Monday 10/28/24
There are pieces of music by the Grateful Dead which causes me to wonder if that's the best music I've ever heard. For example, the 2/13/70 Fillmore East version of "Dark Star" or the one from Wembley 4/8/72.
I have these thoughts often with the Grateful Dead, and Phil Lesh is a big reason why. He died on Friday, having lived life well, and many people posted either links to, or lyrics from, "Box of Rain."
I don't know a better song. When it comes to how to live your life. And as pure song. I mean as pure songwriting. I'm not talking about the studio or anything like that. Pioneering effects. I mean a song, like a story. The essence of song.
I saw this headline for his obituary in The New York Times, and it bothered me. I don't respect any of the writing in The New York Times. The headline said that Lesh anchored the Grateful Dead. The Grateful Dead had no anchors. There was no anchoring with the Grateful Dead. There was soaring and exploring and traveling and arriving and heading off again in search of more things that mattered. There's scarcely a worse word to have used.
I listen to the Grateful Dead every day. I think about them throughout every day. They're the musical artists who, I believe, have gotten closest to the answer. They're humanness as musical artists is unique. They are also the best band this country has ever produced and, like I said, I'm not sure anyone has ever made music better than some of the music the Grateful Dead did.
There are a bunch of Grateful Dead entries coming in these pages, and I'm planning a Grateful Dead book regarding their dramatic about-face--a 180 unlink anything in American musical history--from, say, the middle of 1969 through the autumn of 1970, but I wanted to put something here in the interim regarding what I view as the most soulful song of all-time, that being "And We Bid You Goodnight."
I'm confident in that claim. I thought we'd highlight a special version--it was more spectral than usual--from Philadelphia's Electric Factory on February 15, 1969. When you went to a Dead show, you wanted to hear "Dark Star" because it's one of those things in life to be treasured as a life experience. I feel the same way about "And We Bid You Good Night" (imagine hearing both at the same show, which is what you would have gotten that night in Philly).
I walk around singing this song a lot. I sing it at all times of the day. I treasure it and I am grateful that it exists, and, further, exists in all of these inspiring incarnations. It's a three-part harmony between Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, and Lesh, with Garcia then stepping forward for the lead.
This version from Philadelphia might as well be occurring in space, and yet, it's so warming. It's light in the night and it's hope and it's joy.
I mentioned reading this testimonial once in which a man who loved the Grateful Dead sang this song repeatedly to his father, who also loved the Grateful Dead, when the latter was unconscious and dying.
In listening to it, can you not understand why?
The song starts at 2:37:41 in the "video" below.
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