The latter is best exemplified by the sprawling, 36-minute wonder that is this night's reading of “The Other One.” Originally bookended by Jerry Garcia’s “Cryptical Envelopment,” by 1972 the song had been both pared down and expanded, providing the Dead with a vehicle for their most untethered-and sometimes most aggressive-jams. Released in 1995 as Hundred Year Hall, the Grateful Dead’s April 26, 1972, show in Frankfurt is a tour de force display of pretty much everything the Dead were capable of at this juncture, from earthy Pigpen-led R&B to country-fried workouts to daring improvisation. After dropping “Cryptical Envelopment” in 1971 (minus a brief ’80s revival), “The Other One” became the jam center of many second sets, its triplet-based gallop providing a tension-laden motif for high energy improvisation, perfect for segues, creating a jam canon second only to “Dark Star”.
At the unexpected and emotionally charged five-show wake for promoter Bill Graham, the Dead’s staunchest supporter, “Dark Star” became a time machine when novelist Ken Kesey delivered a Halloween eulogy and the band flashed back to the Acid Tests, eight musicians so locked in that you can imagine walking between all the notes.Ģ/28/69 Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA Ģ/13/70 Fillmore East, New York City, NY Ĩ/27/72 Old Renaissance Fairgrounds, Veneta, OR ġ0/28/72 Cleveland Public Hall, Cleveland, OH ġ0/26/89 Miami Arena, Miami, FL Ī high-wire version of one of the band’s premier jam vehicles in nearly every era. Key Later Version: OctoOakland Coliseum, Oakland, Calif. What to Listen For : The charging major key jam that erupts near the end of this version also features a fiery debate about what will follow, eventually sliding perfectly into Weir’s “Sugar Magnolia” and a version of Pigpen’s “Caution (Do Not Stop on the Tracks)” filled with crackling heat lightning. A collective breath is taken after the first and only verse, until Kreutzmann’s kick drum cajoles the rest of the Dead, including Pigpen behind the organ, to percolate a melody, pause for a brief freak-out, and wrap up the song with sunburst triumph. The exuberance of the band listening to itself in this half-hour house of mirrors can be heard as Garcia’s Alligator Stratocaster quickly descends from the song’s head, Lesh offering bubbly harmonic counterpoint accents of cymbals and short drum rolls make Weir’s offbeat rhythmic attacks more potent and clear space for Keith Godchaux to pound out leads on his piano. Introduced to listeners via a short and far-out 7" in early 1968 and the standard side-long take of Live/Dead in 1969, the April 8th, 1972 version is not a “Dark Star” of gaping existential canyons jagged with feedback. Elongated fast ’n’ furious blues jams and Wild West saloon swagger were dosed with jazzier, subtler improvisations, the Dead’s musical shorthand cribbed from the simultaneous soloing of Dixieland music. In April of 1972, the Dead commenced a major European tour, almost two months long and a definitive musical turning point. The band’s definitive psychedelic jam epic, with wondrous versions in nearly every era it appeared.
It’s good that a few things in this world are clear to all of us.” But with lines like Krazy Kat peeking through a lace bandana/ like a one-eyed Cheshire/ like a diamond-eyed jack / A leaf of all colors plays / a golden string fiddle / to a double-e waterfall over my back, it may be wishful thinking to say that that the words were really “clear to all of us.” To this day, numerous faithful still debate the meaning of the lyric, as seen on a number of websites devoted to discussing the song.Written by: Grateful Dead and Robert Hunter
People seem to know exactly what I’m talking about. In his outstanding anthology A Box of Rain, Hunter wrote, “Nobody ever asked me the meaning of.
One of Hunter’s most abstruse pieces, which became a staple of the Grateful Dead’s legendary hours-long concerts, was “China Cat Sunflower.” It was recorded for the band’s 1969 studio album Aoxomoxoa, and later released on the live Europe ’72 triple album set in a mash-up with the old blues number “I Know You Rider.” The two songs segued together perfectly, and the Grateful Dead performed the combination well over 500 times in live performances. Most of the band’s classics are songs that Hunter wrote the lyrics for, like “Truckin’” and “Friend of the Devil.” Even 1987’s “Touch of Grey” became part of the fabric of life for so many counter-culturalists, some of whom actually were grey by the time “Touch of Grey” was recorded.
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