Have you ever read the ingredients for Lay’s potato chips? Just in case you haven’t, the ingredients are potatoes, salt, and oil. And with only three ingredients, just like their commercial used to say…I don’t think anyone can eat just one.

In the initial summer weeks after I graduated high school I was spending time figuring out what I was gonna do with my life. And I spent a lot of time listening to music and working on my writing life. In fact, that’s when I started to really fill up spiral notebooks that I still have. Every experience was an opportunity to practice my craft…my favorite pastime.

One particular afternoon my three younger siblings were all in school, my stepfather was at work, and my mom was at her part-time job. I had just made a sandwich and added a handful of potato chips to my plate. I grabbed a soft drink, put on Elton John’s “Madman Across The Water” album (yes album) and began to eat.

For some silly reason I got a notion to write some silly thoughts about the potato chips. Not the bread. Not the meat. Not the mayo. The potato chips.

Keep in mind, I was 18, and remember…I’ve always been a whimsical writer. So don’t critique me too harshly for my silly results called…

Potato Chip Song

Potato chips are funny songs
Sung in hot dog harmony.
Eat them tip your octave’s full
Right up to middle C.
It seems their notes are barbecued
With ridges and so crisp.
I bet if they could sing to you,
They’d do so with a lisp.
Oh, I could sing a tater chip
And love that happy song.
I’d make it such a simple one
That dips could sing along.
It doesn’t matter if it’s Guy’s,
Or Lay’s, or Kitty Clover…
I eat the chips and sing the song.
I don’t even think it over.
Potato chips are funny songs
Sung in hot dog harmony,
But they’re very different songs,
If it’s hamburgers you see.

© Copyright Tony Funderburk 1973

Your whimsical writer,