My Name Is Mud

Last updated
"My Name Is Mud"
Primus mud single.png
Single by Primus
from the album Pork Soda
Released1993
Length4:46
Label Interscope
Songwriter(s)
Producer(s) Primus
Primus singles chronology
"Those Damned Blue-Collar Tweekers"
(1992)
"My Name Is Mud"
(1993)
"DMV"
(1993)
Music video
"My Name Is Mud" on YouTube

"My Name Is Mud" is a song by American rock band Primus. It was released in 1993 as the first single from their third studio album Pork Soda . In 2010, Primus released a new version of the track sung entirely in Spanish under the title "Me Llamo Mud".

Contents

Composition and recording

In the book Primus: Over the Electric Grapevine, when discussing "My Name Is Mud", bassist Les Claypool explained that "the whole notion of the ... song is basically about a couple of tweekers"—one of whom is the titular Mud [1] —"who are hanging out, and they get in a fight over something stupid, and one of them kills the other one. Kind of a River’s Edge –type vibe." [2]

"My Name Is Mud" (like the rest of Pork Soda) was recorded in the band's rehearsal space, which was a series of UltraSound Audio-owned warehouses located in San Rafael. According to Claypool: "We ended up taking over three [of UltraSound's] spaces—we stuck [guitarist Larry LaLonde] in one, [drummer Tim Alexander] in one, and me in another. And we set up video cameras, so we could see each other. And we tracked Pork Soda through a Gamble console, which is our live console, onto [ Alesis Digital Audio Tape (ADAT)]. It was one of the first ADAT records." [3] "My Name Is Mud" was produced by the band themselves. [4]

Music video

The music video for "My Name Is Mud" was directed by Mark Kohr (who would also helm the videos for two other Primus singles: "DMV" and "Mr. Krinkle"). [5] According to Les Claypool, the video is composed of three distinct visual threads: The first is the band performing the song in silhouette. The second is Claypool, in character as Aloysius Devadander Abercrombie A.K.A. Mud, burying a dead body while spitting chewing tobacco and singing at the camera. The third is set in a spa "where ... beauty is voluptuous. Where big people are beauty, and skinny people are not." [6]

The outdoor scenes were filmed around the Palo Alto area, near Interstate 280. During the first day of shooting, the band was caught in a massive rainstorm. "We ended up having to actually bag it," Claypool later noted, "which was a big deal ... scrapping the day almost killed the entire thing. It was freezing-ass cold, and the generator kept dying because somebody put diesel into a gas generator." [6] Larry LaLonde noted something similar: "I remember it being super cold and raining [when we filmed the outdoor scenes]—just standing on the field, freezing to death. That was a tough one to make. It was pretty uncomfortable." [7] The mud bath scenes were shot in Calistoga, California, and the graphic designer and musician Bob C. Cock (who also appears in the music video for Jerry Was a Racecar Driver) cameos in this portion of the video, where he drinks soda containing the pig head from the cover. [6]

Woodstock '94 performance

During Primus's Woodstock '94 performance of "My Name Is Mud", the band was pelted with mud, [8] which band drummer Tim Alexander noted was done "not in a mean way, but kind of a rock ’n’ roll way." [9] About a minute into the song, the band stopped playing and Les Claypool told the crowd, "Well I opened a big-ass can of worms with that one, didn't I? The song is called 'My Name Is Mud' but keep the mud to yourselves, you son-of-a-bitch." He also told them that throwing mud was a "sign of small and insignificant genitalia". [10] At that point "we got them to stop," Claypool explained in a 2014 interview with Greg Prato, "and we were able to continue and do our show." [9] In the same interview, Claypool joked that he "still [has] mud in those speaker cabinets." [9]

Track listing

  1. "Pork Chop's Little Ditty" – 0:21
  2. "My Name Is Mud" – 4:46

Personnel

"Me Llamo Mud"

"Me Llamo Mud"
Single by Primus
ReleasedNovember 30, 2010
Label Prawn Song

Personnel

Charts

Chart (1993)Peak
position
US Alternative Airplay ( Billboard ) [11] 9

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References

Notes

  1. "My Name Is Mud by Primus". Songfacts . Retrieved May 17, 2022.
  2. Prato (2014), pp. 163–64.
  3. Prato (2014), pp. 162–63.
  4. Prato (2014), p. 162.
  5. Thompson (2000), p. 93.
  6. 1 2 3 Prato (2014), p. 164.
  7. Prato (2014), p. 163.
  8. Lynch, Joe (August 16, 2014). "Primus' Les Claypool Talks Woodstock '94, 20 Years Later". Billboard . Archived from the original on April 26, 2022.
  9. 1 2 3 Prato (2014), p. 186.
  10. Bernstein, Scott (August 8, 2014). "Full Show Friday | Primus At Woodstock 1994". JamBase. Archived from the original on March 8, 2019.
  11. "Primus Chart History (Alternative Airplay)". Billboard. Retrieved 7 August 2017.

Bibliography