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mrjoeiconis-blog · 1 year

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From the Archive: BE MORE CHILL TRACK BY TRACK May 16, 2018: Hey, hi, hello. My name is Joe Iconis. I’m a writer and performer and, most notably, the person to blame for the music and lyrics of Be More Chill. I wrote the show, a musical adaptation of Ned Vizzini’s novel, with Joe Tracz and it premiered in a production at Two River Theater in New Jersey in 2015. A cast album was made and was enjoyed by the amount of people you’d expect to enjoy a cast album of a musical that played for six weeks in New Jersey. Then suddenly and without warning, after two years of release, people, in particular young people, discovered the show and became obsessed. One hundred million streams of our cast album later, the show made its Off-Broadway debut in summer 2018 at the Pershing Square Signature Center on 42nd Street, before transferring to Broadway!

Before we launch into the madness of a track by track breakdown of the Be More Chill OCR, let’s talk about the Be More Chill score itself, shall we?

The first thing that excited me about adapting Ned Vizzini’s gorgeous book into a musical was the opportunity to write about the issues teenagers face through a sci-fi lens. I’ve written plenty of teens before. I love that they wear their emotions on their sleeve but don’t always have the vocabulary to properly articulate those emotions. But here was an opportunity to not only delve into the minds of young people, but to tap into some of my favorite genre influences: monster movies of the 1950’s, Sci-Fi/Horror flicks of the 70’s and 80’s, and Teen Comedies of the 80’s and 90’s. In short: John Hughes (Sixteen Candles, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) meets John Carpenter (Halloween, The Thing.)

Be More Chill is a classic musical comedy in disguise. It reeks of technology and is filthy with moderns sounds, problems, references, etc. But make no mistake about it: The show is as traditional as they come. Well, sort of.

The songs themselves are total showtunes; it’s the orchestrations that place us firmly in the genre world.

As I’d write the tunes on piano, I’d dream about what they’d sound like when given the full 80’s sci-fi treatment, and Charlie Rosen’s orchestrations satisfied my darkest, quirkiest musical fantasies. We worked closely on the specific sounds of this score. Our holy grail (especially when it came to underscore) was John Carpenter film scores. John Carpenter has directed countless horror classics, but he’s also famous for writing his own film scores. He was an electronic music pioneer and his work is immediately recognizable.

Other sonic influences included Oingo Boingo, Bernard Herrmann, Weezer, Tangerine Dream, The Offspring, and contemporary musicians with a retro flair like Sky Ferreira, Kavinsky, and Johnny Jewel.

“Jeremy’s Theme” Written at Joe’s 16th Street Apartment 2012/Two River Theater Library, during rehearsals 2015 I’ve always thought of this as the music that would accompany the production logos in a horror movie. The “American International Pictures presents… A Roger Corman picture…” cards. It immediately places the audience in an unsettled place. Something bad is going to happen and that bad thing is going to be otherworldly.

We’re actually cramming a lot of information into 30 seconds. Up top you’re getting the beep-bop-boop of computer circuitry. It’s the technological equivalent of a scary thunder storm in a creature feature. Next, our first synth line arrives. Hello, synth. Nice to meet you. Won’t you please overstay your welcome for the next two and a half hours? I drove Charlie slightly crazy in regards to the specificity of keyboard sounds I was looking for as I desperately wanted to be faithful to the Carpenter/Alan Howarth collaborations that inspired much of the score.

The track culminates with The Squip theme, played gloriously on Theremin by Danny Jonokuchi. The Theremin is a vintage electronic instrument played by the Thereminist moving his hands through the air to control pitch and volume. That instrument was used most often in 1950s sci-fi movies like The Day The Earth Stood Still, usually to accompany the visual of an alien presence.

We’re one of the only musicals to ever use a Theremin in its orchestration. Be More Chill is a show about kids obsessed with all things outdated and unloved and the show itself is obsessed with all things outdated and unloved! How very! (Heathers reference.)

“More Than Survive” Written in Joe’s 16th Street Apartment, 2012 After our eerie mini-overture, the audience expects to be confronted by a demon or a triffid or worse. Instead, we jump cut to the shockingly mundane sight of an average high school kid staring at his computer in his undies. I’m proud that the first event in the musical is our leading man being caught with his pants down. It establishes Jeremy us a decidedly unheroic hero and also kick-starts a theme of pantlessness that continues throughout the entire show.

The “C-c-c-c’mon” motif was one I came up with early on in writing the song. I wanted a repeated phrase that expressed the frustration of wanting things to move at an accelerated speed, and one that could also sound like the chorus of a pop song. I love immediately subverting the expectation of what Jeremy’s waiting for to load—“Is it a major homework assignment? A college application?” Nope, it’s porn! That moment establishes the spirit of Be More Chill right off the bat. It also makes for awkward car rides when kids listen to the album in the car with their parents. Sorry, not sorry.

In the actual show there are even more mini-scenes between Jeremy and the people in his life. I wanted this whole opening to feel cinematic and sweeping and place Jeremy in the center of a world that is swirling around him. Kind of like the “Head Over Heels” sequence in Donnie Darko.

The first person who connects with Jeremy enough to actually earn sung musical material is Michael. Michael brings his own music with him because he’s confident and, quite literally, marches to the beat of his own drummer.

Will Connolly’s voice just kills me on the album. He sounds like the love child of Michael Jackson and Billie Jo Armstrong.

Notice the little synth line underneath the lockers scene with Chloe, Brooke, and Jenna. It’s a quote of “Rich Set a Fire.” The little synth line underneath the first part of Michael’s scene? “Michael in the Bathroom.” The guitar line in the second part? “The Pants Song.” That audience has subconsciously heard so many melodies from the show before the first number is even over! Underscore is sneaky.

It should be noted that “More Than Survive” was the first song I wrote for the show. After sending it to Joe Tracz, I sent it to Jennifer Ashley Tepper, who is now one of our producers of Be More ChillOff-Broadway. She wrote back:

“I tried to listen to the Be More Chill song, got 60 seconds in, and got furious at everyone for all of the noise/ questions/ distractions at work... so I'm gonna go download these on my phone and sit outside or hide in the bathroom to listen. BRB!!!”

Hiding in the bathroom. That’s so Be More Chill.

“I Love Play Rehearsal” Written in Joe’s 47th Street Apartment, 2013 After hearing so much about her in the opening, this is the first time we actually get to hear from Christine herself. Charlie and I wanted her song to sound different from the angular computerized vibe of the rest of the score. Enter recorders!

Everyone associates recorders with elementary school music class and/or Renaissance fairs. That felt correct for Christine, who is warm, strange, confident, free-spirited, and literally dresses like an authentic Renaissance Princess at the Halloween Party in Act II! So much of Stephanie Hsu’s performance informed the song itself—she’s a brilliant actor and a soulful singer and it’s impossible to not conjure up images of her live performance when listening to her on the album.

The placement of this song moved around a whole bunch during our writing process and the eureka moment was realizing that the song’s not literally about play rehearsal. It’s a song about passion and freedom. It’s not the typical way to be introduced to a leading lady in a musical, which makes it perfect for Christine and for Be More Chill, in general.

The original second song in the show was an internal duet for Jeremy and Christine called “Touching My Hand.” It was about Jeremy pining for Christine and Christine wondering if she should go on a date with Jake. There was some nice character material for Jeremy, but it gave us information we already knew and it made the show feel like some cute romantic comedy. It also felt antithetical to the character to have Christine’s first real song moment be about a guy. That’s not her and we needed to respect that.

Note that the original full title of this song was “Why I Love Play Rehearsal By Christine Canigula,” which is very fussy and precious and I loved it but it’s too cumbersome and I knew that someone would inevitably make me change it so I just did it myself. (RIP Fussy, Too-Long Title That Joe Loved.)

“The Squip Song” Written at Joe’s 16th Street Apartment, 2012 It begins as a retro-sounding “cool kid in a ’90s movie” rock song (with some Oingo Boingo horns added in for good measure) and then turns full blown sci-fi/horror fantasia. And it all goes down in a bathroom. There are a lot of bathrooms in this musical.

This song is the first time we hear the “It’s From Japan…” refrain, which repeats ten million times over the course of the show. Gerard Canonico is a powerhouse of the highest order and he turned this song from a serviceable musicalized scene into a show stopper. The optional octave up jump on the second “It’s From Japan” is all Canonico’s doing. We had to add the big ending (including a toilet flush on the final button) just because it was so clear people wanted to clap after Gerard finished doing his thing.

Props to Josh Plotner on the vocoder, yet another retro instrument that’s rarely used in theater orchestration. It’s what makes the weird digitized voice sound. People usually think that it’s a mic effect but it’s all done live! Old school, baby.

For those who care: Gerard’s pronunciation of the word “correctly” is a nod to The Shining’s scary bathroom encounter between Jack Torrence and Delbert Grady.

“Two-Player Game” Written at Joe’s 47th Street Apartment, 2013/Rewritten during rehearsals at Ripley Grier Studios, 2015 I enjoy writing songs where characters have to work through some major personal issue while doing an unrelated task. (Ahem, “The Answer.” Ahem, “Ammonia.”)

Here, the boys talk about self-worth and the desire to be somebody else while playing a video game. Of course, the video game is actually telegraphing the journey they are about to go on but to Michael and Jeremy it’s just another nothing-special hang sesh. When I wrote that little 8-Bit “Apocalypse of the Damned” theme that threads through the song, I was inspired by being a kid and plunking out the melodies to grandiose John Williams orchestral scores on my Casio.

The original version of this song was titled “Level Up” and it did a lot of what “Two-Player Game” does, just not as well. It also sounded exactly like a particular song by The Clash and once I realized how similar the two songs were, “Level Up”s days were numbered.

It should be noted that I am the world’s biggest stickler when it comes to rhyme. I’m super old-school in that I believe things either rhyme or they don’t; none of that “half rhyme” garbage. I think rhyme makes theatre songs easier to understand and actually heightens the dramatic intention of the lyric. Disgustingly, “Two-Player Game” contains an accidental fake rhyme. By the time I realized, it was too late to change the rhyme. Every time I hear it, I cringe, and you can pay me a million dollars but I won’t tell you what it is.

“The Squip Enters” The grand entrance of our antagonist: The Squip. It was important to our radiantly talented director Stephen Brackett that The Squip’s entrance feel larger than life. His staging of the moment was dazzling, and I needed to write a cue that rose to that occasion. The Squip enters to music that is tastelessly huge, appropriately so.

It should be noted that I wrote The Squip with Eric William Morris in mind and I’m so glad his iconic performance of the role is preserved forever and ever on the album.

“Be More Chill – Part 1” Written in Joe’s 47th Street Apartment, 2013 I had a lot of trouble figuring out the musical style of The Squip. First I went down a computer-y road, but that felt too in line with the sound of the rest of the show. Then I tried a sort of 1950’s Dick Dale Surf Rock take. (Mike Rosengarten’s nasty, relentless guitar line is a remnant of that version of the song.)

Eventually, I settled into what currently exists. There’s a timeless cool, laid-back quality to The Squip’s music. It’s approachable and sexy but never too scary or affronting. This is seduction music. The moments where the vocoder is adding the spooky digitized element the melody line (“don’t freak out and don’t resist…”) is where The Squip’s true colors are peeking through the façade just a little bit. By the time we get to “The Play” he’s given up on trying to seduce and is just trying to conquer, so his music sounds different.

The whole “Be More Chill” section is really just a classic “make-over montage” sequence (it’s even set at The Mall!) so I took some musical inspiration from make-over and training sequences as well. Think Karate Kid, Dirty Dancing, The Breakfast Club.

A lot of people are bothered by the harshness of the “everything about you makes me want to die” line. To me, that’s the whole point of the show. The tone may be comedic, but the characters in Be More Chill are actual teenagers struggling with actual problems. I don’t think being depressed or suicidal is a laughing matter, but I do think sometimes people feel like there is a voice inside their head telling them to hurt themselves. It would be insulting and untruthful to pretend that a kid like Jeremy wasn’t struggling with these thoughts.

The humor, the fantasy, and the harsh reality co-exist in every moment of the show. And, in my experience, in every moment in life. It’s about learning how to deal with it and knowing which of the many voices in your head you’re supposed to listen to. But we’re not at that particular song yet.

“Do You Wanna Ride?” Written in [memory temporarily scrambled] I have no memory of writing this mini-song, it just happened. It didn’t exist and then it did. Look, I made a spicy song about stopping for frozen yogurt where there never was a spicy song about stopping for frozen yogurt.

Lauren Marcus’s interpretation is a gift from the theatre gods and is a testimony to her brilliance as an actor, singer, comedian and all-around magic person. The yodel, the riff at the end, all Marcus. She’s the Goldie Hawn of musical theater.

“Be More Chill – Part 2” When I stumbled upon the idea of the “Everything about you is going to be wonderful” section, that’s when the song really clicked for me. After being berated for all the things he isn’t, Jeremy finally gets teased with the promise of unadulterated love and adoration. It’s the false promise of spam emails about penis enlargement pills or the aspirational Instagram accounts of the Kardashians. The idea of: “If you just do This, everything will be Perfect.” The musical equivalent of “Make America Great Again.” Cheerful, optimistic, secretly sinister. The writing and performance make me think that it’s a theme song for an awful 1980s sitcom that never existed in the first place. “Everybody Loves Squips!” maybe.

Props to Dan McMillan for aggressively hitting that gong at the end for a big finish.

“More Than Survive” (Reprise) Restart! The show essentially begins again and we fast forward through another day at school, this time with notes and instructions from Mr. Super Quantum Unit Intel Processor himself.

The chorus goes into a reggae feel for a few measures at one point. The idea there is that sometimes things are the same but feel a little different and you can’t quite put your finger on why. The familiar feels unsettling. Reggae is a style of music associated with Michael, so I like thinking that maybe Jeremy has Michael on his mind in that one instant before Squip wipes the slate clean.

“A Guy That I’d Kinda Be Into” Written in Ripley-Grier Studios 2015, during rehearsal This was the last song I wrote for the show. I wrote it very quickly on a rehearsal break after not being able to nail this moment for years. I love that Christine gets this unexpected jangly little rock song as her second big number.

Have you ever noticed how the female lead in musicals is often saddled with the most drag-ass songs? Part of my mission in musical theater is to never subject my female lead to an unmotivated obligatory ballad.

It should be noted that Christine ends both this tune and “I Love Play Rehearsal” with an unexpected non-rhyme. Christine is a character who subverts our expectations of her at every turn. Gosh, I like her.

“The Squip Lurks” I’m eternally grateful we got to include this taste of underscore on the album. I’ve heard rumors that this plays in theme parks during the Halloween season. That’s the highest honor I could ever receive.

The track name is a reference to “The Shape Lurks” cue from the Halloween soundtrack. And, yes, “Jeremy’s Theme” is also a nod to “Laurie’s Theme.”

“Upgrade” Written at a Two River Theater writing retreat, 2014 // Re-written at Ripley Grier Studios 2015, during rehearsal

The line “this is my favorite place behind the school” is one of Joe Tracz’s great creations, delivered incomparably by Ms. Marcus. I don’t know why I find it so funny but I laugh every time I hear it. I think it reveals so much about Brooke.

The notes of “Upgrade-upgrade-upgrade” in the first part of the song are the same notes as the pattern that begins “More Than Survive.” They are just a little scrambled up. The melody of “I already know what it’s like to be the loser” is the “Apocalypse of the Damned” theme song melody.

This song is notable as the first time the character of Jake sings in the show. Poor Jakey D. This is the only musical in history where the classically good-looking Prince Charming-type gets the least amount to sing. I still like the guy, though. It’s another testament to the brilliant Joe Tracz that a character like Jake, who could’ve been a one-dimensional asshole jock, is actually a kind, well-meaning popular kid. Dude can’t help that he’s pretty! Jake Boyd’s vocals are so sensitive and approachable and kind of remind me of Mr. Peanut Butter from Bojack Horseman.

The final chorus of the song is the same melody but we lose the swing and make it more of a driving rock. Damn. Things got not cute quick.

This song used to end with a long minor version of the “Na Na Na” theme from “More Than Survive.” It was very musically exciting and too long and did nothing to service the story and was cut.

“Halloween” Written at a Two River Theater writing retreat 2014 The Halloween Party is a mammoth sequence that begins Act II and I knew it needed its own theme song. I wanted to write a chorus that sounded like what it feels like to be shoved around in loud, hot, crowded room. The sort of song that would send anyone with social anxiety into a full-blown panic attack.

The Suburban Halloween Party is such a hallmark of the movies myself and my collaborators were inspired by and we endeavored to do those films justice and make the greatest Halloween party blowout sequence in musical theater history. Please note that when we wrote the show, there weren’t actually any other musicals with Halloween Party blowout sequences, so just by existing, we were automatically the greatest. Now we’ve got some competition. How fetch! (Mean Girlsreference.)

There’s an element of group awareness in the “Halloween” lyric. “Cuz a Halloween party’s a rad excuse to put your body through mad abuse.” That’s because we’re experiencing the party through Jeremy. This is his first big social event and as much as he’s trying to be part of it, he’s still on the outside. He’s got a detachment that allows for a bit of perspective.

The dance break was arranged by Broadway legend Rob Berman! He based the melody line on a part of “Halloween” that was subsequently cut. It’s the “who’s got the peach Schnapps?!” section. I often add it back in when I perform the song in concert.

Props to Amanda Ruzza’s propulsive bass line! Crank it up, crank it up!

“Do You Wanna Hang?” “Do You Wanna Ride?” strikes back! With new lyrics relating to Chloe’s Sexy Baby costume! Katie Carlson is yet another four-leaf clover in our incredible cast of musical theater misfits. Chloe is hilarious and monstrous without ever being a cartoon. She’s trying her best, just like everyone else, she just has… questionable taste. I’m so enamored with the way Katie does the final “Do you wanna stop?!” chorus. I think in that moment Chloe is trying so hard to be Britney Spears circa 1998. Which would almost work if she wasn’t literally dressed as an infant. There’s something charming and a little sad and completely hilarious about it to me.

We never actually address the fact that Chloe is dressed as a baby (well, a “sexy baby”) in the lyric. In two million years all that will be left of this world will be a fat cockroach, a copy of the Be More ChillOCR, and a few confused aliens wondering what she means by “get inside my diaper, boy.”

“Michael in the Bathroom” Written at Joe’s 43rd Street Apartment, 2014 Many times as a kid and even more times as an adult, I’ve fled to the bathroom to escape a social situation. It feels like one of those no-big-deal things that everyone does and those are the exact sort of scenarios I’m drawn to when writing musical theater.

I’ve always been partial to the “Best Friend” characters. I want to know more about them and never understand why they exist only in the context of the lead character. In every show I’ve written I’ve imagined that when a secondary character leaves the stage, they’re walking into another show where they’re the lead. “Michael in the Bathroom” is the moment when the ultimate sidekick is allowed to take center stage and be the star of someone else’s show. I hope it makes the audience think about all the other secondary characters in the show like Chloe or Rich. They’ve probably all had their own “Michael in the Bathroom” moments over the course of the show, we just don’t get to see them. Oh how I long to write “Jenna in Her Bedroom.” Or “Brooke in the Alley Next to Pinkberry.” Maybe for the sequel.

George Salazar’s performance of the song is magic. It’s one of those miracle moments when a song and a performer connect in a specific way. The music and lyrics are a road map, but there are so many people who make the journey of a song like this happen. It all came together through a collaboration between myself and Ned’s characters and Joe’s book and Stephen’s direction and Nathan Dame’s musical direction and Bobby Tilley’s costumes and every other element that goes in to making any moment of theater.

George is the first person to sing “Michael in the Bathroom” in the show itself, but while I was developing the score, the song was sung out of context by a few gents including Jason Tam, Seth Eliser, and Will Roland. They taught me much about the tune and I bow down to them.

I wrote the song in one sitting in 2014 and the content never changed, aside from the cutting of a short third verse right after the bridge. We cut it late in the rehearsal process in deference to the “too much of a good thing can be dangerous” rule of theater.

A few people have questioned my use of humor in songs that are otherwise quite serious. “Why do you have jokes in such a powerful song?” an uptight professor once asked. “Why is this hilarious showtune so stinking sad?” a late-nite comedian queried over drinks at McHale’s. The intersection of the comedy and the tragedy feels true to the human experience. The absurdity of having to work through things at the Worst Possible Moment is something I’ve experienced many times. Things are rarely all good or all bad but things are always messy. You find out you got into your dream school while you’re high at your racist grandfather’s funeral. You have to audition for a role on Stranger Things the same day that a mountain lion eats the family dog. (RIP Spot.) You have a panic attack while wearing a Halloween costume after fighting with your possessed best friend in the bathroom of High School Halloween Party. It’s all so forlorn and confusing and funny. To me at least.

Charlie and I worked closely getting the arrangement just right. We wanted it to ebb and flow and sound like a pop song at first, never giving away that it will eventually turn into this tour-de-force musical theatre mad scene. I like when orchestration is at odds with the content of a song and doesn’t immediately announce what the song is about.

After going on this monumentally poignant journey, Michael undercuts it all with a spot of sarcasm, carrying on the great tradition of musical theatre characters who don’t really mean it when they say “I’m so glad I came.” (Follies reference.) The whole thing ends with the most sardonic cha-cha-cha ever to button a number.

“The Smartphone Hour (Rich Set A Fire)” Written at Ripley-Grier Studios, 2014 Jenna Rolan finally gets her moment of glory, unexpectedly, as the star of a seven-minute dance number. Katie Ladner’s turn as Jenna is so specific and inventive. She deflects the casual barbs thrown at her because she is not letting anyone ruin the time she gets to shine.

I set out to write a song that dramatizes and activates the dangerous world that the Be More Chill characters exist in. We spend so much time with our kind, sensitive protagonists, it’s easy to forget the madness they are living in. It’s hard to be a teenager, especially today. It’s a menacing world where information travels at warp speed. As does gossip, rumors, insults, lies, etc. To me, “The Smartphone Hour” speaks to the ferociousness of modern teenagers and shines a light on the sort of environment that leads to bullying and depression and worse.

It’s also a splashy musical comedy dance number! I wanted it to feel overlong and unreasonably gargantuan. I thought for sure some smart theatre artist along the way would force me to cut this song. I decided I was going to fight for it. It may not cover a ton of story ground, but I felt that it was imperative to have the number in the show. It sets the audience up for the craziness that’s about to happen in Act II and lets us know that things have spun out of control—both in the story and in the show itself. I think subconsciously, the audience thinks: “A dance number about arson?! The rules of the show are changing! I hope nothing unexpected happens to the characters I love! They wouldn’t kill off Jeremy, would they? Well, if I’m watching a dance number about arson anything is possible! Oh no! #SaveJeremy!”

Luckily, I never had to fight for the song. As soon as Chase Brock got his hands on it, he made it longer, in deference to the “too much of a good thing can be wonderful” rule of theater. Rob Berman’s arrangement of the dance break sounds like a sleepover from hell on crack and Charlie’s smartphone sounds bear more than a striking resemblance to the sort of sounds normally associated with the sinister Squip. Gossip is Evil, kids.

I really feel like we made the best Michael Bennett number Michael Bennett never choreographed. The final shouted: “End!” was all Chase’s idea and I love it so much. It’s a moment that lives in the real estate between musical theater Cheese Ball and rock’n’roll Middle Finger. A neighborhood I often hang my hat in.

The notes of the phone buttons that are heard after “he told me cuz he’s my best friend” are, once again, the same notes as the “More Than Survive” intro figure. Just reversed this time.

The title is an obvious reference to “The Telephone Hour” from Bye Bye Birdie. “Rich…” is by no means a parody of that song, but I think they are spiritual cousins. It’s another example of Be More Chill having a foot in the past and a foot in the future.

“The Pitiful Children” Written at Joe’s 47th Street Apartment, 2013 / Joe’s 43rd Street Apartment, 2014–2015 / Ripley-Grier Studios and Two River Theater 2015, during rehearsals Oh, heavens, this song. The lyrics of this song changed a ton over the course of the rehearsal process and I never got it quite right. I love it on the album. It sounds like what would’ve happened if Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails wrote Les Misérables. Alas, dramaturgically, I don’t think I did a great job of telling the story that Joe Tracz laid out. Don’t be surprised if this one gets fiddled with in anticipation of our forthcoming Be More Chill off-Broadway production.

The orchestration of this song is one of my favorites in the whole show. It pushes The Squip firmly into digitized-demon territory. He’s worrying less about seducing people in this number and he’s letting his true colors show. His true colors are cold, industrial, heavy, and militaristic. There’s no question that this Squip has his sights set on world domination.

I like using lyrics that work dramatically and stylistically. The Squip’s “beep-bop-boop” is literally him speaking in his native computerized tongue, but it also conjures up images of an old-fashioned crooner scatting. It’s connected to Jeremy’s “C-c-c-cmon” and the Ensemble’s “Hey hey hey” and all the rest of it.

“The Pants Song” Written at Joe’s Family’s house on Long Island, 2014 My experience writing this song is very much an example of the comic/tragic thing that I often love to write about.

I had tried to write a song for Jeremy’s Dad for the longest time and could never crack it. Joe Tracz said to me: “I just wish Jeremy’s Dad could have a song about the lesson he learns. That if you love somebody, you put your pants on for them.” Essentially, I am an idea thief. I immediately knew that sentence was a song, I just didn’t know how to write it. We were doing a developmental reading of the show and I was feeling the pressure. There was a date I needed to have the song in by and I had nothing. The day before I needed to have the song, I decided that after rehearsal I was going to have a drink with my best friend Jason SweetTooth Williams and then go home and write the song. And then my Grandma died. After a long illness, my grandmother Flora (RIP Flora) left this damned earth at the Iconis home on Long Island. I needed and wanted to be with my family. After doing all the things that you do when a loved one dies, I went downstairs to my family’s basement at 2 AM and wrote “The Pants Song” in one shot. Sometimes you have to write a song about two guys in their underpants on the night your beloved grandma dies.

Paul Whitty starts in such a forlorn, hurt place at the top of this song. I bet the audience thinks this is going to be a perfect-time-for-a-cigarette-break “sad dad” number and then it turns into a total bop. Much like the “We love everything about you…” section of “Be More Chill,” this was another song that I wanted to feel like a rockin’ version of the theme song from a 1980’s sitcom. Only difference is, the mythical sitcom that “We love everything about you…” comes from is phony and corporate and the “Pants Song” show is heartfelt and cool, Must See TV material.

There used to be a song for Jeremy’s Dad earlier in the show called “The No Pants Song,” where he extolled the virtues of not getting dressed. It was a sad, lazy waltz. The whole thing was one-joke, but I did love the final stanza:

ALL THE EXERTION OF PUTTING ON, THEN TAKING OFF JUST TO PUT BACK ON SEEMS TERRIBLY UNNECCESSARY TO ME WOULDN’T YOU SAY? I’M FINE WITH A Y-FRONT COVERING MY FRONT EVERY DAY

It should be noted that many of my musicals feature moments of pantslessness for male characters. This feels fitting as I am often pantsless when I write said musicals. Write what you know, Joe. (ReWrite reference.)

This is the only song in Be More Chill that features a big, in-your-face key change. I’m normally very discreet about my key changes, but a tasteless shift up a step for two men dancing in their undies feels earned.

The in-store music playing in the background of The Mall sequence is actually a Muzak version of “The Pants Song.” The moment I wrote the tune I knew it was destined to be the annoying music played on a loop in the atrium of a mall. The sort of irritating ear worm that slowly drives the employees of Payless and Sbarro’s mad.

“The Play” As a kid who spent hours listening to the big action-packed climaxes of the Sweeney Todd OCR, the Sunset Blvd. OCR, and the Carrie soundboard bootleg (thanks, 1996 Playbill Online message boards for making that one happen!), I’m so thrilled we got to include ours on the album. The underscore is straight-up cinematic, with all the themes of the past two hours crashing into each other like violent zombie bumper cars.

A few people have asked me if the cascading downward piano line in “The Play” is referencing “Suppertime” from Little Shop of Horrors. While the two riffs sound similar I was actually alluding to, you guessed it, John Carpenter film scores. The 5/4 time signature and downward modulation are dead giveaways. But I do agree that the line sounds not dissimilar to “Suppertime,” which is fine by me! Little Shop was my first musical and has clearly influenced me in countless ways as a writer, especially on Be More Chill.

The “Michael makes an entrance” line came late in the game and is a testament to the “sometimes the best thing a writer can do is just musicalize the stage direction” rule of theater.

One of my favorite bits of orchestral business is the twisted music box version of the “More Than Survive” chorus. Hella Danny Elfman. (Shout out to Rich’s Nightmare Before Christmas belt buckle! The 1990’s are alive and well and living inside my musical.)

The “Squip Death” section was hatched by Eric William Morris and myself in the basement dressing rooms of Two River Theater. It’s hard to make out, but as the Squip is destructing he’s speaking Japanese. The Japanese was translated by my bestie-since-fourth-grade Michael Ettannani. We’ve all got our Michaels.

“Voices In My Head” Written at a Two River Theater writing retreat, 2015

The point of Be More Chill is that we’re always going to have voices in our head, both good and bad, telling us what to do. The trick is to figure out which ones to listen to. The fear and doubt and anger and anxiety never really go away, but you can find a way to manage them. At one point in our process Joe Tracz articulated this by saying: “At the end of the show, there are still voices in his head, but the loudest one is Jeremy’s.” Yet again, I am a lowdown dirty idea thief. I stole Joe’s words and turned them into our finale.

Since the show begins and ends with ensemble numbers led by Jeremy, I thought this was a nice opportunity to chart our leading man’s growth. I wanted the vibe of the chorus to be different from “More Than Survive.” It’s more laidback, it’s more confident, it’s more playful. It’s more (ahem) chill. Even when the Ensemble kicks in with the “Na’s Na’s” from the beginning of the show, it’s less aggressive than it used to be. There’s harmony and everyone’s singing together instead of singing at each other.

It was important to all of the creators of the show that the triumph of our show not be that Jeremy gets with Christine. The personal triumph for him is that he’s able to deal with his “stuff” enough to have a normal-person conversation with her. I don’t know if Jeremy ends up with Christine after the events of Be More Chill. Maybe he does. Maybe he ends up with Michael. Maybe he ends up with no one. It really doesn’t matter. What matters is that he has figured out that his voice is one that is worthy of being listened to. And that allows him to get on with his life and move forward. All of the characters being together shouting “C’mon, let’s go!” is a triumph to me. They don’t know what’s next, but they’re going to go through it together. An army of Creeps, taking on the world hand in hand.

Robert Altman used to talk about how he never understood why movies ended with weddings. Why is the story over just because two people kiss? There are no real endings in life except, maybe, death. Musically, I didn’t want the show to end with a big held-out chord or with arms-around-each-other “it’s all gonna be alright!” sweetness. I wanted the very end to feel raucous and alive and like the music is tumbling toward something. Toward the future.

The joke of the ending is that even though the kids at Middleborough deactivated The Squip and prevented a total take-over, chances are good that all of the neighboring high schools have been completely taken over. No one is safe, all we can do is prepare ourselves as best we can. They may offer you fortune and fame. Love and money and instant acclaim. But whatever they offer you don’t feed the… Squips? Sorry, wrong show. Smiley face, lipstick, kitty paw.

#be more chill #jeremy heere #michael mell #michael in the bathroom #Joe iconis #george salazar #will roland #be more chill musical #Brooke lohst

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