Tag: grateful-dead

Peggy-O, by the Grateful Dead.

We’ve established I’m a sucker for a story song, and I’m not above calling this song somewhat cover-of-a-cover-adjacent, since the origin story is some flavor of Scottish folk song, if you believe Grateful Dead forums and Wikipedia. Maybe I should just be tagging some of these as “traditional” and leave it at that.

Sophomore year of college, when there was a lot of Dead flowing, the Deadest-head in the dorm room who brought it all to light for us got a giant book of Dead lyrics for the holidays or a birthday, I think, (with some pre-wiki explanation and context, IIRC), and I remember spending some fond hours with it.

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Regarding the crack about the hat at the top of the recording: I wasn’t the one who went into the attic of the hotel suite in Eastern New Mexico to see what was there, and I definitely wasn’t the one who removed the hats, but I was the one who staked a claim on the black one, and that has made all the difference. Also, I nearly drove myself delirious from dehydration when I wore it on a 100 degree desert working outdoors in double-knee Carhartts, as one did in the middle of the year 2001.

Ripple, by the Grateful Dead.

Do I have feelings about this song? Sure. I think everybody has feelings when they hear this song?

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Recorded tonight in mom’s art studio in Asheville, North Carolina, which is a pretty neat trick. 😉 Possibly 2-3 cats in the room at the time, but no meowing backing vocals.

Cumberland Blues, by the Grateful Dead.

Well, it’s been a whole 20 days or so since I did a Dead song, so here we are. This song leads off Europe ’72, I think? The ridiculous harmonies (?) in the first verse made me so happy when I put this on in the car this week, I decided to try it out myself.

The great thing about having only been to two Dead shows, is it’s pretty easy to remember some of what they played, and I can always look it up, and probably even listen to the shows without much trouble. I think they opened the first show I went to with In The Midnight Hour, which was fun, and during the second show they played Terrapin Station, which I was told at the time was a treat, and it was a treat.

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Probably should’ve laid down a nice clean brush/train drum loop, but I did the vocal first, so my MIDI keyboard drums are, uh, present. The whole thing is kinda chaotic, rather than locked in, really, the opposite of locked in, mostly. Loose out? I dunno.

Althea, by the Grateful Dead.

A third Dead song, and I did one two weeks ago? Fine. I have an excuse, and John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats is to blame (two songs, and I did one three days ago). He tweeted something about the album version of Althea being a rare canonical take on an album, compared to other songs where there are live versions that are understood to be more complete or something ANYWAY the point is I was reminded of this song like an hour ago and was compelled to record it tonight.

This is one that got a lot of acoustic time in our sophomore year dorm room, especially when the Dead fan roommate (Hi Dan!) who could play (infinitely better than me with more talent and feeling than I can even approach now, especially on this number) had a couple friends over and we were treated to a guitar and voice trio arrangement and some of these people are professional musicians now maybe? I lose track, but these were not the other very professional musicians who were and are also still friends of ours but also, I’m so pleased it’s not that complicated, and I could kinda hack it.

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Actually had to hack the video together after a computer-went-to-sleep mishap, but these things happen. Obligatory Bm scale noodling.

Eyes of the World, by the Grateful Dead.

This song is one I learned in college from a sophomore year suitemate in our shoeboxes-stacked-neatly-but-not-brutalist dorm, where we lived in a much-envied specialized accessibility suite we didn’t need, because they build more than they needed, into said dorm which had a 13th floor and there was a story that it only had one of those because it was built during a union strike and union-built structures in New York City don’t have 13th floors. (That last part can’t possibly be true.)

I think the unauthorized (on multiple fronts) Calvin-and-Hobbes dancing tie-dye shirt I bought at my second Grateful Dead show at Madison Square Garden freshman year (uh I managed to stay busy my first couple months in New York) on literally my 18th birthday had the “Sometimes the songs that we hear are just songs of our own” quote on it, and it’s still cute.

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Took the keyboard out to do an awkward organ thing and messed it up a little but like how it turned out. Walked around an E major scale to try and Jerry it up, too, and it’s OK.

Friend of the Devil, by the Grateful Dead

Listen, I know there are more interesting Dead songs, but Friend of the Devil was the quietest thing I could think of to play after running out the kids bedtime clock on Blank Space, which I’ll have to come back to when I have some more time to learn it in something approaching the right key that either Ryan Adams or Taylor Swift sing it in.

The thing about American Beauty, as an album, was its over the top ubiquity in bargain CD bins in the early 90s. Like, as soon as CDs existed, you could find this record and the entirety of Bob Dylan’s catalog for $8.98 a pop.

At the same time, other than Truckin’, this was probably the first Grateful Dead song I ever heard on the radio.

I heard, um, much, much more Grateful Dead in college. I saw two of the last shows at MSG, including one on my 18th birthday, had a roommate who played a ton sophomore year, and picked my favorites from there. May of ’77. Europe ’72. None of the songs on American Beauty really seem that important any more, although Ripple might still make me weep in the right context.