Puddle of Puke

Message of song:

A disgusting but fun song. As I've said more than once elsewhere, I write songs about EVERYTHING, lol.

How it was written:

This wasn't inspired by a specific incident, but we've all had the experience of throwing up and recognizing some of the food in the vomit. That reminds me of the surprised voice once overheard from an adjoining bathroom stall: “That's strange. I haven't eaten any corn in a long time!” Yeah I know, that's a crappy joke.

Musical notes:

This is basically a three-chord song in the key of G, but there are a couple of places where it is played “special.”

When going from the G chord to the D chord in the verse music, there is some picking action that consists of playing the fourth finger on the third fret of the 1st string (a G note that was the tonic of the G chord and becomes the suspended 4th of the D chord), then playing the second finger on the second fret of the 1st string that goes there as part of the D chord (F#, the third note of the D major scale), lifting the second finger up from the second fret to play the open 1st string (E or the 9th of the D) then playing the third finger on the third fret of the 2nd string (the tonic of the D, said finger being there the whole time the second finger was moving). So the sequence of emphasized notes on the D chord is G F# E D before going to the C chord. After playing the C chord, slide it from the first to the third fret and back with the open strings remaining open before going back to the G chord.

The chorus starts with a C chord, then has a descending walking bass line of C B A G notes to the D chord with an A bass note the first and third times the progression is played in the chorus, a D bass note the second time. The D chord then has a F# F# G F# E D melody [these notes emphasized on the 1st string (2nd string for the D note) while strumming the rest of the D chord] to the C chord. Play the descending walking bass line again to the D chord, then melody notes on the 1st and 2nd strings, then back to the C chord. After the third time of this progression, slide the C chord up and back twice leaving open strings open, then go back to the G chord again.

There are more details of how I bring the melody out by hitting certain strings of the chord I am strumming, and at one point playing the D note on the second string during a G chord, another time playing the G note on the third fret of the 1st string with an open 2nd string, etc., but it is difficult to put into words. Basically, which notes of a chord I play and with what rhythm goes with the vocal melody. There is a hyperlink to a recording of this song after the title near the top of this page. If you want to learn how to play it: LISTEN to it and FIGURE IT OUT! That's how I learned to play, by listening to other people's songs over and over again and figuring out where the fingers go to get those sounds.

I don't normally go into this much detail about how to actually play my songs, but I figure if you want to play this particular song, perhaps you are a juvenile or young adolescent who needs detailed instructions because you are a beginner. I just realized particular almost sounds like particulate, as in the line “colorful chunks in sauce with rice” (I LOVE that line, lol).