I Admire You So Much

"I Admire You So Much"
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Demo by Rivers Cuomo
Album	Alone II: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo
Recorded	September 5, 2001
Length	0:46
Label	Geffen
Writer(s)	Rivers Cuomo
RC#	667
COR#	333
Producer(s)	Rivers Cuomo
Status	Released
Alone II: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo track listing
"Walt Disney (15) "I Admire You So Much" (16) "My Day Is Coming" (17)
Rivers Cuomo song chronology
"b) Song" (RC# 666) "I Admire You So Much" (RC# 667) "Poor Beggar's Son" (RC# 668)

"I Admire You So Much" is the sixteenth track from Alone II: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo.

Appearances

• Alone II: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo (2008)
• Alone VIII: The Maladroit Years (2020)

Overview

A year-and-a-half later, on May 15, 2001, with a total of 286 entries in The Catalog O' Riffs, The Green Album was released. I was still racked with self-doubt and bothered by external criticisms that the album wasn't as good as the earlier albums and that the new songs all sounded the same. At the same time, I was encouraged in my empirical approach to creativity because of the commercial success of the album and its subsequent tours, and by the fact that I seemed to have emerged from Weezer as a star personality. I therefore continued, anxiously, with my experiments and The Catalog O' Riffs. On September 5, I conducted experiment #333, the method being "Concept (IAEVC)-Incipit-Melody-Guitar-Develop-Tea." "IAEVC" was an acronym which stood for an "intellectually acquired emotionally volatile concept." It meant that rather than waiting to be overwhelmed by a feeling to write about, I would calmly seach my mind for a subject which I knew had the potential to inspire emotion in me. I would then compose the incipit (the opening lyric) which was the seed idea, the main thrust of the lyric, then write the melody, start strumming the guitar and continue developing the lyric, melody, and guitar from there freely. And all throughout the experiment, I would be sipping a cup of tea with half-and-half. The first IAEVC that came to my mind when I sat down to write experiment #333 regarded my friend Kevin Ridel. Kevin had been my friend since we were in the same band in high school. He had also been one of the main sources of inspiration for me to start writing melodic pop songs instead of heavy metal guitar compositions. I had always been amazed at Kevin's ability to churn out emotional, personal and catchy songs so effortlessly. In 2001 when Am Radio and Weezer both recorded a batch of new demos at the same time, I listened back to all the recordings at once and painfully told myself that Kevin's songs blew mine away. My admiration for Kevin, then, was the IAEVC for experiment #333. The incipit generated by it was "I Admire You So Much" (Track 16). I sang those words to the first tune that popped into my head, started strumming the guitar, and then developed the song from there, abandoning the original concept and letting the lyrics flow freely from my unconscious mind. I recorded the experiment on an Olympus digital handheld recorded. It was a promising start to a song. - Rivers Cuomo, Alone II: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo liner notes

"I Admire You So Much" was written in praise of Kevin Ridel of the band AM Radio. It appeared on a spreadsheet assembled by Cuomo in 2008 (dubbed "The 4 and 5 star demos of Rivers Cuomo"), but did not appear with "Alone II" marked next to it. It was added to the track listing later. The version that appears on Alone II, at 49 seconds long, is condensed from the original three-and-a-half minute song sketch. The latter was added to the compilation Alone VIII: The Maladroit Years' on November 23, 2020.

On an Island in the Zoom webinar on May 22, 2020, Cuomo performed the song on piano with a previously-unheard additional verse (see Lyrics).

Known recordings

about this table

Performer(s)	Title	Filename	Date of recording	Recording location	Length	Appeared on	Notes
Rivers Cuomo	I Admire You So Much	333 I Admire You So Much.mp3	September 5, 2001	Los Angeles, CA	3:31	Alone VIII: The Maladroit Years
Rivers Cuomo	I Admire You So Much	I admire you so much (RC edit 1).mp3	September 5, 2001	Los Angeles, CA	1:12	Alone VIII: The Maladroit Years	Shortened edit of 333 I Admire You So Much.mp3
Rivers Cuomo	I Admire You So Much		September 5, 2001	Los Angeles, CA	0:46	Alone II: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo	Shortened edit of 333 I Admire You So Much.mp3

Personnel

• Rivers Cuomo - Guitar, vocals

Lyrics

Demo I admire you so much In the morning time our hearts will touch Hold on, hold on 'Cuz I've never needed anyone like this You're the magic in my sight I'm holding on the warm firelight Hold on, hold on 'Cuz I've never needed anyone like this You never needed me, I never needed you And that's the way you are

Additional verse (Island in the Zoom) I admire you so much In the morning time our hearts will touch Hold on, hold on 'Cuz I've never needed anyone like this I admire you so much And fear and love walk hand in glove Hold on, hold on And this is the safest place I've ever known You never needed me, I never needed you 'Cuz that's the way we are

See Also

• List of Rivers Cuomo songs