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