Bassist/vocalist Les Claypool came up with this song's riff whilst noodling around at home. He told MusicRadar: "I had that sitting around for a while. If I'm home and I come up with something, I'll try to record it, but a lot of the time I'll forget to. A lot of things go off into space and never come back 'cause I just don't remember them. Lee Van Cleef stuck around. I came up with it on my dobro bass and really liked it, so I recorded it."
Lee Van Cleef (1925 – 1989) was an American film actor who is best known for his roles in spaghetti westerns, particularly Sergio Leone's For a Few Dollars More and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Van Cleef's sharp features led to him being cast as a villain in other films such as The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Claypool told Rolling Stone the song is "reflective of my youth."
The album title is lifted from a line in this song: "A yellow Studebaker with a 302/With a seat of Green Naugahyde." It refers to a form of plastic leather used for seats. Claypool explained to Artist Direct: "That was my father's pickup truck when I was a kid. Years later, I actually ran that pickup truck into the side of a liquor store because the driver's door flew open as I was making a right turn ... The ol' Studebaker is no longer with us, but there were a lot of fond memories in that vehicle. I come from a long line of auto mechanics, and naugahyde was what people had on their couches because they couldn't afford leather. The circles I ran in, we saw a lot of naugahyde, the '70s working-class leather."
See your Spotify stats (with number of plays and minutes listened) and discover new music.
Music data, artist images, album covers, and song previews are provided by Spotify. Spotify is a trademark of Spotify AB.