DBT Tracks #66- "I Do Believe"

[Tequila Cowboy]

So this week I give the first cut on GGB. The first time I heard this song I was struck by just how different a song this was for Patterson and for the band.

I do believe I do believe
I do believe I saw you standing there
Sunlight in your hair
Reflecting in your eyes
I was only five years old
Riding in your top-down Mustang
Taking me out to the beach
Your eyes matched the skies
I believe I saw your shadow looking like 1967
Percy Sledge on the radio
Or maybe Spanish songs
All my troubles swept away
The ocean on my scraped up knees
You could never stand to be away from me too long
I do believe I do believe I know that you would never leave me
And when you slipped the earthly binds you still live in my mind
And when I'm gone, again I'll find
My way back into your kitchen
And see you standing there in the window's shine
I do believe I do believe
You're standing there in emerald green
In the afternoon
Oh so long ago

[Zip City]

Very different, both in the music and the lyrics. One of (if not THE) most upbeat, positive songs Patterson has recorded

[bovine knievel]

Love the feeling of this song

[jimmyjack]

Big fan of this one. Love how it modulates like four times.

[GuitarManUpstairs]

This one's a grower for me. Wasn't so sure about it when I heard the first live recordings. Vinyl made a huge difference with this track and am really digging it these days since I gave it a chance and a proper listen. Brings back lots of nostalgic childhood memories of summer evenings at my grandmother's house. Sweet tea and the smell of roast beef with sweet potatoes, greens and black-eyed peas wafting out of the kitchen....good times.

[Tequila Cowboy]

Big fan of this one. Love how it modulates like four times.

From a music geek standpoint that's my favorite part of the song. Then there are the lyrics which are so easy to relate to that the song is taken to a whole nother level. Really dig this one.

[JimmerDette]

I appreciate the fact this song is so different from so many of their other songs. I think it is a great song. I just don't know if the 1st song on Go Go Boots is where I would have placed it is all.

[Clams]

I appreciate the fact this song is so different from so many of their other songs. I think it is a great song. I just don't know if the 1st song on Go Go Boots is where I would have placed it is all.

I like the song a lot. Putting it first helps to get the lighter fare out of the way, for all the heavy and dark stuff that follows.

[RevMatt]

This song and "Mercy Buckets" bookend the album and are essential in establishing what we at 3DD coined "the accidental theme" of Go Go Boots.

The song begins with the narrator stating that he believes he saw his grandmother's ghost, or at least sensed her presence, in the kitchen of her home. The vision he saw was not the aged woman, but the way she was when he was a little boy and she was taking him to the beach. This was one of his early memories of feeling loved. His grandparents may have lived in Florida at that point -- away from where he lived -- but his grandmother "could never stand to be away from me too long". Because the love he received was real his grandmother lives on in his heart and in his mind.

The key changes in the song create a sense of ascension and transcendence. I think they are essential in bringing forward the message of the song.

The album ends with "Mercy Buckets". The narrator is promising to love his children unconditionally, the same way his grandmother loved him in the first song.

In between these two songs are tales of people making both the right and wrong choices when it comes to the priorities in their lives. The theme of the album is that family, friendship, love and community may not be the sexiest or even the easiest path ("The Thanksgiving Filter") but in the end it is the only thing that can transcend our own mortality.

I believe that both "I Do Believe" and "Mercy Buckets" need to be heard in the context of the album. Thematically, GGB is a very strong album. Apparently this was not a conscious direction on the part of the band. It was serendipidous.

[jimmyjack]

Posts like that one ^^^ make me wonder if we don't need a 'like' button on 3DD.

[Kudzu Guillotine]

Posts like that one ^^^ make me wonder if we don't need a 'like' button on 3DD.

I'm not sure how everyone else feels but the less "Facebookian" other sites on the web are, the better.

[JimmerDette]

The album ends with "Mercy Buckets". The narrator is promising to love his children unconditionally

Is that really the meaning of Mercy Buckets or just your interpretation of it?

[RevMatt]

The album ends with "Mercy Buckets". The narrator is promising to love his children unconditionally

Is that really the meaning of Mercy Buckets or just your interpretation of it?

My interpretation but it fits with the lyrics. The lyrics could also be a man's promises to his wife. But these lines lead me to believe they are to his daughter:
I will bring you buckets of mercy
And hold your hand when you're crossing the street
Play a song if you want it

You hold a child's hand when he or she crosses the street. You don't hold it against a kid when he or she wakes up on the wrong side of the bed.

[beantownbubba]

I vote for wife/lover. I guess this varies somewhat w/ the individual, but I don't think of "mercy" when i think of the relationship between kids and parents. But it seems like a wonderful thing to promise a significant other.

[beantownbubba]

Oh, and since this thread's supposed to be about "I Do Believe" my 2 cents is that i really like the song. It's a nice change of pace for PH and the band and a nice kick off to the album. As I've said before it reminds me of Springsteen's "Girls in Their Summer Clothes," not in a literal way, but in the feel and mood of each.

[RevMatt]

I vote for wife/lover. I guess this varies somewhat w/ the individual, but I don't think of "mercy" when i think of the relationship between kids and parents. But it seems like a wonderful thing to promise a significant other.

Could be both. A man's promise to his loved ones. Either way, he is promising to give what he received from his grandmother in the first song. Brings it full circle.

[Slipkid42]

It was my favorite song on GGB on the first listen. UTBAC & Mercy Buckets & the Hinton covers have since passed it up for me, but it is quite uplifting & a great drivin' along song. It sounds like a Southern surf ballad to me.

[Rocky]

I do believe the song's muse is Patterson's maternal grandmother that in The Secret To A Happy Ending his mom says was one of his biggest fans and would let his early bands rock out til all hours of the morning at her house.

[litdimly]

DBT performed at Yo Gabba Gabba Live in ATL last fall. A friend of mine told me she was taking her children and I absolutely wracked my brain (doesn't take much) about what song DBT would perform at a children's show. Afterwards, she told me that they performed the song about Patterson's grandmother taking him on a beach trip. That wracked my brain even worse because I couldn't connect that to any song in the library - GGB had not yet been released. The pieces fell into place when I heard I Do Believe and I always took it to simply be his memory of that trip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiUu25hz ... re=related

[Smitty]

If you listen to early versions of Mercy Buckets, he mentions giving her his last beer - just fits more from a romantic rather than paternal POV.

[John A Arkansawyer]

I don't think this is about any sort of love in particular. I think it's just about Love.

[Mrs Swamp]

I do believe I really love this song..