Genre Break Song #2: Hospital Girl

Hospital Girl.mp3

A few years ago, before I got into the lucrative world of writing songs about science fiction and fantasy novels, I released a fairly straight ahead singer/songwriter CD (read more about that here). In the time between that CD release and the start of Sci-Fi Songs, I composed a number of songs that have never seen the light of day.

Just as it is healthy to read books outside of the sci-fi/fantasy niche, I thought that it would be interesting to feature a song that isn't based on a speculative fiction novel once in a while. The first song in the Genre Break series was San Luis Obispo and you can download that for free right here .

A little over a year ago, I had to have some minor surgery. On the day of the surgery my doctor was running pretty late. I had to spend about two hours laying in my hospital gown while a few older ladies watched soap operas. I noticed a male nurse and a female nurse flirting. To pass the time, I started to make up a back story for these people. An idea for a song was born. When my surgery was completed, I promptly went home and finished writing the song.

Hope you enjoy it,

John

Hospital Girl

words and music by John Anealio

Nurse Kathy pulls on worn-out light blue scrubs

and ties her hair in a ponytail

She's exhausted from a night at the Dublin Pub

and composing a drunken e-mail

She slams her locker shut, says she's finally given up

Cause he'll never come back again

She is a Hospital Girl

Shies away from the rest of the world

She is a Hospital Girl

Does he need her like she needs him now?

Nurse Michael flirts with all of the girls at work

and Kathy doesn't say a thing

He steps out from the break room and swaggers down the hall like a jerk

and dismisses their love as just a fling

She slams the break room door, she can't take it anymore

cause he'll never come back again

Chorus

She was engaged in nursing school

but she was young and he was cruel. He's gone

but his name is still tattooed on her back

Chorus

Here are some of the tools that I used to record the track:

1. Martin Acoustic Guitar in Standard tuning, capo at the third fret
2. Gibson Les Paul Studio for the electric guitar parts
3. Washburn Bass Guitar
4. Trinity College Irish Bouzouki/Octave Mandolin
5. Chandler Lap Steel for the slide parts
6. Student Model Trumpet
7. Rode NT-3 microphone (to record the acoustic guitar and my vocals)
8. Apple Logic Pro 7 recording software
   1. Yamaha Motif Keyboard for the drum, organ, and string sounds
   2. Logic's included compressor, delay, and reverb plug-ins
   3. The electric guitar parts were recorded through Logic's Guitar Amp Pro plug-in