we haven't done a podcast about yet, is truly like, you know, one of my favorite, favorite songs you've ever written. So that's to come as well, another song in The Black Suits legacy. I also feel like, you know, people talk about calling card musicals. You know, Black Suits feels like that was yours, like sort of a show where whether it was actually produced or whether it wasn't produced, that was the show that people in the industry got to know that writer through. You know, like Songs for a New World is considered Jason Robert Brown's, and Saturday Night is like, you know, what Stephen Sondheim was shopping around.

So I feel like Black Suits also gets to be part of this legacy of shows like that, where, you know, obviously, like, the dream for The Black Suits has yet to happen, and maybe will happen someday. And, you know, it hasn't been on Broadway, it deserves to be. But it is part of that legacy of like, people know you because of that show. And it's like a show that I think anyone who's touched it is very proud to have been part of that legacy.

[11:06] Joe Iconis: Yeah, there have been so many great people who have touched the show. Like there's been, you know, so many incredible actors who have done productions of Black Suits. And it's kind of, it's kind of wild whenever I it's definitely like the show of mine that's had the most amount of like readings, you know, which is really saying something because you know, I'm actually surprised by that. But yeah, no, it is. It was just like, back in the day, we were just doing readings of it constantly, like constantly, like one day readings, you know, so it's like, which is why it's like, oh, yeah, Oscar Isaac did it once. And, you know, it's like, just like random, you know, very famous people. And Rachel Dratch did it once, the one time Annie couldn't do it.

Like, it's just like, tons of people over the course of years and years and years. And so it's just this bizarre thing where it's like, it's just it's, you know, it's so many people in my life. Krista, I met through her Black Suits audition, you know, that was the first time I ever even saw her and Jason Tan, so many people, so many people. It's incredible.

[12:09] Joe Iconis: Yeah, but, but Social Worker, I'm really thrilled with how it is on this album. And I will say that I think the arrangement of it, like the literal orchestration, you know, it's very sort of synth heavy. I think it's we wanted to do something where it felt like this, it'll sound different than how Social Worker might actually sound on a Black Suits cast album. It's kind of a little more produced than it might be. But I'm really happy with it. I think it's, I think it it's respectful of the intention of the song. For sure.

[12:40] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: It's also you named so many people. It's also, you know, there are musicians who play on this album that I believe played the original Black Suits. And there's also, you know, like, because when Black Suits happened, first with Nick Blaemire, then with Ben Platt playing this role, then with Kobe Getsug playing this role, it changed a little bit, but you're talking about so many readings. And I'm just struck by the fact that like, Social Worker maybe has a few different lyrics than it originally did. But a lot of the songs did not change at all. And we just got to experience different people's versions of them, basically.

[13:16] Joe Iconis: Yeah, I mean, the songs in Black Suits have really stayed the same, for the most part, you know, but but Social Worker, I think, in particular, I feel like, I feel like it's very possible that literally every single lyric of Social Worker has remained the same since the day that I wrote it.

[13:36] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: I think that's true, too. I remember seeing the Black Suits in California during that production and being like, Oh, my God, he changed an A to a the in this song and you being like, Tepper, I changed it because it makes sense for it to be a because this I wrote it when I was, you know, 20. And this is actually the correct participle. Like, there were such like, teeny tiny changes that because, you know, being such a super fan of it, I noticed and I really think you're right. There's no Social Worker changes.

[14:04] Joe Iconis: I also relatedly, when I was mosh pitting to Joey's a punk rocker in my apartment earlier, was like, Oh, I want to read along with the lyrics. And when I googled to find them, I found the official album lyrics. But I also found so many people who wrote out the lyrics on Tumblr and, you know, Instagram, prior to the album coming out, and was just struck by like, you know, Social Worker, Joey's punk rocker, these Black Suits songs had fans from YouTube for so many years before there were official recordings. So I'm just so glad that all four of these Black Suits songs now are recorded officially.

[14:34] Joe Iconis: Yeah, me too. Me too. Hopefully a full album one day. I should I should say just because I'm thinking about it. You know, Carol Hall, the great musical theater writer, who passed away not too long ago. She loved this lyric because she was a judge for the Klee Band Award. And I'd won that award in I think 2007. And she reached out to me and just said how much she loved this particular song. And I always always think about that.

[15:13] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Thank you to the Broadway Podcast Network for letting me hear that story. Because that's like a lost joy kind of story. I've never really...

[15:21] Joe Iconis: Yeah, yeah, I didn't know that. Yeah. And I'm so glad to know that I like I love Carol Hall so much. And, you know, I know we love her Best Little Horror House in Texas songs. But I also am such a fan of like, I played one of her records on, you know, LP on an album the other day. Um, that makes so much sense that she would like this lyric. I love knowing that.

[15:41] Joe Iconis: Yeah, she just loved it. And I remember her saying that when she when she would judge that competition, she didn't want to listen to the music. She just want to read the lyrics first. And just as a as a as a lyric, like as like a poem, she just she really, really responded to it. So if we can plug something other than Joe Iconis, I do want to say listeners like check out Carol Hall, like, man, like that woman wrote such incredible songs. And so many of her songs that I love are actually only on LP still. So yeah, come on streaming services, but you can find some of them on YouTube. And yeah, she's Oh my gosh, so so so truly, truly underappreciated. Carol Hall, even if she only ever wrote whorehouse, like that, that that that score is it's spectacular. It's spectacular. No lies from whorehouse. You just you're not going to hear a better, a better song, better country rock song.

[16:33] Joe Iconis: Yeah, no skip tracks. There's a song of hers that I am completely obsessed with called Sandy, which is from an underappreciated musical that she wrote called to whom it may concern, which was done off Broadway, actually in a church. But there's some called Sandy and I made Shayna Taub sing it in our runs a minute series one. So you can find that version on YouTube, or I think Carol Hall's original version on YouTube as well. I'm just a genius whose songs deserve to be heard more. Yeah.

[16:56] Joe Iconis: Thanks, Carol Hall for this episode of Social Worker. No, but yeah, I love the Social Worker on this album. I think we covered a lot of exciting kind of twists and turns about it.

[17:08] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah, we sure did. Here's to another 20 years of Social Worker.

[17:15] 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.