I'm a well-known Dave Matthews hater. I hate everything about the man. I hate his boring, bland music. I hate his boring, homogenous fans. I hate his stupid fake accent. I hate the way he scrunches up his little face on his gigantic head when he attempts to sing. Hate, I know, is a very strong word. Trust me when I say it's accurate.

Earlier this week I finally got around to watching the Farm Aid special that aired on PBS a few weeks ago. It was mediocre. John Mellencamp was fine. Willie was fine. Emmylou was pretty boring. Hootie made me laugh. Those poor dudes. The only song from their set that aired was "I Only Wanna Be With You." That's got to get old for them.

Then ol' Dave showed up. If I was sitting in front of the television I would have certainly hit the skip button the second I saw his squinched up puss. But I was cleaning the house and just left it going. I was pretty shocked. It was just Matthews with an acoustic guitar playing his new "solo" single, "Gravedigger." I thought it to be a pretty interesting cover. Certainly more interesting that anything else he'd ever done and certainly a nice reading of a traditional tune. The "ring around the rosey" bit was pretty stupid but I was willing to let that slide a little bit. WFUV started to play the acoustic version of the song pretty regularly and my interested was piqued a bit more. Enough to find out that it wasn't a traditional tune and was actually penned by Matthews. Well done, I must say.

So, in the spirit of the season, I'm sorry I hate you, Dave Matthews. You may have some redeeming value. But you're still beyond annoying.