Barnyard Rhapsody

Backstory

I was helping my dad’s friend flip a house in Milwaukee. We had just urethaned the floors. If you’re not familiar, urethane smells like chemical death, and it’s rather toxic to breathe a bunch of it in.

I’d been around the smell so much that day that I got used to it. When I dragged the spare mattress into the kitchen to try and go to sleep, I didn’t realize how many fumes were still circulating around. Instead of sleeping, though, I got the itch to create a song.

Barnyard Rhapsody is the product of mild fume-induced brain damage. And you can really tell.

The floor itself

Production Fun Facts

Barnyard Rhapsody has a really large beat. The kick and snare are massively distorted, as are many of the other elements. During its production, I was learning the nuances and intricacies of using [buses and sends](https://9to5mac.com/2015/09/27/logic-pros-fx-sends-submix- aux/#:~:text=A%20Bus%20is%20essentially%20a,when%20it%20comes%20to%20busses.) to add effects to my music. I accidentally deleted the distortion on a send, then somehow irreversibly changed the routing of a bunch of my sends. Long story short, for the entire month of July, the song was entirely ruined.

I was incredibly discouraged by this turn of events. At that point in production, I’d finished with the first minute and a half of the song and I was starting to work my way towards the final chorus. This monthlong delay allowed my ideas to brew - I think the break may have benefitted the variety of the song as a whole.

Eventually, in August, I bit the bullet and spent a couple hours rerouting all of my sends and recreating the distortion effect I started off with. And I’m glad I did.

The main piano riff was inspired by the melody of C.R.E.A.M. by the Wu-Tang Clan, which was playing on my phone speaker when I started producing the song.

Around 30 seconds in, after the peaceful quiet angelic chorus interruption, the melody changes from a Yamaha Grand Piano instrument into a Chinese Erhu Violin.

Right at the end of the Erhu Violin section, I put in a cat purr. It’s difficult to discern but if you listen closely, you can hear it.

Sonoma painted this album cover. Here is an early rendition:

I like the finished version better.

Listen now: