The World's Most Famous Spy (from Nothing Like Broadway!)

Today, we get to peek inside the process of writing a patter/comedy song! Host David Rackoff looks at his own song, "The World's Most Famous Spy", to see how he came up with the concept, and how he wrote the music and lyrics to this song from the upcoming off-Broadway musical "Nothing Like Broadway!". It's James Bond meets Gilbert & Sullivan meets David!

Transcript

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There's nothing like Broadway, Kid Nothing so grand, Where each purple feather is perfectly fun. Hello and welcome to Nothing Like Broadway the podcast. I am the composer of the upcoming Off-Broadway musical, Nothing Like Broadway, and this is where we pick a song from musical theater and then we pick it apart to find out how it works. Today, we are doing a song that I wrote, so this should be fun. So we've been talking a lot on the podcast about comedy songs and patter songs, and that's one of my favorite kind of songs to write and to watch. And so I thought it would be fun to kind of go inside the process of what it's like to write one of those songs. And since we are doing the world's most famous spy from Nothing Like Broadway written by me, we can actually go inside and take a look at my notes and I can walk you through how I wrote that song. So here's a little snippet of that song right now and we'll play the full song at the end of the show. My first secret job in East Berlin, I killed a supervillain with a Barbie pin. This pin, his henchwoman bribed me with marks and francs. She wanted to seduce me, but I said, no thanks. She aimed a laser at my eye, then said, hey, Orange, you're the world's most famous spy. I said, give up your life of crime. He said, give up your life of crime. So she did, and that's why I'm the most famous spy in the world. So just to give you a quick synopsis of Nothing Like Broadway the musical, so you can see how the song fits into context. Our main character is Milo, the schlubby lighting booth guy in a teeny tiny rundown off Broadway theater. He dreams to sing on that stage and to save the world. And the show is about what happens when two rival super spies, a sort of doofy British James Bondy goofball spy and a villainous Russian spy woman, both decide independently from each other to hide out in the theater from each other, posing as cabaret singers. And so this is the introduction song for Bixby, who is the British spy who is posing as a cabaret singer. And one of the conceits that we have going on in the show is that the theater where they are hiding out for legal rights reasons, they can only be performing original songs. So this is a song that Bixby, the bumbling British handsome super spy guy, has had commissioned. And part of the joke of this is he's there hiding the fact that he's a spy, right? He's pretending like he is just a cabaret singer. And so he has this original song that he had commissioned, but the song is all about him being a spy. So that already is sort of not a great choice if you're trying to hide that you're a spy singing a song about how you are a spy. And so that's basically the song is about the third or fourth song in, depending on how we actually end sort of the final rewrites of the show. But it's very early on. It is very much like in the Gilbert and Sullivan tradition of when a new character comes on, he's like, this is an I am song. Like we all know about I want songs, like somewhere that's green or part of your world, right where the main character has what they're yearning for. This is usually a secondary character or a comedic character or sometimes a villainous has an I am song. And that is what this is. This is Bixby's I am song. So that was where I was. I had the whole show plotted out and I knew what this character was like when I started to write this. And so I have my actual notes that I can like look back on to see like where where I was, like where where my head was when I was sitting down to begin the process of writing this song. And so there's a lot of me asking myself questions in these notes. So now I'm just going to look at my notes. So is this about each verse, him fighting a different villain or is that too limiting? Is it about how he gets recruited and then some adventures of his? Maybe there's a bridge about how he's lonely as a spy. Watch a whole bunch of old James Bond films, which I did. I went back and watched like a ton of old James Bond films to kind of get inspired. And then I had the idea I note that I have here is he's famous for being a secret spy. There's something there and there is indeed something there. And that ended up being the kernel that I sort of hung everything on, right, is that he is famous, famous spy. Like James Bond is a world famous spy, which is like a ridiculous thing for a spy to be. You want to be, you know, unnoticed and unnoticeable and just sort of someone who fades into the woodwork. And yet James Bond is this handsome dashing guy. So Bixby is also he's the most famous spy in the land is how I wrote it here. So I'm just writing some notes here. I'm a spy, the most secret spy, but also the most famous spy in the world. If you see me go by, you'll say, hey, there goes that famous guy, but also a spy, the most famous spy in the world. And that's basically I didn't use those exact lines, but that's basically the premise. And then I was like thinking musically, what should this be? And I was like, we kind of want some James Bondy stuff in there, but it's also a story slash patter song for a bumbling British person. And that to me is like Gilbert and Sullivan, which I'm a huge, huge fan of. And so that's just kind of me piecing it. I have all bunch of different ideas of like, maybe it's this, maybe it's that. But I ended up realizing, OK, musically, it's going to be something James Bond, something Gilbert and Sullivan. And I have here a note that says that I want the last line of the James Bond part to be like a big belted note, like in like a sort of Goldfinger. James Bond theme songs are usually sung by some sort of like big voiced diva, right, like Adele or Shirley Bassey. But because Bixby is sort of a low rent version of that, he has to sing his own. But he's also somebody who's theatrical. And so he's going to want to have a big note. So make sure to put a big note in there, I said. And then I was like, yes, the song should be a contrast between Patter song and James Bondy big singing song. And I stuck with that. And that is what it is. Plus all of his absurd tales of spycraft, which is very Gilbert and Sullivan thing to have, like sort of outlandish stories that you're being recounting in these verses. I have a note here, have some call and response like Gilbert and Sullivan. The Gilbert and Sullivan song that I think that most closely fit with what I was trying to do is a song called When I Was a Lad. When I was a lad, I served a term as an office boy to an attorney's firm. I cleaned the windows and I slept the floor and polished up the handle. I'll just play a little bit of that right now. Yeah. And so that ended up being like, OK, I actually really like that. In fact, so much so that I want to pay homage to it by having the first line of my song be When I Was a Lad. And now in my notes, I have OK, so what is the story progression? Is it how he became a spy, the normal James Bond stuff, then getting further and more absurd from there, which is kind of what I did. And then I have a note here, just like be careful because too much literal James Bond being absurd stuff has already been done really well with Austin Powers. So like make sure that you're not stepping on the toes of Austin Powers. Like there's already been a great James Bond parody that is still 30 years later, very much, you know, in everyone's mind. So I just had to really make sure that I sidestepped that. And then I'm talking about, OK, do I want to have a verse and a chorus and a bridge? And then what I sort of realized is because I wanted to have the verse be very Gilbert and Sullivan-y, but the last line of each verse is going to be the James Bond thing. That's already a big contrast, right? Like this musically, the style of Gilbert and Sullivan pattern and dramatic, jazzy, James Bond, big singing is already a pretty big contrast. I don't think I need a bridge here. I don't really think I need a verse chorus, just because you're already getting those things that you would get out of that by having the contrast. So for the concept, we're still in the concept of the song, because that's basically how I work. I first try to figure out what the concept is. Then I'll usually make a whole bunch of lists. And then I'll just basically try to plan and plan and plan and make lists and lists and lists until, like, I basically try not to write the song for as long as I possibly can. Like, how much stuff can I do before I actually start writing a note or an actual word of a lyric? And at some point, I'm just like, oh, my God, I've got to start writing this thing. And so that is my process, basically, as I start with the concept, make lists and lists and lists and lists. And then at some point, I just have no choice but to start writing the song. But I try to put that off for as long as I can so that I have as much information about what the song might be or like where the rhymes are. So, OK, so let's go through that. The things that I have to accomplish in this song are about this character. What's the character like? He's sort of goofy, sweet. He's overly eager. He's worldly. When you're watching the show, you assume that the romance is going to be between Bixby, the British spy, and Kishka, the female Russian spy. But what I wanted to do was to sort of subtly set up the fact that the actual romance is going to be between the handsome British spy and the schlubby lighting booth guy. And so I wanted to sort of plant some gay stuff in here without it being explicitly gay. He's good natured. He is an attention hog. That's a really important part of it. He's a character who we are really meant to like and to be on board with. He's kind of dumb, but he is sweet. But he is like an attention hog. Like he wants the credit for all this stuff. And so there's the push pull of him being wanting to be really famous, but also wanting to be like really good at his job. He's probably a little bit of an unreliable narrator. Like he's telling the story so that he comes out looking good or looking cool in his mind. And so that was my sort of breakdown of like things I need to accomplish, just like character wise for this song. Story wise, it just has to set up him as a character, because what's going to happen is he is going to end up Bixby, the spy, is going to end up falling in love with Milo, the sorry, spoiler alert, the schlubby lighting booth guy. And it's an unlikely partnership because Bixby is very handsome and worldly and confident. Milo is schlubby, kind, but insecure and very cloistered, like literally in his like little light booth. Like he's afraid to even go out of the light booth. Whereas you have this other guy who's this globetrotting spy. But what ends up happening in the show, again, spoiler alert, is that Milo ends up being the one to save the day and Bixby ends up stepping back and assisting him and letting the person who was actually more competent and qualified be the person to actually do the job. And Bixby is supporting him, which is really a nice and I think surprising character turn for Bixby and for Milo. But having the underdog be the hero is, you know, at this point in the process of arts and literature, you know, like that that we can sort of see coming. Having somebody who's like sort of vainglorious step back and be supportive is, I think, a little bit surprising when you're watching the show. But all this has to get set up in the world's most famous spy, the song that we are looking at today. So then let's get to the list, because this is something that I do that I don't know that everyone does, but I don't know how you wouldn't do that when you're writing a song is I just make lists and lists and lists. So first of all, it's just a lot of lists of words that I think might be good or juicy or relevant for a song like this. And then if I can come up with a rhyme for that, I'll just put that and attach that to the word. Right. So one that's here is that I didn't use is Venice and tennis. I just thought the idea of like him going to Venice and playing tennis was funny. It ended up not making it into the song. But basically just any like lists of any words that might be relevant, any terms of phrase, even if it's not going to be a rhyme thing. And I rhyme as much as I can. If I have like four or five good rhymes for a word, I'll put that in. It's almost like when you're in a scrapbook, you like arrange all of your pictures and your ribbons and I don't scrapbooks. I don't really know. But like whatever it is, you arrange all of that and you just get as much volume of material as you can for a couple of reasons. One is once you start writing the song, it's often, often, often very helpful to be like, oh, I need to say this kind of thing, but it has to rhyme with this kind of thing. And then you look at your pages of lists and you're like, oh, I've already got like a word that rhymes with something else that actually fits with these two things. So that's really helpful. But also just like fun turns of phrase, scenarios, props, like just anything I can think of that could be a list. A lot of it's about the rhyming, but a lot of it is just about the words that you might end up using or ideas that you might end up wanting to use. And this is something so as somebody who likes to write rhymey, pattery, wordy songs, it takes a long time. Like it's it's not something that I could do in a day. Like when I was studying this, like I had a lyricist, another lyricist person who was studying, who was, you know, who was like complimenting me on a song that I had written that month for class. And he's like, he's like, yeah, like it didn't turn. He's like, my son didn't turn out that great this month. I I like spent like, you know, seven hours on it. And I was like seven hours like nothing on a song like especially like a comedy wordy song. That is absolutely nothing like it's some of this is just about huge amounts of preparation so that you can have tons of material so that if you're only going to use the top five percent of the things that are in your lists, it may be not even that much. You end up, you know, you have the cream of the crop and you've got so many options because we've talked about this before. But the last way you're ever going to write a good lyric is by coming up with a line and then next coming up with the rhyming line for that line. Right. You want to be assembling in like a beautiful mind sort of way or like a Sudoku where you've got all this stuff and you try to put it together. There's no way it's going to happen by thinking of the first line, then thinking of the second line, then thinking of the third line, thinking of something you rhyme with that. It's done by preparation, preparation. And then also the other thing that this does is it lets you see, are you going to have mostly masculine rhymes, which are one syllable rhymes or feminine rhymes, which are two syllable words where the first syllable is stressed or triple rhymes, which is a three syllable word where the first syllable is stressed. And just the kinds of things that you sort of start to notice patterns of like, oh, for this or for this song, I actually surprised about this. It's all masculine rhymes, which is unusual for me, because I like like multisyllabic rhymes. But it just so worked out that the kinds of words and listen things. It was really emerging this pattern of, oh, it's a lot of one syllable rhymes. Plus, it's kind of fun. Unlike a joke to have like a boom, like a, you know, a punchline literally means, you know, punchline. You want it to happen right like that. OK, so then I'm looking at how to organize the song. And by this point, I decided that it was just going to be verses. So just a verse. Each verse is its own little self-contained. Then yet no bridge, no chorus. And then what I do is you want to come up with the music and the lyrics for one verse. Like, you don't want to write all the lyrics, because if things change, then you have to rewrite everything. So you want to take one verse and you figure out, OK, what how many syllables are in each line? Where are the rhymes happening? What's the meter? And so what I basically was sort of working out is I did but let me play you the I'll play you the first verse. I threw my cap away up high. I said, I'm going to be the world's most famous spy. So it's pretty standard, sort of Gilbert and Sullivan ask. It's in two four. It's classic. I love Gilbert and Sullivan so much. And it's things like hovering around a note. Da da da da da da da da da da da da. And then if there are jumps, they are octave jumps, which are very easy to hear and very easy to sing. It's not like you're doing weird intervals, because at the end of the verse in the James Bond part, it is going to be these weird, like weird, jazzy 60s kind of big jumps. Right. So the Gilbert and Sullivan part is very easy musically interval wise. And then I was like, when I came to the title, I'm like, oh, wait, am I going to rhyme the title? That's something we talked about a lot on the show is are you going to run the title? Well, I mean, if once it was called the most famous spy in the world, world is not a great word to rhyme. Right. It's like unfurled. You know, like swirled. But like, you don't want to have to have to do that five times. Like it would have to get real contrived. So what I realized that I wanted to do, I wanted to rhyme the setup for the most famous spy in the world. The most famous man in the world is not rhymed, but it says, I said, give up your life of crime. He said, give up your life of crime. And so she did. And that's why I'm the most famous spy in the world. Right. So the setup line has to be a sentence that leads into the most famous spy in the world. And the end of that setup has to rhyme with something that makes it completely natural that you would say that, which is there are not an infinite number of things like that was actually kind of hard. I passed the super spy exam. He passed the super spy exam. Then all at once, I found I am the most famous spy in the world. I think I saw you on TV. He thinks he saw you on TV. I said to him, that's right. That's me, the most famous spy in the world. That was actually more more difficult to get enough of those and to have them sound natural enough that you're almost not even aware of them. But that was sort of how I worked out the problem of am I going to rhyme the title? So I'm going to run the title. It can't really be world. Like, there's just no real there's not enough things that rhyme with it. I feel like the most famous spy in the land or something. But I tried that, but I just wasn't happy with that. And then when I was writing the music for the very first verse, just like for like a dent, like a often the first verse that you write, that's like the sort of demonstration, like a proof of concept. You end up not using any of the actual words there because you just sort of trying stuff out. But you want to figure out like where are the rhymes happening? One of the things about Gilbert Sullivan that I think people often don't think about is that the music is half of what's making it funny. Like everybody thinks the lyrics for Gilbert and Sullivan are so clever, and they are. But Sullivan, the guy who wrote the music for it, is as much responsible for the comedy as the lyricist is. So make sure the music sounds funny and sets up the punchline, which is very, very important and sort of hard to do. And if you put it in the wrong place, all of a sudden it just doesn't work. And so you're sort of figuring that out with this. And that's what I did. And then for the end part, for the James Bond part that comes at the end, there's a certain James Bond chord progression. The da da da da da. I'll play it. And it's basically just a minor chord where the fifth note starts on the normal fifth, then it goes up a half step, up a half step, and then back down to the minor. And so I wanted to highlight that. I wanted to have the melody basically be that fifth degree of the chord that's the one that's the weirdo one, right? Because it's basically it's the minor. The whole thing is just the root of the chord, the minor third. And then the fifth in this particular chord progression is what makes it interesting, which is an unusual kind of jazzy sort of thing. John Berry wrote the original James Bond score and also all of the subsequent James Bond theme songs all in their own different way. Use just that little chunk, that little musical idea in a different way. And so it's really interesting. You can have all these different like the Madonna one and like Adele and Goldfinger and like Thunderball, which is like a song by Tom Jones. They all sound different, but they all really like you can really tell. Like when you hear a James Bond song, even if you get the Coldplay one, you can still tell it's like somehow it's that James Bond thing. And so I wanted to use that. And I wanted to make sure that the melody of what he's singing, what the Bixby is singing is on the note. That's the thing that makes it sound different. Each of the chords sound different from each other. And then I just really like the in the world. I wanted I wanted that to be like a big like Goldfinger, where it's like a big, unexpected sort of note that sounds like a jazzy like trumpet or something, you know, like that sort of 60s feel to it. And also, like I wanted Bixby to be a little bit of a diva, like with a big, a big exciting note, because also that's so opposite of what Gilbert and Sullivan is. Like Gilbert and Sullivan is not about big diva notes, but James Bond songs are. And Bixby is a little bit of Gilbert and Sullivan, a little bit of James Bond. So I wanted to have his big diva note. But and also there's something a little bit unseemly about having to be your own theme song singer, you know what I mean? Your own person who's like supporting, you know, most of the songs are about like how cool James Bond is or how bad the villain is. And Bixby has to do his own his own thing, almost like a drag number of a song like that for himself. So I thought that contrast was funny. OK, so let's take a look at the second verse. So like I said, I wanted each verse to be self-contained, like a little vignette, a little story. And so my first secret job in East Berlin, I killed a super villain with a bobby pin. This pin, he takes a pin out of his hair, which is sort of a funny moment where he's like this handsome guy in a tux happens to have like an extra bobby pin in his hair just in case, which is like a funny little theater queen sort of thing to do. His henchwoman bribed me with Marks and Franks. She wanted to seduce me, but I said, no, thanks. Which is, you know, another like little subtle nod to him, both thinking that he is like the most moral guy in the world, but also he's like young, doesn't quite realize he's gay or closeted gay person who, you know, the idea of like a James Bond, you know, super sexy James Bond villainess seducing him, and he thinks that he's just being like, no, thank you. But he's actually gay, so he wouldn't want to do that anyways. But he still even at this point is retelling the story with the attitude of like, look how upstanding I am. You know, it's like when you have like the like the kids who like take the virgin promise and like there's a kid who you can kind of tell who's like on the news talking about it. And he's like clearly probably gay. And he's like, I'm not going to sleep with any girls until we're married. And it's just like, oh, buddy, oh, like, oh, God. And like your heart goes out to them because you're like, oh, you got some stuff to figure out. But also, like, it's funny that you're like claiming this moral superiority to this thing that you actually don't really deep down want. Sorry for anyone who's listening who's going through that. But come out, it'll be great. She wanted to seduce me, but I said, no, thanks. She aimed a laser at my eye, which is the thing that's setting up the last line, then said, hey, aren't you the world's most famous spy? I feel like this verse would actually be funny in prose if we were just watching a flashback of it, like the idea of like this super sexy villainess trying to seduce him. And he's like, no, thank you. I don't need that. I'm a good guy. And then she's aiming a laser sight at his eye. And then she looks up and is like, wait, are you that guy? Like the famous guy? And then Bixby says, I said, give up your life of crime. The chorus backs him up. He said, give up your life of crime. And so she did. And that's why I'm the most famous spy in the world. So he is in East Berlin. He killed a super villain with a bobby pin. Then the henchwoman, sexy henchwoman, tries to seduce him. He's like, no, thank you. I'm pure. And then she recognizes him as like a famous person. And then he says, give up your life of crime. And then she did. So like in his version of the story, like, I don't know if he probably didn't follow up on her. She probably just went off and was a henchwoman for somebody else. But like in his idea, he's like, give up your life of crime. And she's like, yeah, you know, I'm going to give up my life of crime. And then wanders off and he just assumes that she has turned a corner and that he did a really good thing today. And so I feel like I'm proud of that verse, because like you get a lot accomplished. It is it's like, I guess, technically a little bit suspenseful, but it's also just so absurd. It shows you his self-delusion, but also that he's like a good guy. He wants to be a good guy. So that's the second verse. And then the third verse is another heightened, even more absurd vignette of him being doing his James Bond bona fides, where the kids like his actual heroic stuff. But it has to be a little bit more absurd than the previous verse, because, you know, otherwise, why are we watching it in a comedy song? It has to build. So my fame is a blessing and a curse. Went undercover as a Filipina nurse, hot nurse. A doctor was trying to steal the pope. I strangled out the doctor with a stethoscope. I can just play this one. I'm not playing the demo of this. I can just play the demo. My fame is a blessing and a curse. Went undercover as a Filipina nurse. Hot nurse. A doctor was trying to kill the pope. I strangled out the doctor with a stethoscope. He said to me about to die. You're not a nurse, no, you're that very famous spy. I think I saw you on TV. He thinks he saw you on TV. I said to him, that's right, that's me. The most famous spy in the world. Yes, it's basically the same thing, but to a heightened level. Why is it a Filipina nurse? What is, I don't know what to think about, like what he's doing to make it Filipina. Like it's just such a, it's such a wrong choice. Like why would he have to be a woman and not of his own race? Like it's just, it's completely absurd. He's just getting way into like the theatrics and the sort of dragginess of being an undercover spy. It's like this is his opportunity to do his drag performance. You know, there's got to be better ways of being a spy than what he's doing here. And again, the doctor, this time with like a German accent, is recognizing him twice. He's like, you're not a nurse, no, you're that very famous spy. I think I saw you on TV. And then had the chorus saying he thinks he saw you on TV with the accent, which I think is kind of funny. And so this took a lot of discipline for me. Like it's my wants normally to just write like 10 or 15 verses. And here I'm like, no, okay, there's going to be like four verses. Each one is going to be not super short, but self-contained with the beginning, middle and end. And then the other really important thing about this kind of a pattern song, comedy songs in general, is the scan has to be really, really good. Which is, I would say probably of all the things that modern musical theater writers slack off on is the scan. And what that means is music, you know, has where stresses are, the beat pattern. This song is mostly in two four. It is just one and two and one and two and one and two. And so the one is the strongest beat. It's the first beat of the bar. The and is a less strong beat. The two is also a strong beat, but not quite as strong as the first beat. And then the third beat is less strong. And so, and you're, you know, you're adding more notes than that in here. Part of the funny of Gilbert and Sullivan, I think comes from these weird, long wordy sentences and big words that are set perfectly. And there's something funny about having just, just having sort of a turn of phrase that you have probably haven't heard before and music that you maybe haven't heard before and they just fit together perfectly. There's something very satisfying about that. It's not like, ha ha funny, but it brings a smile to your face. So like, I killed a super villain with a bobby pin. So I killed a super villain with a bobby pin. Like that's exactly how you would say that if you were talking in just regular prose, that's where the stresses would be. And because it's a fast line, if it was set improperly, it would make it much harder to just understand the words, but also like, it's nice. It's just like, you know, when you hear comedy songs, patter songs, you know, Roger and Hammerstein comedy songs, especially guys and dolls and stuff. Part of what's charming about it is that everything is set so perfectly. And even though it's a song, it is being delivered just like it was dialogue. And it sounds very natural. And there's something really enjoyable about that and pleasurable about that to hear. And in my opinion, there's something very unpleasurable. I don't know. There's something that's just unpleasant to hear when you have the wrong stresses on things. And that is something I just feel like that's something that has become OK. But it's a big sin, I think. Like, you know, if I came up to you just in regular life and said, hey, do you want to come with me to the store? You would be like, what? For some, what did you say? And also like, why did you just hit the word the like you would think that I was having a stroke or something, right? Like, come with me to the store. Whereas, you know, just, hey, come to the store. That's how it should be said. And especially if somebody were telling a joke and in the setup for the joke, they have the stresses in the wrong places. It would just really undercut the comedy of it. And so, like, when you think about I don't want to, like, single out current shows that I've seen recently, but a lot of like the comedy ish songs have very bad stresses or certain shows just don't have funny songs in them. I think partly because the music is more like folky and sort of guitarry. And that's not really generally doesn't lend itself to comedy as much. And comedy songs and patter songs are a lot about the craft. And so it does help to have somebody who is not like a pop singer or pop, like songwriter doing like a Broadway show. And then they're going to have like an orchestrator and people make it sound more like a theater song, but you still have to have the craft of really making sure that you are being disciplined and that your rhymes are perfect rhymes and that your scans are perfect scans because that's how you get a song that works as a theater comedy song. End of right. It sounds like I'm talking about Waitress here and I'm actually not. I actually think that's a good score and a good show. So, but I think that that sort of the success creatively of that show has led other pop people thinking that they can just sort of do the same thing and I'll just kind of come in, spend a few months and then make a bunch of money. But most people are not Sara Burles. Because this doesn't have a bridge, I toyed with having a bridge about how he was lonely, but that ended up being covered in the song Sing Along. So I was like, I don't need that here. And also like, I don't know in the middle of my patter song, do I want to have a big modeling sad part? And I'm like, no, I really don't. So then I wanted it for the end to give it something, a little bit of showbiz at the end to have this sort of separate coda kind of part, and I just didn't want it to be like two jokes. And I had from the beginning, like in my like list and list and list, I'm like, okay, there's something about James Bond is a martini shaken, not stirred. Bixby probably has a Cosmo because it's like, it's like a more like fruity, sweet, not a cool drink really for like a suave man of the world to be having, even though it's Cosmo, which is short for Cosmopolitan, which is how he thinks of himself. But like the idea of like him having a Cosmo be his drink, I thought it was kind of funny. And then something about the Aston Martin, I was basically thinking about James Bond things and like the Aston Martin, something about that. I don't know, I think about cars. And so then I was like, okay, can I make those two things rhyme with each other? And so that's, this is one of those, like, I call it like a, you know, a three day couplet or whatever, where I'm like, I know basically what I want it to be. I just want it to be a couplet, like two lines that rhyme with each other that give me these two jokes. And so I just have pages of like attempts at this and like, I had some other things that were in the mix, but it's, it's very hard to have like, when you just like, I'm like, okay, I know I want like a Cosmo joke instead of a shaken martini, not a stirred and an Aston Martin. And so then the line that is in the show is the most famous spy in the, he drinks a Cosmo on a beach in Greece. The most famous spy, he drives an Aston Martin on a two year lease. Yeah. I'm pretty happy with that. The two year lease always gets a laugh. The, the Cosmo ends up being more of the setup than like the punchline, but I'm happy with that. And also another thing, when you were doing like comedy stuff, both those lines could be in either order, but like the joke, the first of all, the punchline of the Aston Martin on a two year lease, the last word is where the joke comes in. Whereas he drinks a Cosmo on a beach in Greece isn't, Cosmo is sort of funny. If you think about it, compared to like a martini, a shaken, not stirred martini, but like that's the setup. And so you want to have the joke happen as late, you want it to happen on the last beat if you can. And so that's why those were in those order is Cosmo on a beach in Greece is the setup. It's a little bit of a joke, but it's more just like a setup. And then he drives an Aston Martin on a two year lease. There's the joke. The most famous spy in the world. It was a fun time to write because it was sort of straightforward in that I kind of knew what I wanted it to be. I kind of knew that it would play pretty well. Like there's some songs in the show and some mostly songs that are not in the show anymore that like, I was like, Oh, I think this might be cool. But then it just didn't play in front of an audience. This is one that I kind of knew. And I kind of know this is in my wheelhouse. And once I came up with the Bond versus Gilbert and Sullivan, I was like, Oh yeah, this is right down the middle for me. Like I love Gilbert and Sullivan. And then I love like a character who is deluding himself, but it's really confident. Like that's just, it's all fun. And so this is a song that I enjoyed, really enjoyed the writing process of. I think I was pretty disciplined for me about it. And I'm happy with the way it turned out. And it basically is fun. It's a fun song to perform. Fun song to watch perform. Yeah. It worked out the way that I had intended it to, which is not always the case, but this one is, it was a lot of, you know, when I was in the struggle and you can see in some of my notes, it's like, Oh, why is this so hard? But it's like, you know, it's just that it's the sort of normal birthing process of a song, the world's most famous spy from nothing like Broadway, which is going to be off Broadway in 2025, please follow us at nothing like Broadway on Instagram. You can search for us on Facebook, please email us for, you know, song suggestions, or if there's something on one of the shows that I got wrong, or you have advice on how to make the show better or whatever, nothinglikebroadway.gmail.com. And here is me singing the rough, rough demo of the world's most famous spy. From nothing like Broadway written by me. When I was a lad, I studied maths. I read up on my Shakespeare and I took long baths. Long baths at uni. I did both my parents proud. I graduated early summa cum laude. I threw my cap away up high. I said, I'm going to be the world's most famous spy. I passed the super spy exam. He passed the super spy exam. Then all at once I found I am the most famous spy in the world. My first secret job in East Berlin, I killed a supervillain with a Barbie pin. This pin, his henchwoman bribed me with marks and francs. She wanted to seduce me, but I said, no, thanks. She aimed a laser at my eye, then said, hey, Orange, you're the world's most famous spy. I said, give up your life of crime. He said, give up your life of crime. So she did. And that's why I'm the most famous spy in the world. My fame is a blessing and a curse. Went undercover as a Filipina nurse. Hot nurse. A doctor was trying to kill the pope. I strangled out the doctor with the stethoscope. He said to me, about to die. You're not a nurse, no, you're that very famous spy. I think I saw you on TV. He thinks he saw you on TV. I said to him, that's right, that's me. The most famous spy in the world. In Norway, I snuck in through the fjords into the famous Super Secret Spy Awards. In spite of my glamorous global fame, I stood there incognito as they called my name. Then jumping out in tux and tie, I said, it's me, your favorite secret famous spy. And on my fancy winners plaque, it says right there in bronze and black, the most famous spy in the... He drinks a Cosmo on a beach in Greece. The most famous spy. He drives an Aston Martin on a two year lease. The most famous spy. In the world. Where did I put my keys?