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[0:00] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Hi, I'm Jennifer Ashley Tepper.

[0:12] Joe Iconis: And I'm Joe Iconis.

[0:13] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: And you're listening to ALBUM PODCAST on the Broadway Podcast Network.

[0:18] Joe Iconis: This episode is about a special song called Velociraptor as gloriously performed by Liz Lark Brown.

[0:24] Joe Iconis: And the origin story of Velociraptor is a pretty good one. I did not intend to write a song that was about what this song is about. But I'm really happy that I did. This episode, we talk about all of the Velociraptors that we've known and loved and how they led to this great song. Velociraptor, a creature song, a New York City song, a song written on a specific actor, Elaine Stritch style.

[0:58] Joe Iconis: I believe Liz Lark Brown has made this song such a trademark and her own solo that she's just known for everywhere. I've seen her get stopped at 54 Below and complimented on this, not during a Joe Iconis and family show. So this has really become the Liz Lark Brown masterwork.

[1:24] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: What first inspired you to write Velociraptor?

[1:28] Joe Iconis: I wrote Velociraptor for a concert that we were doing at the Beachmen. I wrote it specifically for Liz Lark Brown. And before I wrote the song, Liz said to me, because I told her I was going to write a song for her, she said, I just have a request. If you're writing a song for me, I always, you know, get asked to sing these songs, where I'm like a sad woman who is, you know, like pining after someone and is feeling like, you know, why doesn't anybody love me and I'm just like sad and wistful and can you just write me something that's not that? And I was like, Sure, sure, sure. Yeah, no, no problem. I'll do that.

[2:16] Joe Iconis: So I started writing this song. And I, you know, once I got into it, I was like, Oh, I'm like, kind of writing this song where it's like this creature who doesn't feel like they fit in. It's like, it was exactly like everything that Liz asked me not to write is what I wrote. However, I just wrote it from the point of view of a Velociraptor, a human woman.

[2:46] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: If she hadn't said that, do you think the songwriting would have gone the same way?

[2:50] Joe Iconis: I honestly don't know. And I think because she told me not what to do, because she told me what not to do, I felt like there was something in me that was like, that's exactly what I'm gonna do. But I'm gonna do it different than you think I will, you know, it was like that, like, I'll show you, which I wasn't with that makes it sound like I was like writing the song out of spite. And it was so the opposite. It was a very sort of, you know, organic thing. So like how I arrived at Velociraptor. But yeah, I totally because she said that, that's, that's, you know, how that song turned out.

[3:24] Joe Iconis: But you know, like Velociraptor, and I always use this as an example, but Velociraptor was a title that I had had for years and years and years and years and years. And for the longest time, there was just a word doc on my computer that only said in quotation marks, Velociraptor, good title for something. That's all it said. And it was like, for years, and I thought about it so much. And I was like, Oh, is Velociraptor is that the title of shows that, you know, what is that? And I tried to write songs called Velociraptor many times leading up to the creation of Velociraptor as we know it. And then it was like, it was just something about Liz, giving me that, you know, my marching orders to write a song that wasn't about a sad creature who didn't fit in and was pining after things that I was like, Oh, that's what this Velociraptor is going to be doing in the song.

[4:18] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: So there's an alternate universe where you never wrote this song, but the album was called Velociraptor because you were just looking for something to title Velociraptor.

[4:22] Joe Iconis: Yeah, honestly, yeah, yeah, Velociraptor is not forever. Do you remember when you were like, this is a great title for a song, any of the other kind of ideas you had? Were they like songs originally written for like women? Were they like similar themed for the title Velociraptor?

[4:37] Joe Iconis: Yeah, like when you were like, I tried to write songs a couple times, it didn't quite happen. Like, was it always sort of this gist?

[4:41] Joe Iconis: They weren't. No, I can tell you that my impulse was like a rock song or something because, you know, Velociraptor, I feel like when we think of that word, it's a very sort of like aggressive kind of, you know, confrontational image that we get of, you know, of a Velociraptor dinosaur. And so I kept, I think, trying to go the more obvious route of writing a song that was about like anger or about, you know, survival or something. And I can't remember any specific thing I might have written, but I know, you know, at the time that I wrote it, like 2010, 2011, I was probably, you know, likening a Velociraptor to an artist, to a writer, to someone who was like trying to make a career in the arts and, you know, fighting for that.

[5:46] Joe Iconis: And it was that was I was probably running into, you know, a lot of dead ends with that metaphor. And so then it was like, you know, to sort of stumble into this idea of like, oh, I'm gonna like, you know, write this song about this creature who doesn't fit in, who doesn't understand why, you know, she doesn't fit in, and write it as if it was like a cabaret song that you could have heard at, you know, at a club in like 1967 or something. I wanted to write something that really felt like a throwback, like a sort of throwback comedy song. That's the only difference is that it's a literal dinosaur who's singing it.

[6:25] Joe Iconis: And I'm not a person. I never thought of this till now. But I really hope people use lyrics from this song in their like, Tinder profiles. I feel like this would be the perfect like, let's excerpt this from my dating app.

[6:37] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah. I mean, I'm not up on the dating apps. But yeah, I think it's like, there's lots of good, lots of good stuff in there. It just feels very relatable. Like when you're talking to your friend, and they're describing their life as like, cruising Midtown West. It's like, yeah, this is this is relatable for people that are on dating apps.

[7:00] Joe Iconis: Yeah. And you know, so many people like a weird amount of people, especially in the last few years have approached me about the song and about how much the song means to them, which makes me so happy, because I feel like the first few years of the song's existence, you know, people who are not Liz Lark Brown, who would, you know, encounter it, you know, because the sheet music's for sale, so like people would sing it, and they would always kind of treat it like a straight up comedy song, you know, like they would always kind of treat it as like, oh, it's so silly that this dinosaur is walking around the city and trying to date men. And for me, it's, you know, I do think the song is funny. I, when I wrote it, and still, I just feel like it's, you know, it's really it's like the song's not trying to be funny.

It's the song's trying to be honest about this, this feeling that this creature has that they're just like, not they are the way that they feel in their body and the way that their body moves about the world. They feel different from everyone around them. And they don't fully know why and they don't fully know what to do about it. They just feel not connected to the environment and not of the environment.

[8:16] Joe Iconis: And to me, that's something that feels really relatable. That's something that isn't a funny thing. And so I really noticed like, recently that people are sort of connecting with that song in a sort of deeper way, which I love because that was always the intention.

[8:38] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah, and I think the amazing thing about Liz's performance is that it like it checks all the boxes where it's it, you know, we get the humor of it and we get the like throwback 1960s, you know, cabaret song ness of it. But we also get the fact that like, this is a real living breathing creature who's like actually going through some really hard stuff. And all those things exist together in one.

[9:09] Joe Iconis: I love that usually when Liz performs this, she's wearing like a nice like cabaret dress. Like I've never I don't think seen her like, you know, other songs. My best friend's a skeleton works when you perform it in a skeleton costume, like some of these songs about creatures. But Velociraptor is always performed in like, you know, a classy slip dress. And I think there's something to that that adds to the song, although someday Liz will perform it in a costume and it'll be interesting. I will say like, I have a dream of her doing this at the song being performed at the American Museum of Natural History in like one of their concerts. I feel like that would be incredible.

[9:42] Joe Iconis: I think that will be the like that will be the ultimate that will be the peak for the song. I feel like other songs of mine, like the songs themselves, their dreams would be like, you know, to be performed on the Kennedy Center Honors or on the Tony Awards or at the White House or something. But Velociraptor's dream is definitely at the museum for sure.

[10:03] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: One day, yeah, you know, a lot of people ask me about the middle section of the song where the Velociraptor just kind of speaks and clicks and whistles and roars. And I, you know, the thing that I always say when I'm working with someone on the song is that, you know, I think that that bridge is that's, you know, the Velociraptor's like native tongue, you know, that's how she would be speaking if no one else was around. And the language, the vocabulary that she's using is, you know, she's using. She's speaking in English and she's using this vocabulary because that's how everyone else around her is communicating. And so she's like, she's, you know, she's wearing this vocabulary in an effort to assimilate.

[10:57] Joe Iconis: And that middle section, it's, you know, she gets to a place where she just sort of lets herself freely express herself without having to like, you know, to shine it on. And so that middle section, I think, exists because it's this moment where she's just like so sick of like trying to pretend that she's just like, you know, let's let's it rip. And then she's back to it and then she's back to the words again.

[11:31] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: But that totally makes sense. But so people have asked you, like, can you translate this Velociraptor in for me? Because dramaturgically, they want to know what she's saying.

[11:38] Joe Iconis: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my God. All the time. Yeah. They're like, what is people are always like, what is what does that mean? What is she trying to say? And then sometimes very smart people say, well, like if she's speaking like that there, why is she saying words in the rest of the song? But I mean, that's the you know, that's the answer.

[12:06] Joe Iconis: It would be funny if like it was a version where she was just doing her version of like nonsense syllables of like 1960s do I did to do round round. But that was the Velociraptor version. I know it's not that. But yeah, but like kind of that's the idea.

[12:12] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah. Yeah.

[12:14] Joe Iconis: She's timeless.

[12:17] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Mm hmm. Timeless to me.

[12:19] Joe Iconis: The Velociraptor hairspray tie in.

[12:24] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: 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 dot FM slash album to find out even more information about this podcast.

[12:41] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: More ways to watch, more ways to listen and check out my album album. Thanks so much for hanging out.

[12:48] Joe Iconis: 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 dot FM slash album for both audio and video versions of this podcast and to listen to album.

[13:05] Joe Iconis: Velociraptor.