The Dead’s canniest decision of all, however, was not economic, but aesthetic: the decision to outsource lyric writing duties to people outside the band. As with any major corporation (which the Dead became, officially, in 1976), mistakes were made, but on the whole, this was a decidedly savvy group of people. But forget everything you know about the band’s parking-lot flea-market subculture - the dancing bears, the tie-dye, and that one asshole at your high school with the blond dreadlocks - and you will be rewarded with some of most poetic and powerful tunes in the canon of American song.ĭespite all appearances to the contrary, the Dead organization was shrewd about many things there’s even a book titled Everything I Know About Business I Learned From The Grateful Dead. Even among Deadheads, the songs themselves are often taken for granted as mere launching pads for fearless improvisational jams. When discussions of the Dead’s music are not dominated by references to mind-erasing jams, they’re rife with esoteric jargon and secret code words (“bass bombs,” “Betty boards,” “the Phil zone,” and, hey, what’s with all the “greater than” signs?) it can all be a bit difficult to penetrate. Rather, I’d like to introduce Dead-haters and Dead-neutrals alike to a most overlooked facet of the group’s music, one that separates them from every band of blunted jammers from Phish to Wooden Shjips: the songs.įanatical Deadheads, most of whom have heard almost every Dead song literally hundreds of times, frequently speak in terms of specific live versions of Grateful Dead songs rather than the songs themselves. It is not my intention to refute the negative connotations associated with the band - airheaded solipsism, boomer excesses, self-indulgent musical masturbation - nor do I intend this piece to double as acid test recruitment propaganda for disillusioned indie rockers (though, it should be said, some of them might benefit from a dosing). To certain elitists, the name “Grateful Dead” represents an impasse like the phrase “slap bass,” it is a combination of words whose very invocation can instantly elicit the gas face.
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