B double E double R U N. That chorus is at the heart of Todd Snider’s fabulous song, “Beer Run.” It is my go to song whenever I am on a beer run and, often, when I am just thinking about beer in general. And, if it is not already, it should at least make your favorite beer drinking mix tape.
The song is the fourth track off Snider’s fifth album, New Connection. The album came out in 2002, but Snider had been playing the song live since at least 2000. And Beer Run has been a staple of Snider’s live concerts ever since.
I was first introduced to Snider’s Beer Run in about 2006. I was living out in Los Angeles and regularly making the trip to Zion National Park with my friend, Jane. Jane was a big rock climber, but we were mainly heading to Zion to canyoneer and drink beer. Things did not always happen exactly in that order, and I recall whoever was not driving drinking the whole way across Nevada most weekends. But we would always crack beers the moment we made it back to the trailhead after we dropped a canyon.
Since those days, Beer Run has always been in my repertoire. But there are times that I have played – and needed – it a little more: quitting work at the end of a long day in a forlorn boatyard in coastal Georgia, leaving the dry county I was living in in Arkansas for the liquor store just beyond the line, and other beer deprived moments in my life. It is amazing how a song can not only bring back rich memories, but also make you want a cold one really bad.
My advice at the moment is to crank the tune and crack a beer. Or, if you are sadly bereft of suds, put the song on repeat and head out right now to make that B double E double R U N. You might even try to get a cig off a hippie who smells kinda funny. And, if you want to mix it up a little, you could do worse than singing along with the Robert Earl Keen song Snider references in Beer Run: “The Road Goes on Forever.”
