“#34” is the last song on Under the Table and Dreaming, even though it’s an instrumental. It also shows up as track number 34. If you watch the cd play in a car or old cd player, the numbers 12-33 will all flash by. Pretty neat.
The song was inspired by and written for Miguel Valdez. He was a friend of the band in the early years, and would often sit in on percussion with him. He passed away in 1993, and DMB held three benefit concerts for him.
The song started out with more of a love tone, but due to its inspiration, it became more of a lament on death (AntsMarching.org). As I said, this is an instrumental and there are no lyrics on the album. It is quite a beautiful song, accompanied by beautiful saxophone harmonies. Lyrics have been added several times, including a special version to celebrate the 34th birthday of Mrs. Dave Matthews (Ashley), but mostly has shown up as an instrumental.
The first video I’m going to show you has the studio version of the song, and it plays behind a video in memory of the late LeRoi Moore. The song has his beautiful saxophone playing, so it was a perfect choice to use for this video.
Here’s the version of the song played in honor of Dave’s wife’s 34th birthday. It’s from the Hollywood Bowl in LA back in 2007. The video quality isn’t great, but you don’t see great music, you hear it.
This is another one of those songs that I have on my ‘relaxation’ mixes, as you can probably understand. It’s a very beautiful (for the 18th time) song, and I nice way to end off the band’s first big album.
Song Review: 3.5/5 (mainly because it’s an instrumental and not much more)
Next Review: “Under the Table and Dreaming” as a whole
dmb 341 