On a Wire is the third studio album by American rock band the Get Up Kids on Vagrant Records. Released three years after their breakout sophomore album Something to Write Home About, On a Wire was a massive departure from the band's established sound, eschewing the brighter pop-punk that helped define emo as a genre in favor of a darker, more adult sound inspired by 70's rock bands like Led Zeppelin.

The Get Up Kids are an American rock band from Kansas City. Formed in 1995, the band was a major act in the mid-1990s Midwest emo scene, otherwise known as the "second wave" of emo music. Their second album Something to Write Home About remains their most widely acclaimed album, and is considered to be one of the quintessential albums of the second-wave emo movement. They are considered forefathers of the emo genre, and have been widely credited as being an influence, both by contemporaries Saves the Day and later bands such as Fall Out Boy, Taking Back Sunday and the Wonder Years.