Back in October, I wrote a brief post on a piece of music that Stephen and myself have been getting into again this week. For this reason I’ve bumped it up again, the original post below (slightly edited) and then some links you can use if you like it as much as we do.
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This month marks 7 years since I first heard the music of the Dave Matthews Band (DMB). I’ve been listening to the latest single, Eh Hee, released last month, and which may be – incredibly – among Matthews’ best material. It’s rhythmic, pervasive, entrancing, spellbinding. And that’s no mistake, according to Wikipedia:
“Eh Hee was written as an evocation of the music and culture of the Khoisan people of southern Africa. In a story told to the Radio City audience (an edited version of which appears on the DVD version of Live at Radio City), Matthews recalls hearing the music of the Khoisan and, upon asking his guide what the words to their songs were, being told that ‘there are no words to these songs, because these songs, we’ve been singing since before people had words.’”
Before they had words? That’s…. a humbling thought.
Click here to watch Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds do the song acoustically. This is a great way to hear the song stripped down and to hear the original idea.
Click here to see the music video and hear the studio version, which fleshes things out a bit.
Click here to watch an amateur video of the entire Dave Matthews Band along with special guests the Roots doing this song; a great way to get the feel for how the entire band does it live (Carter Beauford makes his presence felt on the drums and the Roots’ rapping doesn’t detract from it, surprisingly).
And click here for Dave Matthews’ explanation of the events which inspired the song, very useful and quite entertaining.
WHILE YOU'RE HERE...