Songfacts®:

• "Chartreuse" came out of an attempt by ZZ Top to play a Gillian Welch composition, "It's Too Easy." The band were forced to adapt the song as it proved to be complex to play, eventually revamping it into this tune.
• According to an interview with MusicRadar, when asked what the title should be, chief engineer Gary Moon said: "Call it Chartreuse. First off, it's a liqueur, and secondly, it's an oddball color, and that's what you guys are!"
• Guitarist Billy Gibbons told MusicRadar about his guitar solo. "For the solo, I discovered that we had written a section in two different keys," he said, "and I don't know how to play a solo that jumps from key to key without weeks of practice in order to get it polite. So, in short order, I knocked it out. It's pretty well seamless. The bonus was playing the '61 Les Paul that I got from George Gruhn. What an excellent-sounding machine."