Happy Birthday Dave - Part One

Dave Matthews turned 50 on January 9th. The AARP trolled him with a fake cover. And I felt much older than I am, while simultaneously thinking "oh crap, they won't tour forever, I have to see DMB every chance I get from here on out!!!!" And then I realized that while my wife is a huge fan as well, we have a family, responsibilities, and we can't quit all of that to become groupies for the rest of the band's living days. Unless one of my faithful readers would like to send a few million dollars. I promise we'll spend it wisely.

Short of that, however, I am going to use happy number 50 for Dave to rank my top 50 DMB songs of all time. A few rules:

• No covers - no matter how much I love the various cover songs that DMB plays at shows, for this list to be authentic in my opinion the songs have to belong to the band.
• Unreleased tracks count - so Blue Water can make it in. 
• Studio versions are important, but the live version is more important. This is a band that has flourished because of their 25 plus years of playing live. What matters is how the song plays live. 
• The rareness of a song, and my search to hear it live, factors in. I'm just not really sure how. 
• This list is how the songs hit me now, in January of 2017. I've made lists before, and this will vary from those. 

And so, with no further delay, here are numbers 50-46, with brief comments:

#50 - JTR - a song written during The Lillywhite sessions and not officially released, JTR has been played off and on since its' creation. I've only heard JTR live once, and it was 6/18/2010. That show was delayed after a massive storm which ripped through Noblesville, decimating our camp site. We had nowhere to go really, as our car was parked a ways away, and all we had was tents. So we danced in the rain, got hailed on, appreciated the sudden drop in temperature (it was a heat index of well over 100 with extremely high humidity that day), and then the band took the stage, opening with JTR. Lyric to consider: "Rain down on me." 

#49 - Minarets - And oldie, Minarets was released on the 1993 independent release "Remember Two Things." Predating their initial commercial release and popularity, Minarets combines a driving beat with a Middle Eastern feel. I've seen Minarets live three times, including last year at Alpine Valley, the year before in Noblesville, and in 2012 at Alpine Valley. It always gets the crowd going. Lyric to consider: "What you see, what you see, what you see, what you see is human." 

#48 - Shotgun - Unreleased, this song is, outwardly, about the death of Dave's sister Anne. The song is not completed, and the lyrics change, but the emotion is extremely powerful, and raw. I've heard Shotgun live a total of six times, with a tease on the Friday show in 2009 leading to a full version on night two in Noblesville. Just a complete show stopper in a good way. Lyric to consider: none really; the song itself is just an experience. 

#47 - Pig - This is a song that is typically cited as a top ten, if not top five, song for most DMB fans. I love it, but the depth of this band's catalog force it down here for me. My favorite memory of this song involves a good friend in a car on the way to Alpine Valley. This friend was listening to Pig with us in the car stereo. He said "man I hope I finally hear this at Alpine." We laughed: the version of Pig that we were listening to was from the concert we had both been at earlier that year in Noblesville, where the band had played ... you guessed it ... Pig. That was the first time I ever heard Pig live. I've heard Pig a total of five times, including that year at Alpine as well. Either way, my friend got his wish ... twice in one year! Lyric to consider: "Don't burn the day away"

#46 - Say Goodbye - This song, off the second studio album, Crash, is a softer track. It often opens slowly, with Carter playing a drum solo, building into the whole band suddenly being there, jamming. The lyrics are an invitation of a sort, and build to a climactic end. I've seen Say Goodbye three times, in 2009, 2010 and 2011, but none since then. That it has crept into the back half of the top 50 over many other songs I love tells me that I'm very ready to hear it again. Lyric to consider: "And in your eyes I see what's on my mind. You've got me wild, turned around inside."