Dave Matthews Band René Huemer

This is a spontaneous creation of a new feature I am starting today.  It could be any favorite.  Today it will be a couple of cuts from the album I’ve been playing on repeat.  Am really hoping you hear them and are geeked to seek out the whole album. 

With my library habits, I’ve gotten into a weekly going through their newly acquired blu rays, DVDs, and music CDs.   Dave Matthews Band’s, “Walk Around the Moon” (released May 19, 2023) popped up in the list.   The more I listen to it the more I’m falling in love with each song. 

Allmusic’s Stephen Erlewine says (there is more at the site, but)

Like many 2023 albums, it was born in part from pandemic isolation, a period of reflection where Matthews managed to avoid the melancholy that hung over him during the early years of the 2000s. Some of the brighter outlook of Walk Around the Moon can be attributed to the inclusion of deliberate jolts of positivity on the album yet those moments aren’t as exuberant as prime ’90s DMB, all due to the absence of the late LeRoi Moore and violinist Boyd Tinsley. Where DMB made sure to replace Moore with another horn player, Tinsley‘s vacancy was filled by keyboard player Buddy Strong, a decision that helps shift the band’s core sound to something sinewy and rhythmic.

I’m not going to agree or disagree with Erlewine as to whether the early 2000s music was melancholy, or that this album isn’t as exuberant as prime 90’s DMB, but it is hard to ignore that the sound is shifted with the absence of the violin and the addition of a keyboard player.  What I will say is that the music goes as high and sometimes beyond the beauty of other albums and reaches the ethereal place where tears fall at the listening.  There are fast and serious jamming songs, but there are also butterfly wings that wave lyrics in to blossom the soul.

The early favorite is, “The Only Thing”

All of us we’re always trying to catch up
Call just to let me know what you think
How is this never quite enough
Lost and always trying to get back, can we get back?

Oh, call the doctor and the doctor came in
She said, “Where does it hurt?

You know there’s a pill for most everything”
Close your eyes, open wide,

and we’ll make you smile again
Some people believe in ghosts

and some believe in aliens

Just wish I could crawl

out of the skin I’m living in
Crawl out of my mind into the outside
Nobody could reach me

If you could crawl out of the skin

you’re living in
Like some kinda love just opened you up
You know when you feel it
It’s the only thing

Oh, don’t you feel like you’re trying to catch up
Fear makes you jump a little too quick
Time, do we know when it’s too late
Always trying to get it back, trying to get it back

But remember all the things that used to be real
Things to help you believe

’cause you wanna make sense of everything
Then there’s the first time you crack and you think,

“Everyone’s laughing at me”
All at once, you’re a ghost, you’re some kind of alien

Just wish I could crawl out of the skin I’m living in
Crawl out of my mind into the outside
I just want to feel it

If you could crawl out of the skin you’re living in
Find some kinda love to open you up
You know when you feel it
It’s the only thing

Just wish I could crawl out of the skin I’m living in
Out of my mind into the outside
Nobody could reach me

If you could crawl out of the skin you’re living in
Like some kinda love just opened you up
You know when you feel it
It’s the only thing

It’s the only thing

As I’ve listened, this, the title track, is side by side with the first tune.

I found a stranger walking in the woods
She was not quite like anyone I knew
Red dress, polka dot, shadows in her hair
She said, “You take me and I take you there”
Now she’s goin’ ’round and ’round inside of my head
I think I’m just a little too close to the edge
You took everything from me
And now I’m falling into this never ending scene
I know you got your best to give to me (best of intentions)
You know you hold me up (open up your eyes)
I know it seems that I have crossed into a dream
Since I, I been flying, so fly (open up your eyes)
Big stack, jump back
Crumble into you, boy
Good boy, won’t stay as high as your eyes
Sister, twisted, my love to fly
But I, I wanted for you to give a little bit of everything
I know you got your best to give to me (best of intentions)
You know you hold me up (open up your eyes)
I know it seems that I have crossed into a dream
Since I, I been flying, so fly (open up your eyes)
It’s blue and it’s red
Found a new door, open my head
How could I go to bed?
Think I’ll walk ’round the moon instead
It was blue and it was red
Found a new door inside of my head
How could I go to bed?
Think I’ll walk ’round the moon instead
We’re gonna take it so far out
I was just a little close to the edge
When you pulled me back and said
“That’s not how it ends
It’s because you gave me everything”
I’m flying into this kaleidoscope dream
I know you got your best to give to me (best of intentions)
You know you hold me up (open up your eyes)
I know it seems that I have crossed into a dream
Since I, I been flying, so fly (open up your eyes)
It’s blue and it’s red
Found a new door, open my head
How could I go to bed?
Think I’ll walk ’round the moon instead
It was blue and it was red
Found a new door inside of my head
How could I go to bed?
Think I’ll walk ’round the moon instead

Tracks composed by  David J. Matthews, Carter Beauford, Stefan Lessard, Tim Reynolds, Rashawn Ross, Jeff Coffin and Arthur “Buddy” Strong , with an addition of Rob Evans on Walk Around The Moon and an addition of John Alagia on The Only Thing.