The Second Saddest Song

"Everybody Loves Raymond" is our dinnertime indulgence. We don't watch much television here. (My husband, who complains about it most, watches the most television; he stays up later than the rest of us and eats his pints of ice cream while watching bad reality porn, like "Extreme Dating." My daughter loves the show. She asks how much I did at the store, and when I tell her, she says, "Holy crap, Marie!" She says that for just about everything.

In one episode, Debra asks Ray for some time. She wants him to take the kids and leave, let her have the day to herself. But he can't stand it. He has to know what she's doing, so he spies on her, peeking in the living room window, where she's sitting on the sofa sobbing, the stereo blasting.

She explains to him later that she listens to sad songs on purpose so she can have a good cry.

I think of this episode as I press the back button on my CD player half a dozen times while waiting in the drive-through line at the bank.

I've never been a fan of the Dave Matthews Band (though I admit to liking his last CD a lot more than I liked any of the others, and "Crush" actually made me dance around). But his solo LP is another beast entirely. I bought it for my husband because of the song, "Gravedigger." This is one of the songs that "does it to me."

Because it is my husband's CD, and he keeps it in his truck, I don't hear it much. I borrowed it yesterday. This morning, I catch one of the lines and cry my eyes out.

"Little Mikey Carson '67 to '75
He rode his
Bike like the devil until the day he died"

I think of my six-year-old daughter flying along on her bike, fast as the devil, going, as she likes to call it, "speed limit," which means really really really fast.

I can't fight the tears. This is the second saddest song I've ever heard. It's haunting. It's genius.

It's very easy to make me cry, especially when it's my time of the month for all things emotional. But there's something about good poetry. And this is a particularly good poem.

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Gravedigger
Dave Matthews

Cyrus Jones 1810 to 1913
Made his great granchildren believe
You could live to a hundred and three
A hundred and three is forever when you're just a little kid
So Cyrus Jones lived forever

Gravedigger
When you dig my grave
Could you make it shallow
So that I can feel the rain
Gravedigger

Muriel Stonewall
1903 to 1954
She lost both of her babies in the second great war
Now you should never have to watch
As your only children are lowered in the ground
I mean you should never have to bury your own babies

Gravedigger
When you dig my grave
Could you make it shallow
So that I can feel the rain
Gravedigger

Ring around the rosey
Pocket full of posey
Ashes to ashes
We all fall down

Gravedigger
When you dig my grave
Could you make it shallow
So that I can feel the rain
Gravedigger

Little Mikey Carson '67 to '75
He rode his
Bike like the devil until the day he died
When he grows up he wants to be Mr. Vertigo on the flying trapeze
Ohhh, 1940 to 1992

Gravedigger
When you dig my grave
Could you make it shallow
So that I can feel the rain

Gravedigger
When you dig my grave
Could you make it shallow
So that I can feel the rain
Feel the rain
I can feel the rain
Gravedigger

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Coming Soon: The Saddest Song