New Dave Matthews video - Gravedigger

[VolcanoJen]

Has anyone seen this yet? It's powerful, and it's a great song too...

I don't think the video or song is especially political, but it's interesting that the video starts with Matthews lost on a country road, and he comes across a piece of cloth. It turns out it's an embroidered star from the US flag, and he discovers himself in a graveyard as the song starts. The video then flashes back through history to the deaths of the people who inhabit the graveyard, as he's holding this tattered star. It's really worth watching. I think it's on Launch.com if you don't catch it on M2.

Muriel Stonewall 1903 to 1954
She lost both of her babies in the Second Great War
Now, you should never have to watch your only children lowered in the ground
I mean you should never have to bury your own babies
Gravedigger
When you dig my grave
Could you make it shallow?
so that I can feel the rain...

[underpants]

1. Haven't seen it but I am sick and tired of the Dave Mathews bashing

Okay so he may actually be a vampire who the f**k cares?

His music and his band rock.

FUCK you dissenters

[VolcanoJen]

2. Here's the link to watch it online, for all interested

http://launch.yahoo.com/promos/davematthews/

And nobody will ever be able to disuade me from my enduring love of Dave Matthews and the Dave Matthews Band, try though they may. :-)

Seriously, even the haters might like this song... it's very timely, and sad, and the video is haunting.

[short bus president]

10. I can't bash - used to be a big fan

before they hit the "big time" and released three albums in a row with not one or two songs in common, BUT THE SAME FUCKING THREE SONGS REPEATED OVER AND OVER AGAIN, with imperceptible variations.

</endrant>

[hippiechick]

12. Dave's a vampire ?

:wtf:


:hippie:

[roughsatori]

3. I have never been a fan of the Dave Mathews band

I don't hate them, just not moved. BUT that song is INCREDIBLE, I love it; and I like the video very much. I had MTV on behind me the other night while on the computer and heard that song. I thought: I have to see who this is to buy the CD. It was Grave Digger. I think it is wonderful and I will probably buy the CD it is on. I even sent some emails to Friends telling them to check the song out. :)

[tjdee]

4. I LOVE Dave Matthews, and I don't care who hears!

I've been blissfully unaware of any Dave bashin', LOL.... while I do think that for a few minutes they veer into Phish/Grateful Deadness, and I don't like that, overall they're very strong musically, Dave writes good lyrics, and Dave's voice is pretty sexy.

:loveya:

I've got to hear this new song, thanks for the link! Oh yeah, and this is his solo album, right?

[SlutBunwalla]

5. Have you ever seen their video for "Everyday?"

I cry like a baby every time I see it--I find it tremendously moving.

I don't get the Dave bashing on DU, either. I mean, you'd think the guy was the antichrist the way some people froth at the mouth whenever he's mentioned. I've loved 'em since they were playing frat parties in Charlottesville.

Here's a link to the video:

http://www.dmband.com/sights/sights_features.asp?feature=every

[VolcanoJen]

7. The "Everyday" video is great!!

At last years MTV Video Music Awards, they even invited the "hugger" from the video to come onstage. He tackled Jimmy Fallon by running up and hugging him.

:-)

[regnaD kciN]

6. Haven't seen the video...

...but the song itself is amazing.

[MuseRider]

8. I turned my kids on

to DMB years ago. I don't care what anyone says, they are incredible musicians and they do enormous amounts of charity work. Thanks for the link, I missed them this summer. I will admit to having every single CD they have made that I can get my hands on and love everyone of them except Everyday. I love what they have done with some of those tunes since then however.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

9. I Heard This Song Premiere on KROQ

It was amazing, very haunting and powerful. I knew this song would be a hit. Haven't seen the video yet, but I will have to look out for it now.

DTH

[VolcanoJen]

11. I first heard it on a bootleg of the West Point Dave & Tim show...

:-) Come and GET ME, RIAA! :-)

Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds did a campus-only acoustic tour over the spring, during the height of the build-up toward war in Iraq. Dave debuted "Gravedigger" during these acoustic shows (I finally saw one in person, at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio on March 31, 2003) and it was easily the song that got the largest ovation from the crowd. Dear God, what an amazing, poignant, and timely song...

Anyhow, at the West Point show on March 23, 2003, Dave purposefully changed the "Dancing Nancies" lyrics to "What if I were... a marching soldier?" during that show, and every time I hear that song now, I think of that moment...

ON EDIT: Love or hate Dave as an artist, but he is assuredly one of those artists who is on our side, politically. Here's what he issued as an official statement, on the DMB website, right at the dawn of the war on Iraq:

http://www.dmband.com/news/news_popup_iraq.asp

Dave Matthews Speaks Out About the War

I hope this letter finds you all well and that in these uncertain times you find moments to be joyful.

I want to speak my mind about this war with Iraq, or I will choke on my conscience.

What is the motivation? Regime change? Shouldn't that be up to the people of the region and the people of Iraq? The only real threat from Saddam Hussein is to his neighbors and none of them support a U.S. invasion. Is it to stabilize the Middle-East? Wouldn't it only do the opposite by causing further death and suffering in a country that has had more than its share?

Is it to weaken Al Qaeda? Saddam Hussein is a genocidal maniac but he is not Al Qaeda. He is certainly more visible though. Is he our target because he is easier to identify than the illusive terrorist network? Surely it is more likely that an attack on Iraq would only strengthen Al Qaeda by feeding Anti-American sentiment. Putting out the fire with gasoline, so to speak. It is certainly not to liberate the people of Iraq who suffer under Hussein's rule, unless we call killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis liberation.

Saddam Hussein is a barbaric murderous dictator. I wish the world were free of him. But the answer is not to bomb this great culture of Iraq out of existence to stop him. Why must the children of Iraq die by the thousands to stop a tyrant? It is not justice. And if we kill him what will we achieve? We will have taken the most unpopular leader in the Middle East and turned him into the greatest martyr radical Islam has ever had. The U.N. weapons inspectors must be allowed to do their job thoroughly and any military action should be internationally agreed upon. We must not allow our government to turn us into a rogue nation.

I fear that our true motivation is about oil and our own flailing economy; about the failure to destroy Al Qaeda and about revenge. It is criminal to put our servicemen and women in harm's way and to put the lives of so many civilians on the line for the misguided frustrations of the Bush administration.

Bottom line: this war is wrong and this war is un-American.

Peacefully submitted,
Dave Matthews