The songwriting dispute that created a Grateful Dead classic
There isn’t much drama surrounding the songwriting of the Grateful Dead. The band were a rudderless ship for their first album, relying mostly on covers and the occasional lyric from Jerry Garcia to get their songs finished. But then, a godsend landed in the band’s lap: Garcia’s old Palo Alto folk buddy, Robert Hunter, mailed him a set of lyrics that eventually formed the basis for the songs ‘China Cat Sunflower’, ‘St. Stephen’, and ‘Alligator’. From that point on, Garcia and Hunter were the main songwriters in the band.
They weren’t exclusively in control, however. Hunter worked with other band members like Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, and Ron ‘Pigpen’ McKernan, but each eventually found their own path. Weir hooked up with his childhood pal, John Perry Barlow, who became the full-time lyricist for Weir on songs like ‘Mexicali Blues’, ‘Cassidy’, and ‘Throwing Stones’. Lesh had his lyric-writing buddy, Robert Peterson, who helped him compose the song ‘Unbroken Chain’. Pigpen stuck by Hunter’s side for songs like ‘Mr. Charlie’ but also threw in his own composition, ‘Operator’, for American Beauty.
All of the band’s self-written songs are well accounted for, and the relationship between Hunter and the other band members was mostly strong and genial – mostly. The one exception was Weir: as the other main co-lead vocalist apart from Garcia, Weir had stronger opinions about his songs’ lyrical content than most other singers. Hunter suffered through the frustrations of Weir flubbing lyrics on songs like ‘Truckin’, but he wouldn’t stand for changes to his words.
That’s exactly what Weir did on ‘Sugar Magnolia’. It’s not fully certain which lyrics originated with Hunter and which were changed by Weir, but a commonly cited addition by Weir was the line, “She can dance a Cajun rhythm / Jump like a Willys in four-wheel drive”. Hunter wasn’t happy with the addition, but Weir continued to sing the lyrics both on stage and in the studio, causing them to be canonical to the song’s final version.
The final straw came during the writing of ‘One More Saturday Night’. The song started as a collaboration between Hunter and Weir, but Hunter became exasperated when Weir began changing lyrics. A final suggestion from Weir was that the song should be called ‘US Blues’ instead of ‘One More Saturday Night’, featuring a list of different lyrics from Weir. Hunter responded by taking his name off the writing credits, and although it’s not certain how much of Hunter’s original set of lyrics survive, Weir did back down on the title.
Even though he was annoyed by Weir’s insistent changes, Hunter did find inspiration in the final suggestion that Weir made. The title ‘US Blues’ was solid, but Hunter designed his own song around it. ‘US Blues’ became a signature Dead track after being featured as the lead track on the 1974 studio album From the Mars Hotel.
A live staple from the mid-1970s until the band’s final tours in 1995, ‘US Blues’ was a lively slice of old-school rock and roll that featured a subtle jab at Weir. During the song’s final verse, Garcia (by way of Hunter) defiantly calls out, “You can call this song the United States Blues!”
Check out ‘US Blues’ down below.
