What is the Grateful Dead song ‘Truckin” about?
The Grateful Dead’s 1970 song ‘Truckin’’ was the band’s most successful single during the first 22 years of their existence. The song clearly spoke to a lot of Americans in a broader sense as well as Deadheads in particular.
Its syncopated blues rhythm and a rollicking lead guitar part from Jerry Garcia make it one of the band’s most straightforwardly accessible numbers. Aside from the music, though, its lyrics capture the imagination with their rallying invocation of the open United States highway.
Rolling down the open road has been a key theme of blues music since its inception. It only became more popular once many of the great Delta blues players rolled their way up north to found a new centre of electric blues in Chicago.
The Dead were drawing on a tradition that was deep-rooted in American culture by the time they came around. Their references to the New Orleans jazz strip Bourbon Street and three of the four main stomping grounds for African-American recording artists “Chicago, New York, Detroit” make clear whose tradition they’re drawing on.
On the other hand, the song’s title and the way it rattles off so many cities in question succession (six in the first three verses alone) suggest that they’re singing about something other than just taking the open road to nowhere. On the face of it, the Dead seem to be singing about driving 18 wheels of steel, delivering cargo hauls around North America.
Their song certainly must have featured on a fair few compilation albums and playlists for truckers, anyway. But what inspired them to write about this theme? Had any of them experienced “truckin’” for real?
“Absolutely autobiographical”
In fact, ‘Truckin’’ isn’t about freight deliveries at all. It’s about the Grateful Dead trucking around the country on the seemingly never-ending tours they used to play early in their careers. And the fun they used to get up to before rolling on to the next venue.
“We toured more or less four to six months out of the year,” rhythm guitarist Bob Weir explained in a Classic Albums documentary about their LP Anthem to Beauty. “It was our bread and butter, we weren’t selling that many records, and we had a lot of fun out on the road.”
Weir said the Dead didn’t always make it easy for themselves, being the archetypal rock and roll guests at every place they stayed. “We left some smoking craters of some Holiday Inn, I’ll say that. And there were some places that wouldn’t have us back.” He claims that every one of the stories mentioned in ‘Truckin’’ is “absolutely autobiographical”.
These stories include getting set up by the police for a drugs bust in New Orleans, gambling what little cash they had away in card games, and sharing their beds all-night girls living off cocaine and vitamin C. Drummer Mickey Hart believes that the fact these things really happened allows people to buy into the song. “People could sing it and know there was an event directly connected with it.”
If in doubt, write about what you know. Even if that’s a wild life on the road.
