Crash into Me

"Crash Into Me" comes off as a very romantic song, but a close listen reveals that this is not the guy you want to crash into. He's crazy for the girl, but in an obsessive, voyeuristic way. There are lots of red flags in the lyrics: I watch you there through the window And I stare at you You wear nothing but you wear it so well ... Hike up your skirt a little more And show the world to me Dave Matthews pulled back the veil when he appeared on the VH1 show Storytellers, where he explained: "This song is about the worship of women, but this is a little bit of a crazy man. He's the kind of man you'd call the police on, some guy kind of peering in on his neighbors, a young girl who moved in or something, staring... [heavy breathing]. She's calling the police: 'You've got to get down here, he's looking at me!' So I wrote the song about it rather than actually peering in the window for fear of being arrested."

This shows up twice in the 2017 movie Lady Bird, each time signaling a relationship that has, well, crashed. The second time is on prom night, when Lady Bird (Saoirse Ronan)'s date says he hates the song - clearly a red flag. When asked by Vulture what he thought about the film's use of his classic tune, Matthews replied, "It was so lovely to see the song used as a central tool in someone else's story. And the moment in the movie when it plays is so beautiful: Lady Bird takes a stand, you know? It was also nice for me to see the song through someone else's eyes because I have a strange relationship with a lot of music that I've written. I listen to it and I'm like, 'What am I talking about? This is bulls--t.' So seeing 'Crash Into Me' in Lady Bird allowed me to hear my music without having to impose myself on it."

Many longtime Dave Matthews fans hear "Crash Into Me" as a tender love song despite evidence to the contrary. If you grew up listening to Matthews, a stand-up guy who would never stare at you through your window, it's easy to associate the song with him and not with the smarmy character he portrays on the track. Greta Gerwig, whose early music collection was filled with Dave Matthews Band CDs, called it "an incredibly romantic song" and told The New Yorker, "I always wanted to make out to that song, and I never did." To get permission to use the song in Lady Bird, she wrote Matthews a personal letter to plead her case: The song "Crash Into Me" was and is the most romantic song ever [underline hers]. It is sincere and loving and tender and epic. Im my film, Lady Bird, it is used twice. First in a heartbroken, yearning moment of teenage pain. Then later, it's used as the turning point when our heroine, played by Saoirse Ronan, comes into her own, declars her love fo the snag and what she actually cares about in life. It is impossible for me to imagin this movie without it.