Lie in Our Graves

Infobox Song
Name = Lie in Our Graves


SorA = album
Artist = Dave Matthews Band
Album = Crash
Released = April 30, 1996
track_no = 9
Recorded = Bearsville Studios, Woodstock, New York & Green Street Recording Studios, New York City, New York
Genre = Rock
Length = 5:42
Writer = David J. Matthews
Composer = Dave Matthews Band
Label = RCA
Producer = Steve Lillywhite
Chart position =
prev = "Let You Down"
prev_no = 8
next = "Cry Freedom"
next_no = 10

"Lie in Our Graves" is a song by the Dave Matthews Band, featured on the 1996 album "Crash".

ong explanation

"Lie in Our Graves" is one of many songs in the band's catalog with a "carpe diem" theme, speaking to the importance of embracing what life has to offer ("When I step into the light / My arms are open wide") while one still can ("I can't believe that we would lie in our graves / Wondering if we had spent our living days well"). Its merry, upbeat feel in the face of dark subject matter is reminiscent of a lot of the band's other earlier songs such as "What Would You Say", "Tripping Billies", and most famously, "Ants Marching".

It has been introduced by Matthews in a wide variety of ways, running from the succinct (Matthews frequently will jibe, "This is a song about being dead") to the introspective. During a performance from Marcus Amphitheater in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on June 23, 1996, Matthews had this to say about it:

"This is a song that sings about the hopes that when we all get to the end of our lives, that we'll feel pretty good about what we did, so don't compromise yourself."

The song was originally titled "Peanuts".

Live performance history

"Lie in Our Graves" is one of the band's oldest songs, having been played by the full band on a regular basis as early as the fall of 1992 during the band's regular gigs at Trax Nightclub in Charlottesville, Virginia, and even earlier as a solo song for Matthews. It has been a staple of every major tour the band has performed since its introduction, and has also been played extensively on Matthews's tours with Tim Reynolds and on the Dave Matthews & Friends tour in 2003 and 2004. As of the close of the band's tour in 2007, the song is the ninth most-frequently played song in DMB live performance history, with 633 full performances.

During its early years, the song was performed live in a similar fashion to how it was recorded in studio for "Crash". Over time, though, the live performance of the song gradually evolved so that the jam portion in the song's middle (before the final lyrical "reprise" portion) was extensively protracted from how it was played in studio. By 1998, running times in excess of 10 minutes were commonplace, and a mere two years later, performances exceeding 15 minutes were occurring regularly. This expansion allowed for an ever-expanding group of guest collaborators to contribute performances to the song.

During the latter portion of the 2007 tour, the live performance evolved further still, as the band experimented with splitting the "reprise" portion from the rest of the song. This resulted in performances where the song (minus the reprise) was played in full early in the show, with the reprise being played out of nowhere much later in the show; or even merely the reprise being played on its own somewhere in the show, absent the rest of the song.

pecial guest collaborators

Other than the band's regular guest artists (Butch Taylor and Rashawn Ross), notable guest collaborators on performances of "Lie in Our Graves" include:

*Tim Reynolds
*Trey Anastasio of Phish
*Béla Fleck of Béla Fleck and the Flecktones
*The Richmond Symphony Orchestra

Official live releases

This is a complete list of albums which have featured "Lie in Our Graves" as a live track.

*"Live at Red Rocks 8.15.95"
**Summer 1995 tour show from Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colorado
**Special guest performer Tim Reynolds
*"Live in Chicago 12.19.98"
**Fall 1998 tour show from the United Center in Chicago
**Special guest performers Tim Reynolds, Victor Wooten, Maceo Parker, and Mitch Rutman
*"The Gorge"
**3-night Summer 2002 tour stand from the Gorge Amphitheatre in George, Washington
*"The Complete Weekend on the Rocks"
**4-night Summer 2005 tour stand from Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colorado
*"Live Trax Vol. 2"
**2004 benefit show from Polo Field in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park
**Special guest performer Carlos Santana
*"Live Trax Vol. 4"
**1996 official "Crash" release show from the Classic Amphitheater at Richmond's International Raceway
*"Live Trax Vol. 7"
**1996 New Year's Run show from Hampton Coliseum in Hampton, Virginia
**Special guest performers Béla Fleck and the Flecktones and Paul McCandless
*"Live Trax Vol. 10"
**2007 International Spring tour show from Pavilhão Atlântico in Lisbon, Portugal
**Special guest performer Tom Morello

Trivia

*On the studio recording, if you listen closely, you can hear sounds of table tennis being played in the background during the jam portion. This was a common form of recreation for the band during the "Crash" sessions, with producer Steve Lillywhite frequently challenging members of the band to marathon sessions of the game.

References

External links

* [http://dmbalmanac.com/SongStats.aspx?sid=22 DMB Almanac Listing]
* [http://www.dmbtabs.com/song.php?sid=31 Guitar Tabs @ DMBTabs.com]
* [http://antsmarching.org/tour/ViewSongShows.php?SongID=24 Lyrics and Song History @ antsmarching.org]