"The Music Never Stopped"
"While The Music Played The Band"
I once got into a "wall to wall" discussion on Facebook with a friend of mine, who was convinced that one had to be high on drugs to appreciate Grateful Dead music. She explained that she had friends who were "so high they couldn't tell me the name of one song."
It is likely that her friends were high on drugs, but it is just as likely that they were, like most of us who went to Greatful Dead shows, high on the music. How do you explain to someone who has never experienced a Dead show that it isn't about the songs, it's about the music?
The music of the Grateful Dead isn't pop music. It would be as appropriate on the same stage with Schumann or Mozart as it was with The Black Crows, Jefferson Airplane, Allman Brothers Band, Santana, or Warren Zevon. It isn't background music, for it draws you into it until you become part of the music itself.
Writing from personal experience, the first three Grateful Dead shows I attended were while I was in the Air Force, and the use of drugs was out of the question. But, at the time, I couldn't tell you the name of any of the songs I heard, and I did come back from those shows with a pretty good high. I was high from the music and from the transcendental experience of being part of the community Spirit created by the music and the crowd. Perhaps this is what is meant by the fabled "contact high--" the contact is more than just physical or visual contact--it is the contact with the experience of being a part of the creation of the music itself. At a Grateful Dead show, we were one with the band and one with each other. The music came from us as much as it did from the band.
Certainly there are songs with excellent lyrics by Robert Hunter or John Barlow, but they merely point the direction for the music. The song stimulates the ears and the mind, but the music stimulates the spirit, imagination, and vision. Each song in the show is a piece of the music that permeates the entire show. The music of one show is not completely interchangeable with the next.
For example, I attended the fifteenth anniversary show at Folsum Field, University of Colorado, on June 7-8, 1980. They performed "Deal" and "Althea" on both days, but you could have fooled me. The music of one day was different from the next. I wouldn't have known that the same songs were played on both days if I hadn't listened to recordings of the shows recently. The context of the music played on each day was so different that they were not really the same song.
The Grateful Dead reinvented themselves and their music each time they played. Every time we heard a song, no matter how many times we had heard it before, we were listening to it for the first time.
It is likely that her friends were high on drugs, but it is just as likely that they were, like most of us who went to Greatful Dead shows, high on the music. How do you explain to someone who has never experienced a Dead show that it isn't about the songs, it's about the music?
The music of the Grateful Dead isn't pop music. It would be as appropriate on the same stage with Schumann or Mozart as it was with The Black Crows, Jefferson Airplane, Allman Brothers Band, Santana, or Warren Zevon. It isn't background music, for it draws you into it until you become part of the music itself.
Writing from personal experience, the first three Grateful Dead shows I attended were while I was in the Air Force, and the use of drugs was out of the question. But, at the time, I couldn't tell you the name of any of the songs I heard, and I did come back from those shows with a pretty good high. I was high from the music and from the transcendental experience of being part of the community Spirit created by the music and the crowd. Perhaps this is what is meant by the fabled "contact high--" the contact is more than just physical or visual contact--it is the contact with the experience of being a part of the creation of the music itself. At a Grateful Dead show, we were one with the band and one with each other. The music came from us as much as it did from the band.
Certainly there are songs with excellent lyrics by Robert Hunter or John Barlow, but they merely point the direction for the music. The song stimulates the ears and the mind, but the music stimulates the spirit, imagination, and vision. Each song in the show is a piece of the music that permeates the entire show. The music of one show is not completely interchangeable with the next.
For example, I attended the fifteenth anniversary show at Folsum Field, University of Colorado, on June 7-8, 1980. They performed "Deal" and "Althea" on both days, but you could have fooled me. The music of one day was different from the next. I wouldn't have known that the same songs were played on both days if I hadn't listened to recordings of the shows recently. The context of the music played on each day was so different that they were not really the same song.
The Grateful Dead reinvented themselves and their music each time they played. Every time we heard a song, no matter how many times we had heard it before, we were listening to it for the first time.
3 Comments
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Comment by bigal on October 27, 2009 at 12:29pm
- Ola', "drugs" don't loose the perspective. As for the music, LIFE IS CARNIVAL, twobits a shot-life is a carnival, GIVE IT WHAT YOU'VE GOT! Love ya 'all BigAl
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- Oh, by the way, I am still in search of the "LOST CHORD". Oooohm!
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Comment by Clance' McClannahan on October 31, 2009 at 6:48pm -
Al you are such a goof:) that why I luvs ya....
Jim...The other thing the shows were about was the culture. I miss that...the community, the celebration, the sheer freedom just to BE....I was only high a couple times out of all the couple hundred shows I have been to, and that was in the early seventies....all the shows I went to in the 80's 90's and 2000's have been straight...a few drinks maybe but many times not even a beer. It's about dancing and being a noodle and just sheer delight!
Oh yeah... the Music too:)
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