In 1972 I bought the Eagles’ first album titled simply Eagles, and when I put it on my turntable, that first chord of Jackson Browne and Glenn Frey’s “Take It Easy” exploded into my brain, turning into a driving rhythm guitar opening before it segued into a song about a guy “standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona” hitching a ride with a “girl. my lord, in a flatbed Ford”. I was hooked in the first thirty seconds by a sound unlike any music I’d heard before. Other bands and singers had played something people called “country rock” before, including the Byrds, Linda Ronstadt, and the Dillards, but the Eagles were a lightning bolt.
Well I'm a runnin' down the road
Tryin' to loosen my load
I've got seven women on my mind
Four that wanna own me
Two that wanna stone me
One says she's a friend of mine
Take it easy, take it easy
Don't let the sound of your own wheels
Drive you crazy
Lighten up while you still can
Don't even try to understand
Just find a place to make your stand
And take it easy
Well, I'm a standin' on a corner
In Winslow, Arizona
Such a fine sight to see
It's a girl my Lord in a flat-bed Ford
Slowin' down to take a look at me
Anchored by a solid rhythm guitar by Glenn Frey and drums by Don Henley, embellished with electric guitar and banjo by Bernie Leadon, it was fast-paced and laid back at the same time, rock and roll but with a definite country flavor. That would be a good description of a couple other songs on the album also, but the next song, “Witchy Woman”, dramatically shifted gears into something entirely different, a voodoo rock song with a theme like Santana’s “Black Magic Woman” but with a different sound and rhythm.
Raven hair and ruby lips
Sparks fly from her finger tips
Echoed voices in the night
She's a restless spirit on an endless flight
Woo hoo, witchy woman
See how high she flies
Woo hoo, witchy woman
She got the moon in her eyes
She held me spellbound in the night
Dancing shadows and firelight
Crazy laughter in another room
And she drove herself to madness with a silver spoon
Well, I know you want to love her
Let me tell your brother
She's been sleeping
In the devil's bed
It’s an uneven album with a couple forgettable songs, but Gene Clark and Bernie Leadon’s “Train Leaves Here This Morning” is a really nice ballad that’s a slow version of the country rock sound of “Take It Easy” with a soothing rhythm guitar that’s such a nice trait of so many Eagles songs, backed by laid back electric and acoustic guitar picking and beautiful harmony singing.
I lost ten points just for being in the right place
At exactly the wrong time
I looked right at the facts there, but I may as well
Have been completely blind
So, if you see me walking all alone
Don't look back, I'm just on my way back home
And there's a train leaves here this morning
I don't know, what I might be on
“Peaceful Easy Feeling” is another song in the same vein with a little more pace and a more upbeat theme. It’s such a pleasure to just let the rhythm of the acoustic guitar strumming, I think by Glenn Frey, carry you away with a tasty and mellow electric guitar fill toward the end by Leadon. I don’t know any band or musician that plays rhythm guitar so seductively, except maybe Steve Goodman.
I like the way your sparkling earrings lay,
Against your skin, it's so brown.
And I wanna sleep with you in the desert night
With a billion stars all around.
'Cause I got a peaceful easy feeling,
And I know you won't let me down
'Cause I'm already standing on the ground.
And I found out a long time ago
What a woman can do to your soul.
Oh, but she can't take you anyway,
You don't already know how to go.
The other highlight of the album is “Earlybird”, which is pretty much unclassifiable. It’s driven mainly by banjo and drumming by Henley, with some edgy electric guitar toward the end, plus something that sounds like a sort of frantic, high-pitched birdsong all the way through. It draws a contrast between the hectic money-driven world of Los Angeles and a more relaxed way of life.
Early in the morning
About the break of day
The earlybird is workin’
So his life don't fade away
He spends his life denyin’ that
He's got no time for flyin’
In the breeze
High up on his own, the eagle flies alone
He is free
The earlybird is scratchin’ though
The going's gettin’ tough
Time is passing by him and he just
Can't get enough
He'll tell you all is going well
You know that something’s wrong
The earlybird will wake one day
To find his life is gone . . .
You know i like to lay in bed
And sleep out in the sun
Reading books and playing crazy music
Just for fun
You know it makes feel so fine
And puts my mind at ease
To know that i don't harm a soul
In doing what I please
Their second album, Desperado, was a true concept album loosely based on the history of the Doolin-Dalton gang in the 1890s in Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. It produced the hits “Desperado” and “Tequila Sunrise”. The gang was called the Wild Bunch (no relation to the movie), and according to Wikipedia none were ever hanged, but all were hunted down and shot to death in the 1890s except for one member who was finally killed in 1924. I can’t find any mention of Bill Dalton having anything to do with the law, so I don’t know where the line ”Lay down your law books” comes from.
They were duelin', Doolin-Dalton
High or low, it was the same
Easy money and faithless women
Red-eye whiskey for the pain
Go down, Bill Dalton, it must be God's will,
Two brothers lyin' dead in Coffeyville
Two voices call to you from where they stood
Lay down your law books now
They're no damn good
Better keep on movin', Doolin-Dalton
'Til your shadow sets you free
If you're fast, and if you're lucky
You will never see that hangin' tree
The standout song on the album is “Desperado”, a popular song for the Eagles and a bigger hit for Linda Ronstadt. It’s sung by Henley accompanied by a simple piano at first, with strings and simple a drumbeat coming in on the second verse.
Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?
You been out ridin’ fences for so long now
Oh you're a hard one, but I know that you got your reasons
These things that are pleasin' you can hurt you somehow
Don't you draw the queen of diamonds boy
She'll beat you if she's able
The queen of hearts is always your best bet
Now it seems to me some fine things
Have been laid upon your table
But you only want the ones that you can't get
Desperado, oh you ain't getting’ no younger
Your pain and your hunger, they're drivin’ you home
And freedom, oh freedom, well that's just some people talkin’
Your prison is walkin' through this world all alone
The last line is the core of, and the best line of, the song. It ends with a gentle piano fadeout. “Twenty-One” is a fast banjo and guitar tune about a budding young gunslinger – “I’m young and fast as I can be.” It’s followed by a 48-second lickety-split banjo instrumental and an ominous “Outlaw Man” with a blistering electric guitar and relentless drumbeat. “Woman don’t try to love me/Don’t try to understand/A life upon the road is the life of an outlaw man”.
My favorite song on the album is “Saturday Night,” a waltz accompanied by mandolin and sung by Glenn Frey.
Seems like a dream now, it was so long ago
The moon burned so bright and the time went so slow
And I swore that I loved her and gave her a ring
The bluebird was high on the wing
Whatever happened to Saturday night
Finding a sweetheart and holding her tight?
She said, "Tell me, oh, tell me, was I alright?
Whatever happened to Saturday night?"
The years brought the railroad, it ran by my door
Now there's boards on the windows and dust on the floor
And she passes the time at another man's side
And I pass the time with my pride
What a tangled web we weave
Go 'round with circumstance
Someone show me how to tell the dancer
From the dance
What ever happened to Saturday night?
Choosin' a friend and losin' a fight
She said, "Tell me, oh, tell me, are you alright?
Whatever happened to Saturday night?
I love the lines “Someone show me how to tell/The dancer from the dance.” There’s a lot of fine poetry in Eagles’ songs. They had a hit with “Tequila Sunrise,” a lament about an unfaithful lover with a nice melody and a characteristic rhythm guitar so smooth it gets under your skin.
It's another tequila sunrise
Starin' slowly 'cross the sky
Said goodbye
He was just a hired hand
Workin' on the dreams he planned to try
The days go by
Every night when the sun goes down
Just another lonely boy in town
And she's out runnin' 'round
On the moody side there’s “Bitter Creek” – “Son don’t wade too deep – in Bitter Creek.” There’s no romanticizing the outlaw on this album, unlike Woody Guthrie’s “Pretty Boy Floyd” or Dylan’s “John Wesley Harding”. The album ends with “Doolin-Dalton/Desperado (Reprise)”, their fictional description of a shootout between the Doolin-Dalton Gang and lawmen in the middle of town with “All you bloodthirsty bystanders/Try to find your seats” and additional lyrics with memorable poetry. ’’It stole your dreams and paid you with regret’’ is a great line.
Go down Bill Doolin, don’t you wonder why
Sooner or later we all have to die
Sooner or later, that’s a stone cold fact
Four men ride out and only three ride back . . .
The queen of diamonds let you down
She was just an empty fable
The queen of hearts you say you’ve never met
Your twisted fate has found you out
And it’s finally turned the tables
It stole your dreams and paid you with regret
Desperado, is there gonna be anything left . . .
Ain’t it hard when you’re all alone in the center ring
Their third album, On the Border, is chock full of consistently good songs. It kicks off with “Already Gone,” a fast rocker accompanied by a blistering electric guitar from new member Don Felder, added for two songs because they wanted more of a “hard rock sound”. It’s followed by the superb “You Never Cry Like a Lover” by John David Souther and Don Henley.
You never cry like a lover should
Sigh when it feels real good
Or see the sky through the stone and wood
You never cry like a lover
I thought I saw somebody I loved
Sleeping deep inside you
If I could catch you in an unguarded moment
I'd stay right here beside you
I was hopin’ you were the one . . .
You never move like you used to do
Pour it out when you're feelin' blue
Somebody must have put some pain on you
You never cry like a lover
(You never cry like a lover)
“Midnight Flyer”, by Paul Craft, is a high-speed electric guitar-and banjo-driven song that’s exhilarating to listen to, with Randy Meisner on an excellent vocal. The guitar is great, especially on the fadeout, and I love the banjo playing by Leadon.
Ooohh, Midnight Flyer,
engineer, won't you let your whistle moan.
Ooohh, Midnight Flyer,
I paid my dues and I feel like travelin' on.
A runaway team of horses ain't enough to make me stay,
so throw your rope on another man and pull him down your way.
Make him into someone to take the place of me,
make him every kind of fool you wanted me to be.
“My Man” by Bernie Leadon, is my favorite song on the album, a touching and deeply felt quiet tribute to Gram Parsons, the driving force behind the Byrds’ Sweetheart of the Rodeo album and the famed Flying Burrito Brothers. He made two stellar solo albums before he died in the desert from an overdose of alcohol and morphine at the Joshua Tree Inn. He drank six double tequilas after two friends declined to drink tequila with him, then persuaded an unknown woman to shoot him up with morphine. He was an out-of-control addict-alcoholic but had been moderating his alcohol and opiate use while recording his last album, Grievous Angel. It was a sad end to an almost mythic figure in the meld between country music and rock influences. “My Man” references “Hickory Wind,” Parsons’ most iconic song.
Tell me the truth, how do you feel?
Like you're rollin' so fast that you're spinnin' your wheels.
Don't feel too bad, you're not all alone,
we're all tryin' to get along.
With everybody else tryin' to go their way
You're bound to get tripped and what can you say?
Just go along till they turn out the lights,
There's nothing we can do to fight it.
No man's got it made till he's far beyond the pain
And we who must remain go on living just the same.
I once knew a man, very talented guy.
He'd sing for the people and people would cry.
They knew that his song came from deep down inside,
You could hear it in his voice and see it in his eyes.
And so he traveled alone,
Touch your heart, then be gone.
Like a flower he bloomed till that old
Hickory wind called him home . . .
We who must remain go on laughing just the same.
It's a beautiful song with a melancholy but lovely melody accompanied by simple acoustic rhythm guitar and a superbly restrained steel guitar by Leadon along with his gorgeous vocal. It’s a song in the time-honored life-as-pain tradition. "My Man” and Tom Waits’ “Ol’ 55” are a large part of why I like On the Border so much. Waits’ song is a spiritual uplift, describing how he feels driving home in the early morning after a night with the woman he loves. It’s driven by Frey’s excellent piano and embellished by a wonderful steel guitar by the Burritos’ Al Perkins, played like a different instrument than on traditional Nashville country music, like Sneaky Pete and Buddy Emmons on Linda Ronstadt’s early albums and Leadon on “My Man.”
Well, my time went too quickly
I went lickety-splitly out to my old fifty-five
As I pulled away slowly, feelin' so holy,
God knows I was feelin' alive
And now the sun's comin' up
I'm ridin' with Lady Luck
Freeway cars and trucks
Stars beginning to fade, and I lead the parade
Just a wishin' I'd stayed a little longer
Lord, don't you know the feelin's gettin' stronger
Six in the morning, gave me no warnin'
I had to be on my way
Now the cars are all passin' me,
Trucks are all flashin' me
I'm headed home from your place
“James Dean” is a breakneck rock and roll tribute to the iconic actor with a fantastic guitar by Leadon and a relentless drumbeat by Henley, plus accelerating sports car sound effects.
James Dean, James Dean
I know just what you mean
James Dean, you said it all so clean
And I know my life would look all right
If I could see it on the silver screen
You were a low-down rebel if there ever was
Even if you had no cause
James Dean, you said it all so clean
And I know my life would look all right
If I could see it on the silver screen
Well, talk about a low-down bad refrigerator
You were just too cool for school
Sock hop, soda pop, basketball and auto shop
The only thing that got you off was breakin' all the rules . . .
You were too fast to live, too young to die, bye bye
You were too fast to live, too young to die, bye bye. Bye bye.
“Is It True?” is Randy Meisner’s best song, accompanied by an aching electric slide guitar by Glenn Frey. It’s a reverse of “Already Gone” where the woman leaves the man.
How come you love him when he
Takes you for a fool
He's only lookin' for a good time
How can he love you when he
Treats you mean and cruel
He's not the best thing that you could find
Is it true?
I can't believe it
Is it true?
I just can't see it
Is it true?
Is that you?
When we were young, we didn't really have a care
You were hung up, I had a good line
I never knew it then but, man, I was in love
How could I know it was the right time?
Is it true?
You've lost that feelin'?
Is is true?
You might be leavin'?
Is it true?
Don't wanna find out
On the Border ends with Henley-Frey’s "The Best of My Love", a medium-tempo ballad with the characteristic rhythm acoustic guitar and light-touch pedal steel by Bernie Leadon.
Every night I'm lyin' in bed
Holdin' you close in my dreams
Thinkin' about all the things that we said
And comin' apart at the seams
We try to talk it over
But the words come out too rough
I know you were tryin'
to give me the best of your love
Beautiful faces and loud, empty places
Look at the way that we live
Wastin' our time on cheap talk and wine
Left us so little to give
That same old crowd
Was like a cold dark cloud
That we could never rise above
But here in my heart I give you the best of my love
Oh sweet darlin' you get the best of my love . . .
You see it your way
And I see it mine
But we both see it slippin' away
Their next album was One of These Nights, with the title song, an infectious rocker that leads off the album with Henley singing lead but what sounds like at least two other voices singing harmony with one in falsetto, reminiscent of the Byrds and Crosby, stills, and Nash.
Oh, someone to be kind to
In between the dark and the light
Oh, comin’ right behind you
Swear I'm gonna find you
One of these nights . . .
I've been searchin’ for the daughter
Of the devil himself
I've been searchin’ for an angel in white
I've been waitin’ for a woman who's a little
Of both
And I can feel her but she's nowhere
In sight
“Hollywood Waltz” is a lovely song about a woman who’s got the short end of the stick in relationships. It’s a slow ballad with a wonderful melody sung tenderly by Henley with a beautiful falsetto harmony on the last verse. Bernie Leadon plays steel guitar and mandolin, and harmonium by Frey and synthesizer by Ahlby Galuten give it an almost orchestral sound without strings. It repeatedly drops four times in pitch in a way that gives it a compassionate tenderness, one of the emotional highlights of the album.
She looks another year older,
From too many lovers who used her and ran
But some nights, oh, she looks like an angel
And she's always willing to hold you again
So give her this dance,
She can't be forsaken
Learn how to love her with all of her faults
She gave more than she's taken,
Now go down doing the Hollywood Waltz
Springtime and the lady is grieving
The lovers just stand there with nothing to say
They got what they wanted,
They're packing and leaving
To look for another to love the same way
So give her this dance,
She can't be forsaken
Learn how to love her
With all of her faults
She gave more than she's taken
Now go down doing the Hollywood Waltz
The highlight of the album is the megahit “Lyin’ Eyes”, with the classic Eagles irresistible rhythm guitar and a melodic electric guitar by Leadon. It’s about a woman who’s compromised her life by marrying a “rich old man with hands as cold as ice” but steals away to see “a boy she knew in school”. Music by rock musicians rarely portrays women in a very favorably light, though this has an air of sympathy for her situation. The song bathes your ears with a melody and rhythm that are enormously seductive – it’s sad but still just a pleasure to listen to, no matter how many times I’ve heard it. And over six minutes it tells a story almost novelistic about a woman who had the capacity to have chosen differently.
. . . Late at night a big old house gets lonely
I guess every port of refuge has its price
And it breaks her heart to think her love is only
Given to a man with hands as cold as ice
So she tells him she must go out for the evening
To comfort an old friend who's feelin' down
But he knows where she's goin' as she's leavin'
She is headed for the cheatin' side of town
You can't hide your lyin' eyes
And your smile is a thin disguise
I thought by now you'd realize
There ain't no way to hide your lying eyes . . .
She gets up and pours herself a strong one
And stares out at the stars up in the sky
Another night, it's gonna be a long one
She draws the shade and hangs her head and cries
She wonders how it ever got this crazy
She thinks about a boy she knew in school
Did she get tired or did she just get lazy?
She's so far gone she feels just like a fool
My, oh my, you sure know how to arrange things
You set it up so well, so carefully
Ain't it funny how your new life didn't change things
You're still the same old girl you used to be . . .
It's followed by another good Randy Meisner song, “Take It to the Limit,” cowritten with Henley and Frey but sung by Meisner with Henley and Frey on harmony. Someone adds falsetto, probably Meisner overdubbing, and Jim Ed Norman plays piano, with added strings. “You can spend all your time makin’ money/You can spend all your love makin’ time” are lines worthy of country music songwriters.
All alone at the end of the evening
When the bright lights have faded to blue
I was thinking 'bout a woman who might have
Loved me and I never knew
. . .You can spend all your time making money
You can spend all your love making time
If it all fell to pieces tomorrow
Would you still be mine?
And when you're looking for your freedom
(Nobody seems to care)
And you can't find the door
(Can't find it anywhere)
When there's nothing to believe in
Still you're coming back, you're running back
You're coming back for more
So put me on a highway
And show me a sign
And take it to the limit one more time
Take it to the limit
Take it to the limit
Take it to the limit one more time (Repeat . . . )
“After the Thrill Is Gone” is a Henley-Frey ballad with the perceptive line “You’re not quite lovers/And you’re not quite friends/After the thrill is gone”.
Hotel California is an uneven album with several hit songs, among them some of their best, including the title song, which is the pinnacle of their songwriting. Apparently it’s stimulated much speculation about its meaning ever since. I just recently read an online item claiming to reveal the true meaning of the song, but I wasn’t any clearer about it after reading than I was before. The lines that always stuck in my mind were “You can check out any time you like/But you can never leave”, which sound like Rod Serling on an episode of Twilight Zone. What the article seemed to be saying is that once someone gets involved in the music/movie/Hollywood arenas around Los Angeles, the money-fame trap is so seductive they can never, or rarely, pry themselves loose from it – and yet some have, like Paul Newman. Others never got sucked in.
“Check out” is a term for stepping away from reality with alcohol or drugs or any other distraction. But the song retains an aura of mystery. Don Henley, who sings the song, said “It's our interpretation of the high life in Los Angeles. It's basically a song about the dark underbelly of the American dream and about excess in America, which is something we knew a lot about.” I always felt like it was about the decadence of Los Angeles. If Raymond Chandler had still been alive he could have written a great Phillip Marlowe novel out of it. I’ll print the full lyrics here as written in the liner notes – it’s a masterpiece of writing, and I don’t know what to leave out.
On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair
Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light
My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim
I had to stop for the night
There she stood in the doorway
I heard the mission bell
And I was thinking to myself
"This could be Heaven or this could be Hell"
Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way
There were voices down the corridor
I thought I heard them say
Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place (such a lovely place)
Such a lovely face
Plenty of room at the Hotel California
Any time of year (Any time of year)
You can find it here
Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she got the Mercedes bends
She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys that she calls friends
How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat
Some dance to remember, some dance to forget
So I called up the Captain
"Please bring me my wine."
He said, "We haven't had that spirit here since
Nineteen sixty nine."
And still those voices are calling from far away,
Wake you up in the middle of the night
Just to hear them say
Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place (Such a lovely place)
Such a lovely face
They livin' it up at the Hotel California
What a nice surprise (What a nice surprise)
Bring your alibis
Mirrors on the ceiling
The pink champagne on ice
And she said "We are all just prisoners here, of our own device"
And in the master's chambers
They gathered for the feast
They stab it with their steely knives
But they just can't kill the beast
Last thing I remember,
I was running for the door . . .
"Relax," said the night man
"We are programmed to receive
You can check-out any time you like,
But you can never leave!"
Along with an insistent, heavy drumbeat, there are two guitars that accompany the song in different places – first a mellow electric guitar that drops in pitch several times in each verse for most of the song, underscoring the ominous mood of the tune. It ends with a hard rock solo that repeats its theme at the end in successively lower pitch. The music itself matches the power of the lyrics to create a masterpiece of a song. What “the beast” might be is an uneasy mystery.
“Wasted Time” is also sung by Henley, chronicling the failure of a relationship but coming ultimately to a wise and hopeful conclusion, that experience is never really wasted.
Well baby, there you stand
With your little head down in your hands
Oh, my God, you can’t believe
It’s happening again
Your baby’s gone, and your all alone
And it looks like the end . . .
You don’t care much for a stranger’s touch
But you can’t hold your man
You never thought you’d be alone
This far down the line
And I know what’s been on your mind
You’re afraid it’s all been wasted time
The autumn leaves have got you thinking
About the first time that you fell
You didn’t love the boy too much
No, you just loved the boy too well
So you live from day to day . . .
And I could have done so many things, baby
If I could only stop my mind
From wondering what I left behind
And from worrying about this wasted time . . .
So you can get on with your search, baby
And I can get on with mine
And maybe someday we will find
That it wasn’t really wasted time
The other great song is “The Last Resort,” again sung by Henley, turning Joni Mitchell’s “They paved paradise/And put up a parking lot” into a history of western migration that ultimately ends in California. It’s an excellent lyric, but the song’s heavy piano backing and strings spoil it. A live version would be good to hear. I love the poetry in the first and fourth stanzas.
She came from Providence, the one in Rhode Island
Where the Old World shadows hang heavy in the air
She packed her hopes and dreams like a refugee
Just as her father came across the sea
She heard about a place, people were smilin’
They spoke about the red man’s way,
How they loved the land
They came from everywhere to the Great Divide
Seeking a place to stand or a place to hide
Down in the crowded bars, out for a good time
Can’t wait to tell you all what it’s like up there
They called it Paradise, I don’t know why
Somebody laid the mountains low
While the town got high . . .
Who will provide the grand design,
What is yours and what is mine?
There is no more New Frontier
We have got to make it here
We satisfy our endless needs
And justify our bloody deeds
In the name of destiny, and in the name of God
And you can see them there on Sunday morning
Stand up and sing about what it’s like up there
They called it Paradise, I don’t know why
Call some place Paradise, kiss it goodbye
For me, the Eagles defined what the meld of country and rock could be at its best in these five albums. After the sixth album, The Long Run, they broke up and devolved into solo work, though Frey claimed they never broke up but just took a “14-year hiatus”. They reunited in the 90s for a double album, Hell Freezes Over, which was a commercial success but didn’t inspire me. Ultimately they left a legacy of five great albums that defined a new genre of music.
I think I bought Jackson Browne’s self-titled first album on an endorsement I read from David Crosby. It had several good songs on it but I never played it very much. Later I came across his second album, For Everyman, with the Eagles hit song “Take It Easy” listed as the first song on the album and a lot of good musicians listed in the credits on the back cover. So I bought it and discovered what is one of my all-time favorite albums. I still love to hear it. I still like the Eagles version of “Take It Easy” a little better, but there’s not much difference between it and Browne’s version except for the Eagles’ stunning first chord. Browne’s has a great electric guitar by David Lindley, a multi-instrumentalist who plays guitar on every song except one where he plays electric fiddle. Sneaky Pete Kleinow plays a wonderful pedal steel accompaniment.
. . . It’s a girl, my lord, in a flatbed Ford
Slowin’ down to have a look at me . . .
We may lose, and we may win
But we will never be here again
So open up, I’m climbin’ in
To take it easy
The song winds down with a slower beat and segues into “Our Lady of the Well” without stopping, as if they recorded it that way, which they may have. It’s a soothing ballad, an ode to people living a bucolic life with nice acoustic guitars by Lindley and Browne and Kleinow’s pedal steel background that’s more like a restrained violin. Words flow out of Browne like the Mississippi in the summer sun as if they naturally fit together with no effort to twist a line to rhyme. I have no idea how songwriters do that, but Browne and Steve Goodman do it best.
It is a dance we do in silence
Far below this morning sun
You in your life, me in mine
We have begun
Here we stand and without speaking
Draw the water from the well
And stare beyond the plains
To where the mountains lie so still
But it's a long way that I have come
Across the sand to find this peace among your people in the sun
Where the families work the land as they have always done
Oh it's so far the other way my country's gone
Across my home has grown the shadow
Of a cruel and senseless hand
Though in some strong hearts
The love and truth remain
And it has taken me this distance
And a woman's smile to learn
That my heart remains among them
And to them I must return
If you come to me Maria
I will show you what I’ve done
It’s a picture for our lady of the well
“I Thought I Was a Child” is a wonderful song with intriguing lyrics describing an encounter with a woman who changes the singer’s awareness and perception of himself. It has a gorgeous piano accompaniment by Bill Payne from Little Feat.
I thought I was a child
Until you turned and smiled
I thought I knew where I was going
Until I heard your laughter flowing
And came upon the wisdom in your eyes
Surprise
I’ve spent my whole life running round
Chasing songs from town to town
Thinking I’d be free so long
As I never let love slow me down
So lonely and so wild
Until you turned and smiled
By now I should have long been gone
But here I am still looking on
As if I didn’t know which way to run . . .
I thought that I was free
But I’m just one more prisoner of time
Alone within the boundaries of my mind
The last three lines are such an arresting image. Yes, he’s free, but “Alone within the boundaries of my mind” feels like a humbling bit of truth as well. “These Days” is such a powerful song, also expressing humbling truths that Browne expresses so poignantly. It has a deeply soulful slide guitar by David Lindley that penetrates straight to your heart.
. . . These days I seem to think a lot
About the things that I forgot to do
For you
And all the times I had the chance to
Now if I seem to be afraid
To live the life I have made in song
Well it's just that I've been losing so long . . .
Don't confront me with my failures
I had not forgotten them
It captures regret and the fear of risk that are touchstones of human experience for many people. “Redneck Friend” is about risk as well, a speedy rocker with another great slide guitar by Lindley, but upbeat this time, in this case asking a young girl if she’s going to risk claiming her freedom. Well-known session drummer Jim Keltner provides a solid and energetic drumbeat.
. . . They’re teachin’ you how to walk
But you’re already on the run . . .
Little one, come on and take my hand
Well I may not have the answer
But I believe I got a plan
Honey you shake, I’ll rattle
And we can roll on down the line
See if we can’t get in touch
With a very close friend of mine . . .
It ain’t like him to argue or pretend
Honey let me introduce you
To my redneck friend
Well they got a little list of all the things
Of which they don’t approve
Well they gotta keep their eyes on you
You might make your move
Little one, I really wish you would
Little one, I think the damage’d do you good
“Ready or Not” tells a story about a man getting his live-in lover pregnant and both of them coming to terms with that. “The next thing I remember she was all moved in/And I was buyin’ her a washing machine” – what an image of everyday humanity that is!
. . . I punched that unemployed actor
Defending her dignity
He stood up and knocked me through that barroom door
And that girl came home with me
Now baby's feeling funny in the morning
She says she's got a lot on her mind
Nature didn't give her any warning
Now she's gonna have to leave her wild ways behind
She says she doesn't care if she never spends
Another night running loose on the town
She's gonna be a mother
Take a look in my eyes and tell me brother
If I look like I'm ready
“For Everyman” is the standout song on the album. The six-minute song segues seamlessly from “Sing My Songs to Me” with a somewhat muffled drum roll that catches your attention and heightens expectation. It chronicles the state of mind after the waning of flower power and the rise of the Watergate mess, with the hope of finding a better way of life. What Browne means by “waiting for Everyman” isn’t clear. According to Wikipedia, “The everyman is a stock character of fiction. An ordinary and humble character, the everyman is generally a protagonist whose benign conduct fosters the audience's identification with them.” My impression was that Browne’s waiting for Everyman was perhaps an expression of hope that his songs will touch on something universal in all of us, which most writers are trying to do.
Everybody I talk to is ready to leave
With the light of the morning
They've seen the end coming down long enough to believe
That they've heard their last warning
Standing alone, each has his own ticket in his hand
As the evening descends
I sit thinking about Everyman
Seems like I've always been looking for some other place
To get it together
Where with a few of my friends I could give up the race
And maybe find something better
But all my fine dreams
Well thought out schemes to gain the motherland
Have all eventually come down to waiting for Everyman
Waiting here for Everyman
Make it on your own if you think you can
If you see somewhere to go I understand
Waiting here for Everyman
Don't ask me if he'll show – baby I don't know
Make it on your own if you think you can
Somewhere later on you'll have to take a stand
Then you're going to need a hand
Everybody's just waiting to hear from the one
Who can give them the answer
And lead them back to that place in the warmth of the sun
Where sweet childhood still dances
Who'll come along
And hold out that strong and gentle father's hand? . . .
I'm not trying to tell you that I've seen the plan
Turn and walk away if you think I am
But don't think too badly of one who's left holding sand
He's just another dreamer, dreaming about Everyman
It’s not an optimistic view but one that’s ultimately hopeful. It’s a wonderful melody backed by Lindley’s mellow and expressive electric guitar and organ by Mike Utley. It expresses an outlook that always feels very comforting to me and embodies the way I’d like to approach life – skeptical and not naïve but hopeful. It ends with a quiet acoustic guitar leading into an extended drum roll that again stirs your blood, followed by a fadeout on electric guitar.
Browne’s followup album Late for the Sky is so good it’s hard to say whether it or For Everyman is better, although I play the latter more often. The title song describes the disintegration of a relationship with unsparing and realistic language. Browne’s songs about love always sound so personal, it’s hard to know how autobiographical they are. The song’s accompanied by David Lindley’s aching guitar that embodies the sadness of the song. There are so many good lines in the song. The poetry in “Looking hard into your eyes/There was nobody I'd ever known/Such an empty surprise to feel so alone” is deeply poignant and strikes your heart like an arrow. What a disorienting and unsettling shock that would be! I also love the lines ”You never knew what I loved in you/I don't know what you loved in me/Maybe the picture of somebody you were hoping I might be”. I suspect many of us fall in love with the person we hope our lover might be rather than seeing clearly who they are. His lyrics flow with such poetic grace. The last three lines describe how many people try to mold themselves into the person their lover wants instead of being true to themselves.
Now the words had all been spoken
And somehow the feeling still wasn't right
And still we continued on through the night
Tracing our steps from the beginning
Until they vanished into the air
Trying to understand how our lives has led us there
Looking hard into your eyes
There was nobody I'd ever known
Such an empty surprise to feel so alone . . .
You never knew what I loved in you
I don't know what you loved in me
Maybe the picture of somebody you were hoping I might be
Awake again I can't pretend and I know I'm alone
And close to the end of the feeling we've known
How long have I been sleeping
How long have I been drifting alone through the night
How long have I been dreaming I could make it right
If I closed my eyes and tried with all my might
To be the one you need
“Fountain of Sorrow” is the song on the album I most enjoy listening to, either Browne's version or Joan Baez's. Led by an infectious piano by Jai Winding and a pulsing drumbeat by Larry Zack, it’s an irresistible song with a quiet slowdown towards the end, only to come back strong to a rousing finish. I love listening to the rhythm of this song. “And while the future’s there for anyone to change/Still you know it seems/It would be easier sometimes to change the past” is a wonderful description of the tendency to remember our past the way we would like it to be rather than the way it was. The words flow as if they roll effortlessly out of his mind. His lines vary in length and meter but still seem to flow with an uncanny smoothness as if he thinks naturally in rhyme and rhythm.
Looking through some photographs I found inside a drawer
I was taken by a photograph of you
There were one or two I know that you
Would have liked a little more
But they didn’t show your spirit quite as true
You were turning round to see who was behind you
And I took your childish laughter by surprise
And at the moment that my camera happened to find you
There was just a trace of sorrow in your eyes
Now the things that I remember seem so distant and so small
Though it really hasn’t been that long a time
What I was seeing wasn’t what was happening at all
Although for a while our paths did seem to climb . . .
Now for you and me, it may not be that hard to reach our dreams
But that magic feeling never seems to last
And while the future’s there for anyone to change
Still you know it seems
It would be easier sometimes to change the past
I’m just one or two years and a couple of changes behind you
In my lessons at love's pain and heartache school
Where if you feel too free and you need something to remind you
There’s this loneliness springing up from your life
Like a fountain from a pool . . .
Fountain of sorrow, fountain of light
You’ve known that hollow sound of your own steps in flight
You’ve had to struggle, you’ve had to fight
To keep understanding and compassion in sight
You could be laughing at me, you’ve got the right
But you go on smiling, so clear and so bright
And it’s good to see your smiling face tonight
“For a Dancer” is a lovely song with unusual rhythm and meter changes and a wonderful melody. It sounds like an older person imparting wisdom and encouragement to someone he loved but lost. Browne was only 25 years old at the time, but his lyrics on these early albums seem to contain wisdom beyond his years. He was someone who a friend of mine would have called an “old soul”. The song carries a hopeful and compassionate message. I love the lines “Just do the steps that you’ve been shown/By everyone you’ve ever known/Until the dance becomes your very own”. . . /And somewhere between the time you arrive/And the time you go/May lie a reason you were alive/That you’ll never know”. "In the end there is one dance you'll do alone" is a mature perspective for someone a mere 25 years old.
Keep a fire burning in your eyes.
Pay attention to the open skies
You never know what will be coming down
I don’t remember losing track of you,
You were always dancing in and out of view
I must have thought you’d always be around
Always keeping things real by playing the clown
Now you’re nowhere to be found
I don’t know what happens when people die
Can’t seem to grasp it as hard as I try
It’s like a song I can hear playing right in my ear
That I can’t sing
But I can’t help listening . . .
Just do the steps that you’ve been shown
By everyone you’ve ever known
Until the dance becomes your very own.
No matter how close to yours another’s steps have grown
In the end there is one dance you’ll do alone . . .
Don’t let the uncertainty turn you around.
The world keeps turning around
Go on and make a joyful sound
Into a dancer you have grown
From a seed somebody else has thrown
Go on ahead and throw some seeds of your own
And somewhere between the time you arrive
And the time you go
May lie a reason you were alive
That you’ll never know.
“The Late Show” is a lament describing a history of looking for love and failing to communicate and connect, with a lovely melody and gorgeous guitar again by Lindley. It ends with
Look, it’s like you’re standing in the window
Of a house nobody lives in
And I’m sitting in a car across the way
Let’s just say
An early model Chevrolet
Let’s just say
A warm and windy day
You go and pack your sorrow
Trash man comes tomorrow
Leave it at the curb and we’ll just roll away
Browne is the humble self-confessed stumbler through life in many of his songs. In “Farther On” he sings “I’m not sure what I’m trying to say/It could be I’ve lost my way”. But he’s not always full of lamentation, as shown by “Redneck Friend” and “Ready or Not” on For Everyman, as well as “The Road and the Sky” on this album. In “Walking Slow” he’s happy without having a reason, like Dan Millman’s “peaceful warrior”:
Walking slow down the avenue
In my old neighborhood
I don’t know why I’m happy
I got no reason to feel this good.
The album ends with “Before the Deluge”, a sort of semi-apocalyptic description of what's anticipated in “For Everyman”. It has the same broader perspective that takes in all of humanity, or at least the 70s counterculture, instead of the focus on personal relationships as in most of his songs. It’s a big song, an anthem for those who tried to imagine and build a better world, finally to be defeated and swept up in the tide of history. It’s accompanied beautifully by Lindley’s fiddle playing and Jai Winding’s organ that give it a spiritual overtone that’s almost churchlike.
Some of them were dreamers
And some of them were fools
They were making plans and thinking of the future
With the energy of the innocent
They were gathering the tools
They would need to make their journey back to nature
While the sand slipped through the opening
And their hands reached for the golden ring
With their hearts they turned to each other's hearts for refuge
In the troubled years that came before the deluge
Some of them knew pleasure
And some of them knew pain
And for some of them it was only the moment that mattered
And on the brave and crazy wings of youth
They went flying around in the rain
And their feathers, once so fine, grew torn and tattered
And in the end they traded their tired wings
For the resignation that living brings
And exchanged love's bright and fragile glow
For the glitter and the rouge
And in the moment they were swept before the deluge
Let the music keep our spirits high
Let the buildings keep our children dry
Let creation reveal its secrets by and by
By and by, by and by . . .
When the light that's lost within us reaches the sky
Some of them were angry
At the way the earth was abused
By the men who learned how to forge her beauty into power
And they struggled to protect her from them
Only to be confused
By the magnitude of her fury in the final hour
And when the sand was gone and the time arrived
In the naked dawn only a few survived
And in attempts to understand a thing so simple and so huge
Believed that they were meant to live after the deluge . . .
While the sand slipped through the opening
And their hands reached for the golden ring
With their hearts they turned to each other’s hearts for refuge
In the troubled years that came before the deluge
The Pretender was a more personal album that grew out of his wife's death, which sold well and had hits with the title song and “Here Come Those Tears Again”. Running on Empty was a bigger album hit with the high-energy title song and “The Load Out/Stay” being a hit single. In the latter he paid tribute to the roadies who travel with him to set up and take down the amps and other stage equipment while he asks them to come for his piano last because well after the concert’s over he still wants to keep playing – then he launches into the old rock and roll hit “Stay” as if he doesn’t want the euphoria of playing music for an audience to end, even though the concert hall has probably cleared out. It's like he’s still playing for his roadie crew while they tear everything down, pack it up and haul it away. His next two albums, Hold Out and Lawyers in Love did well commercially, but even though I bought them I didn’t listen to them much. He’s continued to release albums and has had some critical and commercial success with a number of them.
Browne also has a long history of political activism and benefit concerts as well as collaborations with other singer/songwriters including Crosby, Stills and Nash, Bonnie Raitt, Jennifer Warnes, Ray Davies of The Kinks – and Roger Daltry in a benefit production of The Wizard of Oz in which he played the Scarecrow. He's a sane and stable example in an arena where that's rare, and an paragon of social responsibility that's inspiring. “Our Lady of the Well”, “I Thought I was a Child”, “Ready or Not”, “These Days”, “For Everyman”, "Late for the Sky", “The Late Show”, “For a Dancer”, “Fountain of Sorrow” and “Before the Deluge” spontaneously start to run through my head often. For Everyman, Late for the Sky and The Pretender were picked by Rolling Stone as among the 500 best albums of all time. He sings with heart, and he’s another one of those musicians who’s continued to be creative for over fifty years, someone I still listen to with pleasure after that long. And like Steve Goodman, he’s someone who often voices what I feel and think.
Brett Nelson
"Uncle John’s Band"
Millions of words have probably been written about the Grateful Dead, so what I can offer is a drop in a bucket of water. But I feel the urge to write about what my experience of them has been anyway. More than a band, they were a cultural icon and a movement, created to some extent by design, by allowing fans to record their concerts as long as fans didn’t make profits on the sale of tapes, and by reaching out to their fanbase to solicit names and addresses “to keep you informed”. They also played a lot of free concerts. I never saw a Dead concert, but from the beginning I was intrigued by music that covered so many genres with a sound that was unique to them, and I collected albums one by one until their later music stopped living up to what I first heard. My introduction to them was at a friend’s apartment in about 1971 when he put Workingman’s Dead on his stereo and out came an upbeat song about a sort of Pied Piper titled “Uncle John’s Band”. The Dead, as they were called, didn’t offer a rosy view of humanity but they celebrated life as it was.
Well, the first days are the hardest days,
Don’t you worry anymore
‘Cause when life looks like Easy Street
There is danger at your door
Think this through with me
Let me know your mind
Whoa-oh, what I want to know,
Is are you kind? . . .
Goddamn, well I declare
Have you seen the like
Their walls are built of cannonballs,
Their motto is Don’t Tread on Me
Come hear Uncle John’s Band
By the riverside
Got some things to talk about
Here beside the rising tide
I live in a silver mine
And I call it Beggar’s Tomb
I got me a violin
And I beg you call the tune
Anybody’s choice
I can hear your voice
Whoa-oh, what I want to know,
How does the song go?
Come hear Uncle John’s Band
Playing to the tide
Come with me or go alone
He’s come to take his children home
Come hear Uncle John’s Band
By the riverside
Come on along or go alone
He’s come to take his children home
These weren’t lyrics like anything I’d ever heard before, not even from Bob Dylan. I learned later almost all their lyrics were written by an invisible member of the band, an old friend of Garcia’s named Robert Hunter who didn’t play or sing with the band, while Jerry Garcia wrote the music. Garcia was a folk and bluegrass musician before the Grateful Dead formed, and he continued to play old folk tunes with the acoustic Jerry Garcia Band while in the Dead. He was considered the leader of the band, but he insisted that the others in the band contributed as much to the music they made as he did. Most of the songs were done in the spirit of 19th and early 20th century rural mountain music and country blues, and they had the feel of that. They didn’t paint a picture of a benevolent world, but they conveyed an attitude of engaging life with an accepting spirit in spite of their frequent critical comment on it.
“Dire Wolf” was a comic if foreboding song about an encounter with the fearsome Pleistocene animal, which knocks on the singer’s door.
In the timbers of Fennario
The wolves are runnin' round
The winter was so hard and cold
Froze ten feet 'neath the ground
Don't murder me, I beg of you
Don't murder me, please, don't murder me
I sat down to my supper
It was a bottle of red whisky
I said my prayers and went to bed
That's the last they saw of me
Don't murder me, I beg of you
Don't murder me, please, don't murder me
When I awoke, the dire wolf
Six hundred pounds of sin
Was grinning at my window
All I said was, "Come on in"
Dire wolves were actually about the size of a large modern gray wolf weighing 135 lbs or so, not 600 lbs, but with much more biting power. “All I said was ‘Come on in” – as if “Where did I go wrong?” It’s a bouncy, almost cheery song capped with the comical plea “I beg of you/Don’t murder me, please don’t murder me”. I get an inward smile every time I hear it.
It’s followed by a bluesy number called “New Speedway Boogie,” a favorite of mine.
Please don’t dominate the rap, Jack
If you got nothin’ new to say
If you please, don’t back up the track
This train got to run today
Now I don’t know but I been told
It’s hard to run with the weight of gold
Other hand I heard it said
It’s just as hard with the weight of lead
Spent a little time on the mountain
Spent a little time on the hill
Things went down we don’t understand
But I think in time we will
Now I don’t know but I been told
In the heat of the sun a man died of cold
Do we keep on comin’ or stand and wait
With the sun so dark and the hour so late?
You can’t overlook the lack, Jack
Of any other highway to ride
It’s got no signs or dividing lines
And very few rules to guide
I don’t know, but I been told
If the horse don’t pull you got to carry the load
I don’t know who’s back’s that strong
Maybe find out before too long
One way or another
One way or another
This darkness got to give
“Black Peter” is a slow and mournful song about a dying old man who’s accepting of his fate and just wants “a little peace to die” with a friend or two with him.
All of my friends come to see me last night
I was laying in my bed and dyin’ . . .
Just wanna have a little peace to die
And a friend or two I love at hand
Fever roll up to a hundred and five
Roll on up, gonna roll back down
One more day I find myself alive
Tomorrow maybe go beneath the ground
See here how everything lead up to this day
And it's just like any other day that's ever been
Sun going up and then the sun going down
Shine through my window and my friends they come around
Jerry Garcia had played bluegrass in the early sixties, and the Hunter-Garcia tune “Cumberland Blues” is a bluegrass tune about a mine in Pennsylvania. Someone who actually worked in the Cumberland Mine once said to Hunter “I wonder what the guy who wrote this song would’ve thought if he’d known that something like the Grateful Dead was gonna do it”, not suspecting that he was actually talking to the songwriter. It sounds like something written around 1870 instead of 1970. It’s lyrics, high-speed pace and banjo make it sound like pure 19th century Appalachian mountain music.
A lotta poor man make a five dollar bill
Keep him happy all the time
Some other fella's makin' nothin' at all
And you can hear him cryin’
"Can I go, buddy, can I go down
Take your shift at the mine?"
Gotta get down to the Cumberland Mine
That's where I mainly spend my time
Make good money, five dollars a day
Make anymore, I might move away
Lotta poor man got the Cumberland Blues
He can't win for losin'
Lotta poor man got to walk the line
Just to pay his union dues
I don’t know now, I just don’t know
If I’m goin’ back again
Workingman’s Dead was followed by the equally fine American Beauty, the first album to use a red rose on the cover as a symbol for the band. It starts off with “Box of Rain”, a song Hunter and Phil Lesh wrote when Phil Lesh’s dying father asked Lesh to write a song to sing to him. It’s a mystical song with ambiguous meaning.
Look out of any window, any morning, any evening, any day
Maybe the sun is shining, birds are winging
No rain is falling from a heavy sky
What do you want me to do, to do for you to see you through?
For this is all a dream we dreamed one afternoon, long ago
Walk out of any doorway, feel your way, feel your way
Like the day before, maybe you'll find direction
Around some corner where it's been waiting to meet you
What do you want me to do, to watch for you while you are sleeping?
Then please don't be surprised when you find me dreaming too . . .
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
The classic cut on American Beauty is “Ripple”, a song that became a standard and favorite at Grateful Dead concerts and my personal favorite Grateful Dead song. It’s a mystical acoustic meditation on the ultimate aloneness of existence, but a sweet and compassionate wish for all of us fellow travelers. Accompanied by a simple acoustic guitar and mandolin by stand-in David Grisman, it has a very rhythmic melody that makes you want to sing along, in your head if not out loud.
If my words did glow
with the gold of sunshine
and my tunes were played
on the harp unstrung,
would you hear my voice
come through the music.
Would you hold it near
as it were your own? . . .
Ripple in still water
when there is no pebble tossed
nor wind to blow.
Reach out your hand
if your cup be empty.
If your cup is full
may it be again.
Let it be known
there is a fountain
that was not made
by the hands of men.
There is a road
no simple highway
between the dawn
and the dark of night.
And if you go
no one may follow.
That path is for
your steps alone.
Ripple in still water
when there is no pebble tossed
nor wind to blow.
You who choose,
to lead must follow,
but if you fall
you fall alone.
If you should stand,
then who’s to guide you?
If I knew the way
I would take you home.
Every time I hear this song I feel my heart bathed in compassionate for the unpredictable path I walk. It’s followed by one of two other favorites on this album, “Brokedown Palace”, which feels like a relevant sentiment today. It’s a soothing lullaby with a lovely melody.
Goin to leave this brokedown palace
On my hands and my knees, I will roll, roll, roll
Make myself a bed by the waterside
In my time, in my time, I will roll, roll, roll
In a bed, in a bed,
by the waterside I will lay my head
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
to rock my soul
Goin to leave this brokedown palace
On my hands and my knees, I will roll, roll, roll
Make myself a bed by the waterside
In my time, in my time, I will roll, roll, roll
In a bed, in a bed,
by the waterside I will lay my head
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
to rock my soul
My other favorite song on American Beauty is “Attics of My Life”, another mystical tune. It’s very ambiguous, seeming to address someone the singer loves deeply with a spiritual gratitude. It’s a very slow, dreamy song that for me seems to express something I feel but can’t identify.
I have spent my life
Seeking all that’s still unsung
Bent my ear to hear the tune
And closed my eyes to see
When there were no strings to play
You played to me . . .
In the book of love’s own dream
Where all the print is blood
Where all the pages are my days
And all my lights grow old
When I had no wings to fly
You flew to me
You
Flew
To me
Grateful Dead songs often seem to have a whimsical or even comic attitude about life and death, infidelity, even murder. “Friend of the Devil” is another fast-paced bluegrass tune on American Beauty.
I lit out from Reno, I was trailed by twenty hounds
Didn't get to sleep that night 'til the morning came around
Set out runnin' but I take my time
A friend of the devil is a friend of mine
If I get home before daylight I just might get some sleep tonight
Ran into the devil, babe, he loaned me twenty bills
Spent the night in Utah in a cave up in the hills . . .
I ran down to the levee but the devil caught me there
He took my twenty dollar bill and he vanished in the air
Set out runnin' but I take my time
A friend of the devil is a friend of mine
If I get home before daylight I just might get some sleep tonight
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
The second one is prison, babe, sheriff's on my trail
And if he catches up with me, I'll spend my life in jail . . .
An early Dead song on the album Aoxomoxoa, “Dupree’s Diamond Blues”, also epitomizes this. It’s about a man who kills a jeweler to get a diamond ring to marry his fiancé.
Judge said, "Son, this gonna cost you some time."
Dupree said, "Judge, you know that crossed my mind."
Judge said, "Fact it's gonna cost you your life."
Dupree said, "Judge, you know that seems to me to be about right."
While the last line above is darkly comic, there’s a darker truth under the acceptance of his sentence. It’s an attitude that doesn’t take life and death as seriously as we do today with the medical knowledge and technology to wage war on death and disease. 100-150 years ago people frequently died from all kinds of causes at much younger ages. People didn’t have the degree of confidence they would live to an advanced age, especially people on the lower rungs of society. Law enforcement was sketchy on the frontier and in the mountains. Almost everyone had guns and it seems from old songs that violent death was not as novel as it is today, with the exception of drug- and gang-related death in city ghettoes. So many old song talk about violent death, and the Dead drew a lot their inspiration from those old songs.
The Dead frequently worked old folk songs and rock and roll standards into their concerts. Their 1971 live album, simply titled Grateful Dead but often referred to as the “skull and roses” album due to the cover art, includes a fast-tempo and dynamic 9:14 minute combo of Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away” that segues seamlessly into the traditional “Goin Down the Road Feelin Bad”. The band is totally in sync and it’s exhilarating to listen to. They also played old blues and folk songs like “Deep Elem Blues” and Elizabeth Cotton’s “Oh, Babe It Ain’t No Lie”.
Another example of songs joined together in a smooth transition from their Europe ‘72” live album is “China Cat Sunflower” paired with the traditional blues “I Know You Rider”. The first is impressionistic poetry unlike any other Hunter lyrics I can think of, with a fantastic guitar accompaniment on both songs by Garcia. It’s typical of his jazzy improvisation. One writer described Garcia's guitar style as “playing bluegrass runs on the guitar”.
Look for a while at the China Cat Sunflower
proud-walking jingle in the midnight sun
Copper-dome bodhi drip a silver kimono
like a crazy-quilt star gown
through a dream night wind
Krazy Kat peeking 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
Comic book colors on a violin river
crying Leonardo words
from out a silk trombone
I rang a silent bell
beneath a shower of pearls
in the eagle wing palace
of the Queen Chinee
Hunter wrote in his songbook that no one’s ever asked him what the song means because “People seem to know exactly what I’m talking about”. I have no idea, and I love the lyrics and the song anyway.
“I Know You Rider” picks up the pace a lot, with a wonderful cascading piano and non-stop electric guitar lines like a swift mountain stream flowing steeply down its rocky channel as in “Not Fade Away/Goin Down the Road Feelin Bad” on their “skull and roses” live album in a rock and roll tour de force that leaves no doubt they were a great rock and roll band. Ron “Pigpen” McKernan has his best song on this album, a slow and soulful rendition of Elmore James’ “It Hurts Me Too” – “When things go wrong/Wrong with you/It hurts me too”, lamenting how a former lover is treated by another man.
“Brown-Eyed Women” is a gem from their live Europe ’72 album that like a lot of old folk songs tells a tragic tale. It’s a moderately paced rocker with a different-sounding electric guitar than Garcia usually plays, piano and a steady, simple drumbeat.
Gone are the days when the ox fall down
Take up the yoke and plow the fields around
Gone are the days when the ladies said, "Please
Gentle Jack Jones, won't you come to me?" . . .
Delilah Jones was the mother of twins
Two times over and the rest were sins
Raised eight boys, only I turned bad
Didn't get the news that the other ones had
Brown-eyed women and red grenadine
The bottle was dusty but the liquor was clean
Sound of the thunder with the rain pourin' down
And it looks like the old man's gettin' on
Tumble down shack on Big Foot county
Snowed so hard that the roof caved in
Delilah Jones went to meet her God
And the old man never was the same again
1974's From the Mars Hotel has its own fast-paced rocker in "U S Blues."
Red and white, blue suede shoes
I'm Uncle Sam, how do you do?
Give me five, I'm still alive
Ain't no luck, I learned to duck
Check my pulse, it don't change
Stay seventy-two come shine or rain
Wave the flag, pop the bag
Rock the boat, skin the goat
Wave that flag, wave it wide and high
Summertime done, come and gone, my, oh, my
I'm Uncle Sam, that's who I am
Been hiding out in a rock and roll band
Shake the hand that shook the hand
Of P.T. Barnum and Charlie Chan
Shine your shoes, light your fuse
Can you use them old U.S. Blues?
We're all confused, what's to lose?
You can call this song the United States Blues
Another jazz-inflected song is “Eyes of the World” from their previous studio album, Wake of the Flood.
Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world
The heart has its beaches, its homeland and thoughts of its own
Wake now, discover that you are the song that the morning brings
But the heart has its seasons, its evenings and songs of its own
From the Mars Hotel is their last really good studio album, not quite as good as Workingman’s Dead or American Beauty, but not that far off. Besides “U S Blues”, it has a haunting “China Doll”, a moody song about a child’s reaction to a parent’s murder by their spouse. It’s murky, and hard to understand who’s talking when. But it’s a moving song that gives you a chill as the child is told to pick up the doll she dropped, as if that's the only thing they can think of to try to comfort the child and having it “only fractured” will somehow soothe her. Garcia sings it in a slow and dreamy, melancholic but tender voice.
A pistol shot at 5 o'clock
The bells of heaven ring
Tell me what you done it for
"No I won't tell you a thing
"Yesterday I begged you
before I hit the ground -
all I leave behind me
is only what I found . . .
"I will not condemn you
nor yet would I deny . . ."
I would ask the same of you
but failing will not die
Take up your china doll
it's only fractured –
just a little nervous
from the fall
The best song on From the Mars Hotel is “Ship of Fools”, the closest The Dead get to direct political statement, apparently written during the Watergate hearings, or after.
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
Ship of fools on a cruel sea
Ship of fools sail away from me
It was later than I thought when I first believed you
Now I cannot share your laughter, ship of fools
Saw your first ship sink and drown, from rocking of the boat
And all that could not sink or swim was just left there to float
I won't leave you drifting down but whoa it makes me wild
With thirty years upon my head to have you call me child
Ship of fools on a cruel sea
Ship of fools sail away from me
It was later than I thought when I first believed you
Now I cannot share your laughter, ship of fools
The bottles stand as empty as they were filled before
Time there was and plenty but from that cup no more
Though I could not caution all I still might warn a few
Don't lend your hand to raise no flag atop no ship of fools
The Dead continued to churn out studio albums for years, with 1987’s Built to Last and 1989’s In the Dark capturing some of their earlier energy and form as Garcia curtailed his drug use and addressed health problems like diabetes. In the early 80s Garcia’s performance on stage began to suffer. It resulted in the band doing an intervention, and he sought treatment. In the Dark was their last studio album. In spite of their largely electric instrumentation, the Dead were basically an American “roots music” band that took their inspiration from 19th century blues and country music, partly due to Robert Hunter’s lyrical focus. They were much like The Band in that regard, but a little further out on the edge. They even did an album with Bob Dylan.
In spite of their mixing genres from Motown R&B to bluegrass to blues, country and psychedelic music, as well as playing long improvised jams throughout their career, “in 2024, they broke the record for most Top-40 albums on the Billboard 200 chart. Rolling Stone ranked the Grateful Dead number 57 on its 2011 list of the ‘100 Greatest Artists of All Time’ The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994 and a recording of their May 8, 1977, performance at Cornell University's Barton Hall was added to the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress in 2012 for being ‘culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant’ ” (Wikipedia). There have been some bands that took the Dead as their model, but there has never been another band anything like the Dead with their aura and almost mythic status, especially with the vast collection of concert recordings they and even their fans have made and circulated. They were more than a band -- a cultural phenomenon that grew out of Haight-Ashbury and the Summer of Love that lived on creatively for decades after that scene died. They created, simply by who they were and how they made and spread their music, a musical community and a movement that was unique and will almost certainly never be replicated.
