“A little bit evil”: The Grateful Dead song inspired by a true American hero and a grand villain
Many factors qualify the Grateful Dead as the ultimate countercultural act, from their extensive, heady live jams to their motto of “do no harm”.
They might have been hippie flagbearers, but Jerry Garcia’s band were not some fleeting, one-dimensional group like the myriad that their era produced. They were one of considerable substance, and this depth placed them firmly at the forefront of the time and has kept them one of the most revered and closely followed to this day.
The Grateful Dead’s depth took on many forms, from their innovative sonic choices and use of genre to their spiritual angle. Thematically, their music also drew on a wider berth of subjects than practically any other outfit of their era, from the works of the Beat Generation of authors such as Ken Kesey and Neal Cassady to the final days of the 1st Century AD, St Stephen.
It is part of what made the such a commanding force in the counterculture movement. This wasn’t a band lost in the presence of teenage rebellion; these were true pioneers in the act of using rock music to revolt.
During their prime, everyone knew Garcia and the rest of the group were among the finest musicians of the period, but they often do not get the plaudits they deserve for backing up this broad scope with equally as substantial themes, adding a further dimension to their often sprawling music.
While it might seem remarkable to the contemporary reader how a band could manage to symbolise the era’s hedonism with the stories of taking boatloads of acid and other notorious instances of hellraising, the Dead epitomised just how potent using a vivid imagination could be in music. While Bob Dylan and The Beatles are often hailed for introducing narratives to music, the Californian outfit also had an impact on it, becoming the norm, thanks to both Garcia and lyricist Robert Hunter.
One of their most famous narrative-led songs is ‘Casey Jones’, which first appeared on 1970’s fourth album Workingman’s Dead. It is also one of the group’s most accessible songs due to the catchy vocal melodies, piercing guitar licks and the bouncing rhythm. The track is famous for the lyrics: “Driving that train / High on cocaine / Casey Jones you better / Watch your speed / Trouble ahead”.
So, who inspired the Grateful Dead song ‘Casey Jones’?
John Luther ‘Casey’ Jones was a real person, not some imaginary coke-addicted hippie, as many mainstream listeners have long thought. In fact, while he was depicted by the band as a snorting train driver on a one-way ticket to infamy, he is actually far closer to an American hero than another villainous member of the narcotic set.
Jones was killed on April 30th, 1900, when the passenger train he was driving collided with a stalled freight train in Vaughan, Mississippi. While his death has been routinely used for legend, the truth is that his actions helped to save countless lives.
Known for always being on time, due to sometimes taking risks on the tracks, his death has long been the fascination of musicians, with the traditional song ‘The Ballad of Casey Jones’ popping up not long after it occurred.
There is much conjecture about what happened that night, but it’s clear Jones approached Vaughan station at high speed and was unaware three trains were already occupying it, with one broken down on his line. He managed to avoid what would have been a catastrophic collision by slowing down the engine to the point where he saved his passengers, and only he died. As with most versions of the traditional song, the Grateful Dead’s number bears no resemblance to what happened in real life.
Robert Hunter devised the central “High on cocaine / Casey Jones you better / Watch your speed” lines. He didn’t realise until much later after scribbling it down, that it was a perfect nugget to start a song with.
Garcia, who composed the song’s music, would also later reveal more about the depth of the Grateful Dead when discussing it. While it discusses the Casey Jones incident, he maintained in the book Garcia: A Signpost to New Space that the number was intended as a “musical picture of what cocaine is like.”
He described: “A little bit evil. And hard-edged. And also that sing-songy thing, because that’s what it is, a sing-songy thing, a little melody that gets in your head.”
So, with one song Grateful Dead not only provided a sincere look at the dichotomy of their own existence, merging Americana with new-age issues and the kind of legends that are only told by wonderfully crusty hippies, but also a gentle reflection of the world we live in.
