"Gravedigger" is a song by
Dave Matthews from his debut
solo album,
Some
Devil. This was the first solo single released by Matthews
away from the
Dave Matthews Band,
and it won a
Grammy Award
for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance at the
46th Grammy Awards held on
February 8,
2004. The song
has been performed live by
Dave
Matthews (solo), by Dave Matthews with
Tim Reynolds, at
Dave Matthews & Friends
concerts, and occasionally as an acoustic solo by Matthews during
Dave Matthews Band shows. During
the
Dave Matthews Band summer
tour in
2008, it was played regularly by the
full band.
A music video was produced for the song, directed by
Mark Pellington [352419].
While filming the video in Montana
, Matthews
lost his wedding ring in the grave, though it was eventually
recovered. The video, much like the song, was dark. Elements
within the video, such as a hand wielding a key, symbolize death.
The lyrics describe, among other things, a young boy who dies in a
bike crash.
Matthews said about the song
[352420]:
"It's kind of these different stories that are brought
together by walking through a graveyard with their names and the
dates of their births and their deaths, and the stories that came
out of their lives.
It's sort of just telling those stories and some others
as you wander through a graveyard and what you might think if you
could walk into the graves and find out what people went through to
get there."
There was also an acoustic version of the song on the album
Some Devil. The song began as an
intro played twice solo by Matthews at full-band DMB shows in the
spring of
2002, before debuting as a full solo
song in the same tour. In the original "Gravedigger Intro" version,
only two people are mentioned: Merrill Lee (1905 - 1969) and Robert
John Smith.
Willie Nelson did his own version of
the song that appeared on the 2008 album
Moment of Forever.
Track listing
- "Gravedigger" — 3:50
- "Gravedigger" (Acoustic) — 3:53
Chart performance
| Chart (2003) |
Peak
position
|
| U.S. Billboard Hot Alternative Songs |
35 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot Adult Top 40 Tracks |
35 |
|