Songfacts®:

• This is the only song in the Van Halen catalog with a lead vocal by Eddie Van Halen. Gary Cherone, the band's lead singer at the time, sang backup.
  
  It was Cherone who pushed Eddie to sing lead, which brought him way out of his comfort zone. In a Songfacts interview with Cherone, he told the story:
  
  "I just had a lyric – I might have written it over three days – and he looked over my shoulder one day and said, 'What's that?' And I said, 'I'm finishing up this lyric called 'How Many Say I.'' And he said, 'Do you mind if I take it?'
  
  He took it, I went to bed in the guest house, and he stayed up all hours of the night. Woke up the next morning and he showed me on the piano. He sang it – he'd made a rough demo of it. I thought it was brilliant. His voice reminded me of Tom Waits or Roger Waters.
  
  I was the one who encouraged him to do it on the record. He was a little reluctant. It's gotten criticism over the years because Eddie sang it, but I thought the initial demo was so inspiring. For me, it was just like, "You should sing it." I twisted his arm a little bit, but then he embraced it because I was comparing him to [Pink] Floyd. His demo was so emotional – I thought it was great."
• The lyric deals with how we often contradict ourselves by acting in ways that don't hold true to our values. We may think of ourselves as forgiving, yet hold a grudge; we care about the homeless, but walk right by when he see one on the street. It's a theme Gary Cherone often explores in his lyrics, particularly with his band Extreme. A good example is their 1992 song "Am I Ever Gonna Change?"
  
  The lyric clearly resonated with Eddie Van Halen, who was doing a lot of reflection around this time. Eddie was struggling with addiction and also dealing with the fallout from losing Sammy Hagar as lead singer. Van Halen tried reuniting with David Lee Roth, but when that didn't work out, they brought in Cherone.
• There's no guitar on this song, just Eddie's piano and a string section. It's a real departure from most Van Halen songs, which are guitar heavy with lyrics that are usually fun (Roth era) and/or uplifting (Hagar era).
• This is the last song on Van Halen III, the last album the band made until 2012, when they returned with A Different Kind Of Truth. David Lee Roth was back as lead singer for that one, and Eddie's son Wolfgang was their bass player.