Don't Drink the Water (idea)

A song by the Dave Matthews Band, it's on the album Before These Crowded Streets.

You may have caught the vh1 storytellers that Dave Matthews did not that long ago, though, I'm not sure precisely when. I thought that his explanation for don't drink the water was node-worthy, so I transcribed it to the best of my ability.

"I have to talk about Don't Drink the Water cause this is a storytellers, welcome to it. I'm not really good at explaining my songs, cause uh, I just work here. But I guess the inspiration for a.. well let me.. there's times, there are times when I've travelled around this fine country, and others, but this fine country.. I remember one time standing on the edge of lake superior, up where we we were camping on the northern side of it, and looking out and imagining on these little rocks that jut out, families of people going past in canoes, you know, and hunting on the side of the lake there. Also, like if you sit and look at the grand canyon and get a little distance between you and the mcdonald's thats peering down over the canyon with you.. just imagine the quiet that must have been there and the people that enjoyed it before.. before we came. And I just got awed by it, got this sort of overwhelming feeling looking at those things, just going 'man, does that suck.. does it suck that we could erase somebody, you know, take somebody's whole universe away. Just unbelievable for those people. If 800 years ago you could have gone up to somebody that lived on the edge of the grand canyon and said, 'You know what? In 800 years you're not going to be around anymore, and if you are, you might have a drinking problem and you won't have schools that you love and your traditions will be smashed' so kind of that was a little bit of the inspiration for don't drink the water, just the fact that a little bit of our history has got a lot of poison in it. Maybe we can't reverse things but if nothing else we could pay a little tribute to it once in a while by thinking about it.
What about New York? What about the people that lived in New York? 'You know what this is gonna look like? See those trees? See those rivers?? *insert chuckling*' I love this city, but I couldn't imagine the people.. there are ghosts wandering around going 'what happened?? What happened?? What's going on?'"