12/21/2023 0 Comments Grateful dead songbookThere may be no more exhaustive a reference for the band’s output contained all in one place, though readers of this post may know of comparable guides in the vast sea of Grateful Dead commentary and compendiums online, in print, and on tape. The online annotated Grateful Dead also includes “Thematic Essays,” a bibliography and “bibliography of songbooks,” films and videos, and discographies for the band and each core member. Another of the band’s most popular songs, “ Friend of the Devil,” cribs its title and chorus from American folk singer Bill Morrissey’s song “Car and Driver”-and also references Don McLean’s “American Pie.” Drawing as much on the Western literary canon as on the American songbook, Hunter’s writing situates the Dead’s Americana in a tradition stretching over centuries and continents, giving their music depth and complexity few other rock bands can claim. Woven throughout the song are references to American poetry and folk music-from Robert Frost’s “Fire and Ice,” to the Gadsden Flag, to an Appalachian rag. Take, for example, “ Uncle John’s Band,” which contains the line “Ain’t no time to hate.” One reader, Aaron Bibb, points us toward these lines of Emily Dickinson: Sometimes I just write the next line that occurs to me, and then I stand back and look at it and say, ‘This looks like it works.'” But just because a poet isn’t consciously quoting Homer doesn’t mean he isn’t, especially a poet as densely allusive as Robert Hunter. Hunter himself told Rolling Stone, “people think I have a lot more intention at what I do because it sounds very focused and intentional. Or, so, at least, say Dodd and his readers, though some of their interpretations may seem a bit tenuous. If you have any doubt about just how steeped in poetic history the pre-eminent hippie band’s catalog is, see for example the annotated “ Terrapin Station,” a song that reaches back to Homer and alludes to Lewis Carroll, William Blake, Plato, and T.S. Also included in these glosses are “notes from readers,” who weigh in with their own speculations and scholarly addenda. The extensive hypertext version of the project includes editorial footnotes explaining each song’s references, with sources. And true students of the band can study the many literary references and allusions in their songwriting with The Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics, an online project begun in 1995 by UC Santa Cruz Research Associate David Dodd, and turned into a book in 2005. There have been university exhibits and academic conferences devoted to the Grateful Dead. Hunter’s reluctance to interpret his lyrics hasn’t stopped fans and scholars of the Dead from doing so. An accomplished poet and translator of Rainer Maria Rilke’s Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus, Hunter served, writes Rolling Stone, as the band’s “primary in-house poet.” In a rare and moving interview with the magazine, the reclusive writer muses on his former role, and hedges on the meaning of his songs: “I’m open to questions about interpretation, but I generally skate around my answers because I don’t want to put those songs in a box.” We mostly have Robert Hunter to thank for those hundreds of memorable verses. The Grateful Dead’s official output may have been uneven at times, marred by excess and tragedy, but the band’s words remained consistently inspired and inspiring, each song a poetic vignette filled with oblique references and witty, heartfelt turns of phrase.
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