A contact on Mastodon read my post about the tragic tale of a Florida man who died from the so-called brain-eating amoeba. My contact thought the story or maybe just the headline sounded like a whimsical song from a band called The Chrysanthemums, Gloucestershire Is Just an Illusion. Althought I’d never heard of the band, I felt inspired and threw together some lyrics and recorded a little a capella lament. Poor fella.
Brain-eating amoeba
I woke up today
As you might have easily guessed
There’s one thing I must say
You might be a little impressed
I read in the news
There was a man out in Florida
Who liked to wash his nose
But, he didn’t bank on Naegleria
He caught a brain-eating amoeba
From the water in his neti pot
His hygiene wasn’t dry clean
Now the worms are dealing with his snot
He’d squirt water up each nostril
From a 6-inch length of hose
An amoeba wormed its way right in
And began to eat his nose
It slithered through his sinuses
And right into his brain
Sadly, so the story goes he was never the same again
He caught a brain-eating amoeba
From the water in his neti pot
His hygiene wasn’t dry clean
Now the worms are dealing with his snot
I woke up this morning
As you might have easily guessed
There’s one thing I got to say
Aren’t you just a little impressed?
My contact liked the vocal demo:
“Ah wow!! This is brilliant. I love it. See, tabloid headlines do, once in a blue moon, beget good songs. That’ll kill with a bit of angular guitar…sounded a bit like Yukio Yung/Terry Burrows”
So, I did some angular guitar, a new vocal, some drums (badly played on a MIDI keyboard), and some boxy bass…I might listen to Yukio Yung and The Chrysanthemums later.
You can still hear the original, rough and ready one-take vocal demo here
NB No intelligence, artificial or otherwise, was used in the writing and recording of this song.
