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Tyler Childers’ Unreleased “Snipe Hunt” Isn’t About Hunting Pranks Or Birds… It’s About “People Who Get Under Your Skin”
Revisiting the song that inspired the record’s title.
“Snipe Hunt” might be one of Tyler Childers’ lesser-known unreleased gems, and because of today’s events, I feel like we need to revisit it. Yesterday, Tyler Childers announced a brand new record, Snipe Hunter, which is due everywhere on July 25th via Hickman Holler Records/RCA Records.
Alongside the record’s announcement, Childers also gifted fans with a studio recording of “Nose On The Grindstone,” the first non-live version of the song available to stream. Ahead of the formal release, fans fell in love with the song from the OurVinyl Sessions recording, and from watching it during his Red Barn Radio performance.
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Given the release of this song from the Tyler Childers vault, and the nod to another song from his unreleased catalog of music with the album’s title, I think it’s only fair to revisit the song that inspired the record’s name, “Snipe Hunt.”
While one might think that a “Snipe Hunt” involves hunting the wading birds with long beaks (yes, there is a real bird called a snipe found in the northern parts of the United States and Canada), but Childers penned the song to play more into the old hunting prank surrounding the animal. Typically, a person (usually a child or someone not very familiar with hunting) is sent off with a sack on a “snipe hunt,” in search of a mythical bird that doesn’t exist. It’s sorta like the old dad joke where you send your kid into AutoZone to get “blinker fluid.” It’s just a wild goose chase so others can laugh at your expense. And like I said, snipes ARE real birds so the origin of the prank is a little confusing.
But back in 2018, Tyler Childers gave some context to the tune while performing in Norway, and it has nothing to do with the bird or the hunting prank… it’s more of a metephor for when you think someone is your friend, and then you find out that they’re not:
Tyler said:
“Do you guys go snipe hunting over here? Yeah? They pulled that trick on me when I was a kid, too. And we used to pull it from time to time on buddies who didn’t know any better, and it didn’t happen to them when they were a kid.
Um, this isn’t about that. This is about those people who get under your skin and just, um, you know, just forget about them. It’s a new one that I’ve been working on, I think I’m going to call it ‘Snipe Hunt’ though.”
Childers uses the folklore game to depict that there are people out there who will make you feel humiliated, manipulated, or deceived, similar to how you may feel after you’re the victim of a snipe hunt prank:
“Now when I was a young boy, thought I could track
And an old-timer sat down and reached me a sack
And he told me all of the knowledge I lacked
On an ornery ol’ thing called a snipe
He picked me up on a Friday and he dropped me in Charley
Told me when he’d be back and went off to party
And I sat on the hill like a Jeremiah Johnson
And I froze my dumb a** off all night
And that’s the way that I feel when I look at our past
And the handshakes you gave me, if you’re callin’ them that
And the snickers you tried to pass off as laughs
And the way your eyes never met mine…”
Childers tells a true story about how childhood events shape you and can also teach you about the evil people of the world. “Snipe Hunt” is one of those songs proving that Tyler Childers is one of our generation’s most talented songwriters and storytellers.
While the tracklist for Snipe Hunter, the album, has not yet been revealed, I feel like Childers is letting us know that this song will be on the tracklist.
Turn it up.
The post Tyler Childers’ Unreleased “Snipe Hunt” Isn’t About Hunting Pranks Or Birds… It’s About “People Who Get Under Your Skin” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.
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