In 1975, the Grateful Dead released the song “The Music Never Stopped” on their album Blues For Allah. And that has been something of a mantra: Nearly six decades after they started in 1965, the members of the Grateful Dead continue to perform the band’s music in different incarnations, including Dead & Co, which pairs guitarist/singer Bob Weir and drummer Mickey Hart with younger musicians including guitarist/singer John Mayer, former Allman Brothers bassist Oteil Burbridge, and former Primus drummer Jay Lane. The band has just announced another residency at The Sphere in Vegas.
The Grateful Dead, which also included principal members Jerry Garcia (guitar/vocals), Phil Lesh (bass), and Billy Kreutzmann (drums), were more than a band; they were at the center of a culture. Long before other bands were naming their fanbases (“fill-in-the-blank-band-name nation”), Deadheads were crisscrossing the country and the world, following the Grateful Dead on tour.
The band made it worth your while. They never played the same setlist twice, they weren’t beholden to hits – they didn’t have many – and they allowed fans to tape shows, creating a pre-internet community of fans who traded tapes of every single show. The parking lots were like traveling circuses. Even in the venue, dancing (and drum circles) was often happening in the hallways. Fans loved the band, but the band only felt like they were a part of the event. Whether or not you liked their music, you have to give them credit for creating a true community decades before social media, or even emailing, made that easier for bands to do.
I attended six Grateful Dead concerts during Jerry Garcia’s lifetime. I considered myself to be a visitor at a huge family gathering. They toured so frequently, and tickets would sometimes become available, and it was usually a good time. I confess that I generally don’t have a huge appreciation for jams that extend past 10 minutes, but I respect the art form. It was cool to go to an event where you didn’t really know what you were going to get. The six shows that I saw varied wildly in quality. (I should also mention that I attended these free of the substances that most of the Deadheads partook in.)
I appreciated the scene, but I really liked a lot of the band’s songs. In particular, I enjoy Robert Hunter’s lyrics. (He is a band member even though he didn’t play on the records; he was even inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with the band.) So here, I’m ranking my favorite songs. Admittedly, I’m not the expert that many are, but I’ve definitely listened to them a lot over the decades. I’m making this list mostly from studio albums. The live performances that I’ve selected are, for the most, from live albums that were released during their lifetime. I haven’t included anything from the archival “Dick’s Picks” or “Dave’s Picks” series or from most of their other posthumously released live records. And as I mentioned, I don’t really love the longer, sprawling jams, so you won’t find “Dark Star” or “The Eleven” or “Drums/Space” here.
The band has been and continue to be a huge influence on culture: they recently received the prestigious Kennedy Center Honors award (watch the ceremony on CBS Sunday night December 22 at 8:30 pm ET), next year they will receive the MusiCares Person Of The Year Award, and later in the year, Dead & Co. return to the Sphere in Las Vegas for their second residency there.
31. “Casey Jones” from ‘Workingman’s Dead’ (1970)
Written by Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter, it’s one of the band’s biggest radio hits. Of course, the chorus of “Drivin’ that train, high on cocaine” made it a bit difficult for radio at the time. And it was a weird choice; the Dead was obviously associated with drugs, but cocaine would not necessarily be one of them. As our own Donielle Flynn wrote, Hunter just had the aforementioned line “in his pocket.” The real Casey Jones was an actual engineer who apparently did not do drugs.
In the book Garcia: A Signpost to New Space, Jerry Garcia was asked if he got sick of hearing “Casey Jones.” Garcia replied, “Sometimes, but that’s what it’s supposed to do. It’s got a split-second little delay, which sounds very mechanical, like a typewriter almost, on the vocal, which is like a little bit jangly. The whole thing is, I always thought it’s a pretty good musical picture of what cocaine is like. A little bit evil. And hard-edged. And also that sing-songy thing, because that’s what it is… A sing-songy thing, a little melody that gets in your head.”
30. “Greatest Story Ever Told (live)” from ‘Dead Set’ (1981)
Written by Bob Weir and Mickey Hart with Robert Hunter, it’s the opening song from Weir’s 1972 solo debut, Ace. An earlier iteration of the song appeared on Hart’s 1972 solo album Rolling Thunder as “The Pump Song” (which featured Weir, Garcia and Lesh). The lyrics take Biblical characters and puts them into American contexts: Moses rides on a quasar “his spurs were a-jinging, the door was ajar”; Abraham and Issac were sitting on a fence, and they need a left-hand monkey wrench. Later, Gideon meets Moses and tells him, “Ya ain’t got a hinge, you can’t close the door.” Then, Moses “stood up a full six foot ten, says, “‘You can’t close the door when the wall’s caved in.’” This reimagining of Biblical stuff probably wouldn’t fly today, but at the time, it made for a great rock and roll song propelled by a Chuck Berry-ish riff.
29. “I Need A Miracle” from ‘Shakedown Street’ (1978)
Written by Bob Weir and his frequent lyricist/collaborator John Perry Barlow. Back in the day, you might see people walking around the parking lot before a Grateful Dead show with one finger in the air; that was to signal that they needed a “miracle ticket.” In other words, they didn’t have a ticket for the show, and also probably didn’t have the money to buy one. The “miracle” that they were hoping for was a free ticket from someone kind-hearted enough to give them one. Anyway, this is one of Bob’s most commercial and accessible songs. Bob was really going for it on this album; he also sang on a very pop-friendly cover of the Young Rascals “Good Lovin’.”
28. “Truckin’” from ‘American Beauty’ (1970)
Another of the band’s biggest hits, this was a rare co-write by Bob Weir (who sang lead), Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh and Robert Hunter. Unlike most Dead songs, this one was kind of autobiographical and was based on a drug raid on the band’s hotel earlier in 1970: “Busted down on Bourbon Street/Set up like a bowling pin/Knocked down, it gets to wearing thin/They just won’t let you be!” The song is also notable for the immortal line, “What a long strange trip it’s been.”
27. “West L.A. Fadeaway” from ‘In The Dark’ (1987)
Written by Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter, some fans suspect that this song was partly inspired by the death of the legendary comic John Belushi. That’s because of the opening line, “I’m looking for a chateau, twenty-one rooms, but one will do/I don’t want to buy it/I just want to rent it for a dollar or two.” Belushi died at the Chateau Marmont on the Sunset Strip in L.A. on March 5, 1982; the band started playing this song live in ‘82, although it wasn’t released until 1987.
The next two verses are about other characters: The second verse is about a guy with a “steady job holding items for the mob,” and the third is about a guy who “need[s] a West L.A. girl, already know what I need to know.” One thing that often gets overlooked in discussions of the Grateful Dead is how cinematic Robert Hunter’s lyrics were. (Although in the 1990s, “Grateful Dead Comix” turned Hunter’s songs into comic book stories).
26. “Passenger (live)” from ‘Dead Set’ (1981)
One of the Dead’s most rocking songs, it was co-written by Phil Lesh and a friend of the band Peter Monk (but sung by Bob Weir). It’s originally from Terrapin Station, but this live version is even better. Lesh said that he wrote the song based on the riff to “Station Man,” a song by the pre-Stevie Nicks/Lindsey Buckingham version of Fleetwood Mac.
“Passenger” was Peter Monk’s only writing credit on a Grateful Dead song. Who was he? According to The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics, he was a U.S. Navy vet who went on to become a Buddhist Monk. He was “a spiritual figure in the extended Grateful Dead family, attending births and performing wedding ceremonies,” including officiating at the wedding of Jerry Garcia and Carolyn “Mountain Girl” Adams.
25. “Don’t Ease Me In” from ‘Go To Heaven’ (1980)
A “traditional” song (meaning it is in the public domain and not copyrighted) sung by Jerry Garcia; a much earlier version was the band’s very first single. This version is from the band’s Arista Records era; they were signed by label head Clive Davis, who was determined to get the band more commercial exposure. The album was produced by Gary Lyons, who produced Foreigner’s debut album. That was surely a Davis call; so was the front cover, which was a photo of the band (something they hadn’t done on an album cover) and somewhat cringingly, they were wearing white suits that would not have looked out of place on a dance floor in Saturday Night Fever. “Don’t Ease Me In” wasn’t a big hit, but it did get some radio play, and it holds up better than the album’s cover.
24. “Dire Wolf (live)” from ‘Reckoning’ (1981)
Originally from the Workingman’s Dead album, this version is from their acoustic live record, Reckoning. “Dire Wolf” is another Jerry Garcia/Robert Hunter song, and Hunter was inspired by a film version of the book Hound Of The Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle. Hunter said, as quoted in The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics, that he and Jerry Garcia thought that the hound in the story was a dire wolf. Not just any dire wolf, either: “The wolf came in, I got my cards/We sat down for a game/I cut my deck to the queen of spades/but the cards were all the same.” We don’t know exactly what happens next, but the following line is, “Don’t murder me.”
23. “Alabama Getaway” from ‘Go To Heaven’ (1980)
The opening track from Go To Heaven gave Clive Davis the (minor) hit he needed from the band to get rock radio to embrace them (just a little); the song reached #68 on the pop charts, a real achievement for the band. Jerry sang lead, but the band’s new keyboardist, Brent Mydland’s vocals (reminiscent of Michael McDonald’s) gave the song a bit of a pop shine. The song fit in comfortably with a lot of the bands that dominated rock radio at the time, but it seemed to have a political tone when it asks, “Why don’t we just give Alabama/rope enough to hang itself? Ain’t no call to worry the jury/His kind takes care of itself.” It wasn’t “Southern Man,” but the Dead weren’t the types to scold anyone in their songs.
22. “Touch Of Grey” from ‘In The Dark’ (1987)
The Grateful Dead’s biggest (and really only) pop hit, it reached #9 on the singles charts. Written by Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter, it was something of an anthem for the Grateful Dead’s baby-boomer fanbase; “I will get by/I will survive” must have seemed pretty real to a generation that also sang “I hope I die before I get old” a few decades earlier. “Touch Of Grey” only vaguely addresses getting old, but this line cuts to the heart of the matter: “Every silver lining has a touch of grey.”
Garcia was in his mid-40s when the song was a hit; at the time, that seemed unbelievably old to be in a rock band. He might have laughed if he knew that his bandmates would carry the torch nearly forty years after that song was a hit. “Touch of Grey” was something of a gateway drug to a new generation of Dead fans. While there was some resentment about these newcomers at the time, you could make the argument that the song is why there are so many young people still showing up for Dead & Company shows, three decades after Jerry Garcia’s passing.
21. “Candyman (live)” from ‘Dead Set’ (1981)
The original version is from American Beauty, but this electric live version sounds a bit more intimidating, which is fitting, as the song is about a traveling outlaw. We don’t know where the story takes place, but we do know where the Candyman is from: “I come in from Memphis/Where I learned to talk the jive/When I get back to Memphis/Be one less man alive.” We also know that he’s not one of the peaceful folks following the Dead around: “Good mornin’ Mr. Benson/I see you’re doing well/If I had me a shotgun/I’d blow you straight to hell” sounds more like lyrics that you’d find in a Lynyrd Skynyrd song.
20. “Terrapin Station” from ‘Terrapin Station’ (1977)
Everyone knows that the Grateful Dead’s live jams frequently extended past the ten (and even twenty) minute mark, but their studio versions were generally more svelte. The title track from Terrapin Station (written by Robert Hunter, Jerry Garcia, Mickey Hart and Billy Kreutzmann) was an exception, at nearly sixteen and a half minutes. It gave the progressive rock bands of the era a run for their money. Indeed, at parts of the song, it almost sounds like Jethro Tull. It also sounds more produced than what the Dead had done up until this point; that’s probably because this was their first album on Arista Records, and Clive Davis insisted that the band worked with outside producers.
Terrapin Station was produced by Keith Olson, who was coming off of the success of Fleetwood Mac’s 1975 self-titled album (the first one with Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham). He knew how to take a “legacy” act and make them a bit more radio-friendly. Not that he did that on this song (“Passenger,” “Samson & Delilah,” and especially their cover of “Dancin’ In The Streets” were far more likely to get radio love). “Terrapin Station,” also referred to as “Terrapin Part 1,” was the Dead’s longest studio recording. And they made the most of the studio, including not only an orchestra but also a choir.
19. “Deal (live)” from ‘Dead Set’ (1981)
Originally from Jerry Garcia’s debut solo album, 1972’s Garcia, it was written by Jerry and Robert Hunter. The album wasn’t much of a departure from the Grateful Dead; the album saw Jerry playing most of the instruments, except for the drums, which were handled by bandmate Billy Kreutzmann. It wasn’t unusual for the band to play solo songs. (A lot of songs from Garcia, as well as Bob Weir’s solo debut, 1972’s Ace, made it into the Dead’s setlists.) But this version from Dead Set benefits from the band, particularly Bob Weir and Donna Godchaux’s backing vocals. Like “Candyman,” it focuses on a gambler, albeit a somewhat friendlier one: “I been gamblin’ hereabouts for ten good solid years/If I told you all that went down it would burn off both of your ears.” He even offers a bit of gambling (or life?) advice: “Goes to show you don’t ever know/Watch each card you play and play it slow/Wait until that deal come ‘round/Don’t you let that deal go down.”
18. “The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion)” from ‘The Grateful Dead’ (1967)
Who says the Grateful Dead can’t rock out and do it quickly? This song, which was co-written by the band and sung by Jerry Garcia, kicks off the band’s self-titled debut, and clocks in a mere two minutes and twelve seconds. In fact, six songs on the album are under three minutes. (Although, the album closes with the ten-minute “Viola Lee Blues.”) But “The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion)” was, by the Grateful Dead’s standards, practically a punk rock song, both in its brevity and how hard driving it is. But not in the lyrics, which were pure Summer of Love bliss: “Well everybody’s dancin’ in a ring around the sun/Nobody’s finished, we ain’t even begun./So take off your shoes, child, and take off your hat./Try on your wings and find out where it’s at.”
17. “Tennessee Jed (live)” from ‘Europe ‘72’ (1972)
Another Garcia/Hunter song, and another one about a wanderer who seems to be in some trouble. The song starts out: “Cold iron shackles, ball and chain/Listen to the whistle of the evenin’ train/You know you bound to wind up dead/if you don’t head back to Tennessee, Jed.” Things don’t get much better from there: A rich man “step on my poor head,” he’s reminded that “the law” is after him, he “dropped four flights and broke my spine” and after all of that, he runs into a guy named Charlie Fog, who “blacked my eye and kicked my dog.”
This is one of a handful of Dead classics that never made it to a studio album, somehow; but the nature of the Deadheads were that they just picked up on the songs that the band played live, whether they were on the records or not.
16. “Ship Of Fools” from “From The Mars Hotel” (1974)
A Garcia/Hunter jam, and it feels that Hunter has something political in mind here. But as is often the case with his songs, he doesn’t spell it out for you. Some fans felt that it was Hunter getting disenchanted with the band and their organization, as it was becoming more and more businesslike. Jerry Garcia’s nickname was “Captain Trips”; with that in mind, check out the opening lyrics: “Went to see the captain/Strangest I could find/Laid my proposition down/
Laid it on the line/I won’t slave for beggar’s pay/Likewise gold and jewels/But I would slave to learn the way/To sink your ship of fools.” Later, he writes (and Jerry sings), “It was later than I thought/When I first believed you/Now I cannot share your laughter/Ship of fools.” However, one of the great things about Hunter’s lyrics is how open they are to interpretation. Speaking of which, Elvis Costello did a very cool cover of this song.
15. “China Cat Sunflower” and “I Know You Rider (live)” from ‘Europe ‘72’ (1972)
Two songs that were often paired together, even though they are separate pieces. The studio version of “China Cat Sunflower” (written by Garcia and Hunter) is from the 1969 album Aoxomoxoa; “I Know You Rider” is a traditional song and features lead vocals from Garcia, Weir and Lesh together. The lyrics to “China Cat Sunflower” are pretty out there: “Crazy cat peekin’ through a lace bandanna/Like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eye jack/A leaf of all colors plays a golden-string fiddle/To a double-e waterfall over my back.” But pairing that song with the traditional “I Know You Rider” shows the dichotomy of the Grateful Dead: Cosmic psychedelia mixing with American roots music.
14. “Sugaree (live)” from “One From The Vault’ (recorded in 1975/released in 1991)
Like “Deal,” this is another Jerry Garcia/Robert Hunter song from Jerry’s solo debut, 1972’s Garcia. In the liner notes to the Jerry Garcia box set All Good Things, Hunter wrote, “‘Sugaree’ was written soon after I moved from the Garcia household to China Camp. People assume the idea was cadged [sic] from [folk singer] Elizabeth Cotten’s ‘Sugaree,’ but, in fact, the song was originally titled ‘Stingaree,’ which is a poisonous South Sea manta. The phrase ‘just don’t tell them that you know me’ was prompted by something said by an associate in my pre-Dead days when my destitute circumstances found me fraternizing with a gang of minor criminals. What he said, when departing, was: ‘Hold your mud and don’t mention my name.’ Why change the title to ‘Sugaree’? Just thought it sounded better that way, made the addressee seem more hard-bitten to bear a sugar-coated name. The song, as I imagined it, is addressed to a pimp.”
13. “One More Saturday Night (live)” from ‘Europe ‘72’ (1972)
A true party anthem, written and sung by Bob Weir (and originally from his solo debut, 1972’s Ace; his backing band on that album were all his bandmates from the Grateful Dead). It was a song that frequently made the setlists, especially, as you might guess, on Saturday nights. The song seems to reference the Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” when Weir sings, “Turn on channel six, the president comes on the news/Says, ‘I got no satisfaction, that’s why I sing the blues/His wife say, ‘Don’t get crazy, Lord, you know what to do: crank up that old Victrola and put on your rocking shoes!’”
12. "Not Fade Away/Goin' Down The Road Feeling Bad" from 'Grateful Dead' (1971)
Like “China Cat Sunflower/I Know You Rider,” this is another example of two songs that the Grateful Dead always combined live. But here, both of the songs are pure Americana. “Not Fade Away” was a song often covered by early rock and roll bands, most notably by the Rolling Stones, who released it as the A-side of their first U.S. single. “Goin’ Down The Road Feeling Bad,” meanwhile, is a traditional folk song that has also been covered (or adapted) by Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan and bluegrass legend Bill Monroe. Here, Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir share the lead vocals.
11. “Jack Straw (live)” from ‘Europe ‘72’ (1972)
Written by Bob Weir and Robert Hunter, and featuring vocals by both Jerry and Bob. Jack Straw was the name of a character in Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, but the character in this song doesn’t seem to have much to do with that guy, who was a plantation owner. This Jack Straw was more of a hobo, and possibly a criminal – he and his pal Shannon seem to be on the lam. Bob Weir said in a 2007 interview that the character was influenced not by Williams’ play, but by John Steinbeck’s Of Mice And Men.
And Jack’s friend may not have fared too well. The song ends this way: “Jack Straw from Wichita cut his buddy down/Dug for him a shallow grave/And layed his body down/Half a mile from Tucson/By the morning light/One man gone and another to go/My old buddy you’re moving much too slow.” It’s another vague story by Hunter that leaves a lot to the imagination.
10. “Wharf Rat (live)” from ‘Grateful Dead’ (1971)
Written by Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter, it’s another Dead classic that never made it to a studio album. The song inspired the “Wharf Rats,” a group of Deadheads who were both drug and alcohol-free and served as a support group for other fans who were also sober; they would often have meetings in the hallways of the shows during breaks between sets. That makes sense: The main character in the song (“My name is August West”) seems to be a wino who is down on his luck. The song’s narrator isn’t doing much better; he first notices Mr. West and says “Old man down/Way down, down, down by the docks of the city/Blind and dirty/Asked me for a dime, a dime for a cup of coffee.” He responds, “I got no dime, but I got some time to hear his story.” August is hopeful, even if that hope isn’t realistic: “I know that the life I’m livin’s no good/
I’ll get a new start, live the life I should/I’ll get up and fly away,” and it’s easy to see how that resonates with a support group.9. “St. Steven” from ‘Aoxomoxoa’ (1969)
Written by Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh and Robert Hunter. Is it really about a saint? According to The Vatican News, Saint Stephen was a martyr who once gave a speech – the longest recorded in the Acts of the Apostles – in which he reviewed the history of salvation. But is that what Hunter was writing about? He was always vague in his interviews when he gave them; in one interview, he said he didn’t know who the real Saint Stephen was until after he wrote the song. It was likely just a name that sounded cool.
8. “Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo” from ‘Wake of the Flood’ (1973)
A Garcia/Hunter jam assisted by the violin playing of Vassar Clements, who brought out the ragtime/bluegrass element in the song. The narrator in the song comes from what we can assume is a rough background: “On the day when I was born, Daddy sat down and cried/I had the mark just as plain as day which could not be denied/They say that Cain caught Abel rolling loaded dice/Ace of Spades behind his ear and him not thinking twice.” But the song contains a bit of life advice, and maybe Hunter was aiming it at his bandmates who were already becoming quite popular and had a pretty deep discography: “If all you got to live for is what you left behind/Get yourself a powder charge and seal that silver mine.” While this song, like many of Hunter’s tales, seems to be set in a time in the mythical American past, the spell is broken by a lyric with a semi-modern reference: “What’s the point of calling shots/This cue ain’t straight in line/Cue balls made of styrofoam and no one’s got the time.”
As Hunter told Rolling Stone, Garcia objected to that line and Hunter himself wishes he made a different lyrical choice. “He said, ‘This is so uncharacteristic of your work, to put something as time dated’ — or whatever that word would be — ‘as Styrofoam into it.’ I’ve never sung that song without regretting I put that line in. Jerry also didn’t like songs that had political themes to them, and in retrospect I think this was wise, because a lot of the stuff with political themes from those days sounds pretty callow these days.”
7. “Scarlet Begonias” from ‘From The Mars Hotel’ (1974)
Another Garcia/Hunter jam that features vocals by Jerry with support from Donna Godchaux. Most Dead songs take place in America, but straight off, we learn that we’re in England. The first line: “As I was walkin’ ‘round Grosvenor Square,” which is in London. The narrator becomes transfixed with a woman: “From the other direction, she was calling my eye/It could be an illusion, but I might as well try, might as well try.” And she was into music, which can be hard to resist if you’re a lonely music-loving dude: “She had rings on her fingers and bells on her shoes/And I knew, without askin’, she was into the blues/She wore scarlet begonias tucked into her curls/I knew right away she was not like other girls, other girls.” They got involved in a (probably metaphorical) game of cards: “The dealing got rough/She was too pat to open and too cool to bluff.” But, sometimes, despite the initial attraction, the connection doesn’t happen, as our narrator tells us, “I had to learn the hard way to let her pass by.” By the way, if you never heard Sublime’s cover, you should check it out.
6. “Sugar Magnolia” from ‘American Beauty’ (1970)
Written by Bob Weir and Robert Hunter. Weir actually wrote the lyrics to the beginning of the song. As he recalled in the book What A Long, Strange Trip, “Hunter was in (the control room) writing the end part while I was in there doing the lead vocal. I took a quick break and came in and said, ‘Well, you got anything for the end part, man?’ And he gave me this piece of paper and I went back out and sang it off the piece of paper. I didn’t even read through it.” The song is believed to be about Weir’s girlfriend at the time, and the lyrics certainly paint an idealized image of a beautiful woman.
The line “We can have high times if you’ll abide” probably influenced the name of the counterculture magazine High Times, and is also what likely inspired the Coen Brothers to have Jeff Bridges’ character note that “The Dude abides” in the classic film The Big Lebowski.
5. “Bertha (live)” from ‘Grateful Dead’ (1971)
Another Jerry Garcia/Robert Hunter collab, and another song that never made it to a studio album. It often opened concerts; it’s the first song on the live Grateful Dead album. (On a personal note, was the song they opened with the first time I saw them, March 30, 1988.) It’s one of the band’s more rocking tunes, and it seems to be about another one of those characters that Robert Hunter seemed to love: A downtrodden guy on the run and there’s a woman somehow involved.
The song starts with the narrator saying, “I had a hard run.” He continues, “Running from your window/I was all night running, running, running/I wonder if you care/I had a run-in/Run around and run down/Run around a corner/Run smack into a tree.” That might have been Bertha’s window, and somehow, it’s also her fault. As the narrator says in the chorus, “If you please/I am on my bended knees/Bertha: don’t you come around here anymore!”
4. “Friend of the Devil” from ‘American Beauty’ (1970)
A lovely acoustic tune written by Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter with John Dawson from New Riders of the Purple Sage, another band that Garcia was briefly a member of. (They later covered the song in 1989.) According to Hunter (per Dead Net), the original lyric was quite different: “We all went down to the kitchen to have espresso made in Dawson’s new machine. We got to talking about the tune and John said the verses were nifty except for ‘it looks like water but it tastes like wine,’ which I had to admit fell flat. Suddenly, Dawson’s eyes lit up and he crowed ‘How about ‘a friend of the devil is a friend of mine.” Bingo, not only the right line but a memorable title as well! We ran back upstairs and recorded the tune.”
Again, it’s a song about a miscreant on the run: It starts out, “I lit out from Reno, I was trailed by twenty hounds/I didn’t get to sleep that night ‘til the mornin’ came around.” The dude’s got a lot of problems: he’s got a wife in Chino (in California) and another one in Cherokee (North Carolina). “The first one says she’s got my child but it don’t look like me.” We’re not sure why this guy is on the lam but he tells us this much: “Got two reasons why I cry away each lonely night: The first one’s named sweet Anne Marie, and she’s my heart’s delight” – we don’t know if she’s one of his wives – “The second one is prison baby, the sheriff’s on my trail and if he catches up to me, you know I’ll spend my life in jail.”
3. “Box Of Rain” from ‘American Beauty’ (1970)
Written by Phil Lesh and Robert Hunter and sung by Lesh; it was the opening track on American Beauty and the first song he took lead vocals on. It’s just a gorgeous moment. It’s a bit unusual: Phil sings and plays acoustic guitar but not bass. Dave Torbert from New Riders of the Purple Sage played bass, and David Nelson from that same band played the electric guitar. (Jerry Garcia played piano on the track.) It was a song that Lesh wrote for his father who was in his last days.
Hunter told Rolling Stone, “Yeah, [it was] a song for Phil’s dad. It wasn’t about dying in particular; it’s about being alive.” Hunter later said (per DeadNet), “Phil Lesh wanted a song to sing to his dying father and had composed a piece complete with every vocal nuance but the words. If ever a lyric ‘wrote itself,’ this did—as fast as the pen would pull.” Lesh later noted that the song had, “Some of the most moving and heartfelt lyrics I’ve ever had the good fortune to sing.” He’s right. Hunter’s lyrics were always interesting and often told great stories, but this is certainly one of his sweetest moments: “And it’s just a box of rain, I don’t know who put it there/Believe it if you need it or leave it if you dare/And it’s just a box of rain, or a ribbon for your hair/Such a long, long time to be gone and a short time to be there.”2. “Uncle John’s Band” from ‘Workingman’s Dead’ (1970)
Written by Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter and featuring vocals by Jerry, Bob Weir and Phil Lesh. It’s hard to imagine how surprising this song must have sounded in June of 1970 when Workingman’s Dead came out. It was their fourth studio album, and it came on the heels of the very psychedelic Anthem of the Sun and Aoxomoxoa. “Uncle John’s Band” was essentially a bluegrass/country song, clocking in at less than five minutes. (That might sound pretty commercial for them at the time, if not for the controversial lyric, “God damn, well I declare, have you seen the like?”) But music was changing in 1970, with things getting a bit less cosmic and a bit more rootsy, and the Dead’s two 1970 albums (Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty) were perfect for the moment. But they weren’t just of the moment; they are timeless records.
1. “Ripple” from ‘American Beauty’ (1970)
Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter wrote this one. As we’ve noted, many of Hunter’s lyrics are open to interpretation and tell interesting (and sometimes wild) stories. This one is more of a vague mantra. How vague? It’s been played at weddings and it’s been played at funerals. It also can serve as a lullaby or a prayer. Hunter wrote it during a pretty magical time, as he told Rolling Stone: “We were in Canada on that train trip [the Festival Express, 1970] and one morning the train stopped and Jerry was sitting out on the tracks not too far off, in the sunrise, setting ‘Ripple’ to music. That’s a good memory. That was one of the happy times, going on that train trip. Janis [Joplin] was the queen of that trip. One of my greatest memories is having breakfast with her on the train. She was having Southern Comfort and scotch, and she asked me if I heard that song by Kristofferson, ‘Sunday Morning Comin’ Down,’ and she sang it in my ear. Can you imagine?” He said that his favorite line that he ever wrote was from that song: “‘Let it be known there is a fountain that was not made by the hands of men.’ That’s pretty much my favorite line I ever wrote, that’s ever popped into my head. And I believe it, you know?”
This version is the definitive one, but we’ll also point you to this version put together by the folks from Playing For Change: It features a number of the Dead’s friends and colleagues, including David Hildago of Los Lobos, Jimmy Buffett, David Crosby and the Dead’s own Billy Kreutzmann, along with lesser known musicians from all over the world. It’s sweet, moving and seems to encompass the communal vibe that was so much a part of the Grateful Dead.