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[0:00] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Hi, I'm Jennifer Ashley Tepper. And I'm Joe Iconis. And you're listening to the ALBUM PODCAST on the Broadway Podcast Network. This episode is about the song Tightrope Walker, Mountain Climber, Me. And if you couldn't hear it, there were slashes in between each of those three phrases. A song that is one of two that was specifically written by Joe for the album. Tightrope Walker, Mountain Climber, Me actually started its life over 10 years ago at the Beachman Theater on West 42nd Street. And I wrote it in a very early version, performed it and then put it away in a drawer and picked it up again many years later for the album. And this episode goes into the very detailed history of the song and why it took 12 years to actually write it. With great performance notes on the immense work of Molly Hager and also some shout outs to some of the amazing band work on this track. Enjoy this episode.

[1:26] Joe Iconis: The next song we're going to be talking about is Tightrope Walker, Mountain Climber, Me, which is a song that was written explicitly for the album, correct?

[1:35] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: It sure was. And how many songs were written explicitly for the album?

[1:42] Joe Iconis: That would be two. Two songs. A duo of songs. I wrote for this album, the song album, the title track and Tightrope Walker, Mountain Climber, Me.

[1:57] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Did you want to have two specific songs that were written or like how did this song come about?

[2:02] Joe Iconis: My goal when I first decided I was going to do this album was to not write any new songs because I had so many that already existed. It was just like I don't need to like number one is like I don't put the pressure on myself to have to write anything new because it was during the pandemic and I was feeling not terribly inspired. And then also it was just like just worry about recording the songs you already have, man, because you have so many of them like, you know, write new stuff for the next project. But I just couldn't help myself. And so I it was really album. The title track was the one that I set out to write. And then Tightrope Walker, I really wrote for Molly Hager because I I knew I wanted to give her something.

And there just wasn't a song that existed that made very much sense to have her do. And she and she was already doing, you know, Teenage Delinquent with Lauren Marcus, this duet. But it's like I wanted to give her one more thing. And, you know, Molly Hager is such an incredible singer, you know, on on record. She just nobody sounds like her. And I really wanted to, like, give her something that felt like it was, you know, honoring her, her her vocal talents. And, you know, previously she'd sung Broadway Here I Come, which is on which is on the the Jamboree album. And, you know, Broadway Here I Come is like this, you know, ballad. It's like a ballad, ballad, ballad. And so I just was like, I would love to get Hager singing something that felt a little bit more buoyant and like persnickety or something, you know.

And so I was I was I was wondering if there was any song that I had that I just wasn't thinking of. And then I went back to this song that I had tried to write for years that I actually premiered in a very early version at a Beachmen concert in 2012. And the song was was essentially the same the same setup as Tyra Walker Mountain Climber Me. And it had the same first verse, I think the tightrope Walker, don't you fall down now. And it did. So the song in 2012, it was the same idea where the first part was about this tightrope Walker. The second part was about this mountain climber. And it was about these these feats that people do. And then the third part became very internal. And so when I first did it, it's the third part was about like, was about me trying to write a song that would be an opening song for my concert at the Beachmen, you know, and it was one of those tunes where it was like it was it, it kinda was okay, but it there was something about it that just didn't work.

It felt unfinished. And so because of that, I kind of put it away. And I never really, I never really got it back out to, to work on it. And I, after a number of years, I kind of chalked it up to like, okay, this tightrope Walker song, it was a it was a cool idea. And the execution of it just didn't really work. And maybe one day, I'll be able to return to it. And so, you know, then now we're in like, you know, 2021. And I'm thinking about Molly Hager. And I just sort of had a flash of the song. And I was like, Oh, that tightrope Walker song, I wonder if there's anything there. And so I, you know, went on a, the excavation of like, trying to find the the lyrics that I performed that night at the Beachmen.

And I found a, you know, like a crude recording that I had done of the song. And I, you know, coming back to the song, 10 years later, or almost 10 years later, I, I felt like my perspective on myself and, and the business and the world made me think about the content of the song in a totally different way. And I, and I just rewrote it. And it, it, it really, really felt as much as mothers are special felt to me like a collaboration between my like 30 year old self and my, and my, you know, six year old self, tightrope Walker, mountain climber me, felt to me like a collaboration between my, you know, my, my 41 year old self and my 31 year old self.

[6:33] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: I can't wait till you employ this to talk about some revival of your work in 20 years. And you're like my 60 year old self collaborated with my 25 year old.

[6:40] Joe Iconis: Yeah, it's gonna be so good. It's gonna, it's gonna love it. They're gonna love it.

[6:47] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah.

[6:48] Joe Iconis: And so it's the, you know, the more, the more I sort of like got into writing the song, I, it was one of the songs where when I started rewriting it, I didn't know where I was going. And I kept sort of like writing myself into a hole where I loved the idea about like the idea of each verse would be about this different person trying to attempt something that felt superhuman, you know, and, and then the third verse was going to be about, you know, the, the, the artist, the person, you know, singing it, but I just couldn't fully get how they connected or what the, what the payoff was. And then when I kind of stumbled onto this idea of like, Oh, it's actually, it's actually the whole song is just the artist.

And they're, they're just watching YouTube videos. You know, they're just watching YouTube videos of, of Tyra Barker and a mountain climber and, and all these other people. And they're, they're doing that instead of participating in their own life and accomplishing things of their own for, you know, a number of reasons that was like, Oh, that's what this song is. And, um, and that, that kind of opened everything up for me. And then the song sort of became about something that was, that was, you know, different than I thought it was going to be. You know, I thought that I was writing a song that was, that was sort of using Tyra parking and mountain climbing as a metaphor for an artist trying to make a life in the arts. And then I ended up, you know, still writing about how, how hard it is to be an artist trying to make a life in the arts. Um, but in a, in a slightly different way and through a different lens.

[8:29] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: When did you finish writing this song? Like it wasn't, when was it recorded in the process of making the album? And when did you finish writing it?

[8:33] Joe Iconis: It was, it was kind of late. You know, I, I, I wrote it, I wrote it predominantly in, in garden city at my family's house because I started around the holidays. I feel like like around like late 2020, early 2021. And then it was something that it was like kind of half finished hanging over my head for a while. And we started recording and I knew that like, Oh, I have to finish this song. So, you know, so we can record it with the band. I couldn't finish it by the time we had the band recording days. And so then I was just like, I'm just going to finish this in my own time. And then we'll worry about recording it when, when we do. And so this is one of the only ones where we recorded the piano first after we did all the band sessions.

Cause I missed the band sessions cause it was a new song. So we did piano first. Then we had Hager come in to do the vocals over just the piano. And then we added all the other instruments. And you know, because it was recorded that way, it, you know, it has a slightly different, different tone to it, I think than some of the other, the other tunes in a way that feels really appropriate for what the song is. And because we didn't have, you know, years of live performances as a touchstone for what the sound should be and what the orchestration should be. It really felt, this felt the most like, you know, if I was like a singer songwriter, you know, experimenting in a studio because there is no like institutional knowledge of like, Oh, this is how the song was originally created.

And what it typically sounded like. So we sort of had to make it up on the spot and let the song and really Molly's vocal kind of dictate the other instruments and the sound. And, and, um, that's, I think why it's kind of so specific and, and, um, you know, Gerard, uh, canonical play drums on it. And, uh, and, uh, Dennis Michael Keefe did stand up bass on it. And Ian Keggy is playing, uh, a guitar that, that Dan and Dan, Dan and Dan, that's all, all Ian Keggy. And everyone always thinks that that's a, that's a synth, but it's actually a guitar. Um, and then I did some, some additional synth and, um, yeah, I think the song, like it has the sounds that feels both like, like technologically inspired and really analog, you know, it feels like it's both like a throwback and really contemporary, um, which feels appropriate to me for, you know, the, the content of the song itself.

[11:10] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Um, because Molly has performed like, uh, Sheila nail a few times. Did you see this at all as like connected in some ways to that song? Cause I feel like there are certain thematic, like, you know, parallels almost.

[11:23] Joe Iconis: Um, yeah, I mean, I don't, you know, it's funny. Like I, I haven't really made the, the Sheila nail connection, uh, to this song. Um, but I, but I should, because it's there. I mean, certainly, you know, structurally, uh, it's, you know, it's certainly similar. I feel like I definitely went through, like, I go through periods where I'm, I really get obsessed with, with, um, songs that are like told in threes or three parts. Uh, and there's like, there's definitely a few on the album, you know, like, you know, something like try again is like, that's a, that's a three part thing where it's like each verse has its kind of own subject. Um, they're like little sort of triple features. Uh, but yeah, yeah, this, this one, this one, I feel like quite a few are three parts.

Yeah. I just really love that structure. And I think that a song, a song really organically fits into that kind of, you know, three it's, it's, it's a, it's not really a three act structure because it's like sort of different characters. It's like sort of breaking down the song and seeing the, you know, the verse and the chorus as like completely, you know, different, but connected stories. Um, so it's like in this thing, you know, if the, if album itself is this like collection of, you know, short stories set to music, I feel like some of the songs like, like tightrope walker, mountain climber, me are like a collection of short stories in and of themselves, you know, that all, you know, when you put them together, they create this, this larger story.