Song Explanation
"Lie in Our Graves" is one of many songs in the band's catalog with a carpe diem theme, speaking to the importance of embracing what life has to offer ("When I step into the light / My arms are open wide") while one still can ("I can't believe that we would lie in our graves / Wondering if we had spent our living days well"). Its merry, upbeat feel in the face of dark subject matter is reminiscent of a lot of the band's other earlier songs such as "What Would You Say", "Tripping Billies", and most famously, "Ants Marching".
It has been introduced by Matthews in a wide variety of ways, running from the succinct (Matthews frequently will jibe, "This is a song about being dead") to the introspective. During a performance from Marcus Amphitheater in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on June 23, 1996, Matthews had this to say about it:
"This is a song that sings about the hopes that when we all get to the end of our lives, that we'll feel pretty good about what we did, so don't compromise yourself."
The song was originally titled "Peanuts".
Read more about this topic: Lie In Our Graves
Famous quotes containing the words song and/or explanation:
“But see, the Virgin blest
Hath laid her Babe to rest:
Time is our tedious song should here have ending;
Heaven’s youngest teemed star,
Hath fixed her polished car,
Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending;
And all about the courtly stable,
Bright-harnessed angels sit in order serviceable.”
—John Milton (1608–1674)
“Are cans constitutionally iffy? Whenever, that is, we say that we can do something, or could do something, or could have done something, is there an if in the offing—suppressed, it may be, but due nevertheless to appear when we set out our sentence in full or when we give an explanation of its meaning?”
—J.L. (John Langshaw)