This song has always been one of my favorite Snipehunter-era songs, although strangely enough we never played it at any of our shows.  Probably because we were too busy rocking hard…..hee-hee.  Anyhow, it’s really a nice song, and it sticks in your head like peanut butter in your throat (not the tainted peanut butter, but the good stuff) but this recording of it is a little raw.  Anthony and I were at a wedding of a mutual friend in Redondo Beach and for some reason we had a tape recorder and a guitar with us.  I think, back in those days, we always had a tape recorder and a guitar with us, just as a matter of principle. I mean, when you’re in a rocking hard band you gotta capture rocking hard inspiration when it shows up, right?  So we sat down and recorded a few of the songs we were working on at the time and named it, “The Redondo Beach Sessions.”  And this song is called “So Many.”  Anthony wrote the lyrics; I was just trying to play a happy little tune on the guitar, because it felt like it needed a happy little tune (I’m sorry to go all Bob Ross on you), even though the lyrics aren’t necessarily happy.  Here, we’ll let Anthony talk about the lyrics.

“As far as the the words go, they were written while I was in college.  Now let me be the first to say I love women but, at times, they can be…confusing (still).  Such was the case with Christie who I really liked and who appeared, at times, to feel the same.  And then there were times when she didn’t.  And at those times I turned to the cure for women; beer.  Wow, I think I may have inadvertently started writing another song.  This is a classic example of how a lot of the stuff we’ve written came to be.”

The great thing about this particular recording is that you can hear us mention “The Urge,” which was our original name before we became “The Snipehunters” (and there’s a punk band called “The Urge,” we found out later).  Also, during the first “chorus,” you can hear a car crash happen just outside the hotel.  We weren’t using microphones in our hotel room, so we’re pretty certain we didn’t cause the car crash.  Later in the song you can hear an ambulance or police siren approaching said car crash.  And, in this recording, you can hear, for the very first time, Jeff attempting to sing “harmony.”  Needless to say, it’s not something I do often.  Enjoy.

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Lyrics:

So many birds
So many lives up above
So many times
I thought that I would fall in love
With you
Only you
Yes it’s true
I thought that I would fall in love
With you

So many girls
So many smiles at the bar
So many times
I thought I wasn’t very far
From you
Only you
Yes it’s true
I thought that I was always closer
To you

And does it seem
That all my dreams
All evolve
All dissolve
With you

So many beers
So many bottles in the fridge
So many times
I thought that I could build a bridge
To you
Only you
Yes it’s true
I thought that I could find a way
To you

Lyrics/Vocals:  Anthony

Music/Guitar/Backup:  Jeff

A Chacon/Reynoso Thing