It was pretty hard to ignore the music video for Crash Into Me if you ever watched MTV during the 1990s.  The grainy still frames of geishas and muses who looked like they had been splashed with watercolors were captivating, yet I was not a Dave Matthews Band fan at the time.  Then I met my best friend, who reintroduced me to Crash Into Me.  As I sat on his bed in his college dorm, it was perhaps the first time I really listened to the song, or any music by DMB.  That night I fell in love. 

For the next two years I was obsessed with Dave Matthews Band.  I had a Diamond Rio MP3 player that held almost no music, and I’d fill it with DMB until it overflowed with falsetto love songs punctuated by acoustic guitar.  I would sit outside the gym and write in my journals for hours, blasting DMB so as to drown out the sound of the rest of the world.  Then my best friend and I broke up, and from that point forward I could no longer force myself to listen to that music.  All I could think of every time I heard any song by DMB was all of the hours I had spent with him. 

It seemed like for the next few years I couldn’t escape DMB playing everywhere.  The last staw was when I was working out in the gym and Crash Into Me was blasting so loud that I couldn’t turn my newly purchased iPod up loud enough to mask the music that suddenly made me want to slit my wrists.  I left the gym angry and vowed never again to stay anywhere that would play such horrible music.  My first week of work at my first real job I went to happy hour on Friday and met the person who would be the greatest lawyer I’d ever meet.  Unfortunately, he was having a drunken discussion about the merits of the Dave Matthews Band, so it would be about two years until we’d become friends.  I didn’t think I’d ever change my mind about the music of Dave Matthews Band.

Yesterday Manchester and I were talking about DMB for some reason, and I realized, I really miss the music.  As much as that music used to make me feel sad or angry about breaking up with my former best friend, I realized I can listen to it now without even thinking about him.  Plus, with my new Napster account, I can get lots of DMB for a flat monthly fee.  The only problem, is that my green 4th generation 4 GB iPod that was once filled to the brim was stolen in a recent burglary, so for now it’s only my computer that’s filled with musical storytelling about friends who become lovers for a night, unrequited love, and snapshots of life.  But I must admit, sometimes I miss the way things used to be when I lived that simple life where I wrote in my journal outside of the gym.