The mailed lyrics that got Robert Hunter into the Grateful Dead
If you’re a Grateful Dead fan, trying to explain your adoration of the band to someone who doesn’t listen to them is difficult.
A lot of what draws people to the band is the live music that they play, because what’s a setlist for the greatest jam band in history? Sure, they might have a few songs that they know they’ll include, but they don’t adhere too strictly to the conventional means by which they’re played. They rely on the energy of the crowd, the feeling within the room, what’s happening in the world, and what’s happening between members on stage.
Lenny Kaye put it best – when he was asked about some of his favourite albums of all time, he put the Grateful Dead’s Live/Dead at the very top of the tree, claiming that not only is it flooded with great music, but it’s also a representation of one of the best live bands in the world. Jamming and all.
“Live Dead explains why the Dead are one of the best-performing bands in America,” said Kaye. “Why their music touches on ground that most other groups don’t even know exists.”
He continued, “A list of song titles would mean very little in terms of what actually goes on inside the album. Like the early Cream, the Dead in concert tends to use their regular material as a jumping-off point, as little frameworks that exist only for what can be built on top of them.”
In the modern age, I’m always somewhat surprised that there aren’t more bands taking the same approach to live music as the Grateful Dead. Music has never been more accessible than it is now, which means that people can listen to a barrage of songs and genres at the push of a button. Not to mention, with an unrelenting political climate, it also feels as though a lot of artists try to write songs which are a reflection of modern times. What music is a privilege to access and a reflection of modern times better than that which is made up in a specific moment? In the deep pockets of a live set?
Perhaps the reason is that artists worry too much about a reliance on their live set, which detracts from the studio material? The Grateful Dead certainly released some great music in their time, but fans have a deeper adoration for their live shows as opposed to their recorded songs. For instance, Robert Hunter was hired by the Grateful Dead as their lyricist when he mailed the band some lyrics, from that point on he wrote some wonderful, cinematic lines for them, but they often aren’t picked up or analysed.
The song he initially mailed to the band before he was hired as their lyricist was ‘China Cat Sunflower’, a classic in every sense of the word, and yet a trip in terms of imagery and theme. The song talks about following a cat, and it leads our narrator to Neptune, where they see a fellowship of felines making their way across rainbows in a sky devoid of atmosphere. There is a lot to dig into, and yet for a long time, no one did.
“Nobody ever asked me the meaning of this song,” said Hunter, “People seem to know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s good that a few things in this world are clear to all of us.” Granted, given the psychedelic drugs which are often associated with the Dead, many will listen to the track and take it as a trip which needs no further investigation. However, with words so vivid, you would think a bigger discussion is warranted, but maybe the reason it wasn’t is that over-analysis was never the point for music, which occupies a specific moment in time.
