The 1965 song Jerry Garcia called “one of the prettiest” he had ever heard
While the Grateful Dead are perhaps thought of by those who aren’t familiar with their work as a band who were largely enamoured by the hippie, countercultural and psychedelic scenes taking America by storm in the 1960s, there’s actually a far greater range of emotions on display in their work than many would want to give them credit for.
Yes, their music was psychedelic and revolved a lot around extensive jams and spontaneous ideas being expressed in the moment, especially when it came to their live performances, but that’s far from being everything that the Dead were good at doing. You don’t even need to find one of their most diehard fans to tell you that there was plenty more going on in the acid-addled minds of the California band, and their importance on a wider scale tends to be overlooked due to their druggy associations.
They were capable of writing in other modes as well, and not all of their vast catalogue is dedicated to this idea that their music had to be jam-focused or inspired by a sense of otherworldliness. In fact, given the landscape of American life at the time, the Grateful Dead were tapping into much heavier subject matter on a frequent basis.
Much like many of their contemporaries, they were able to write about the social and political climate of the times, with the Vietnam War and civil rights movements happening towards the end of the 1960s and inspiring many of the countercultural events that the band graced the stages of.
Plenty of their biggest musical influences were also known for this approach to writing socio-politically conscious lyrics, perhaps none more so than Bob Dylan.
Co-founding member Jerry Garcia has noted on many occasions that Dylan is perhaps his favourite songwriter of all time, and the Dead have covered several of his songs on their records and during live performances as a means of demonstrating just how important he was to their approach.
However, Dylan was just as malleable when it came to being able to write in a variety of styles and adopt different personas. In the eyes of Garcia, he was responsible for having written perhaps the most beautiful song he had ever heard, despite proclaiming that he didn’t previously connect with his work until he ‘went electric’ in the mid-1960s.
“I thought ‘It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue’ was one of the prettiest things I’d ever heard,” Garcia later reflected in an interview. “As soon as I heard it I immediately wanted to perform the song. That was when his songs started speaking to what the freak on the street was experiencing.”
It remains one of Dylan’s most exceptional songs, and despite having been written on the same day as two other songs, its straightforwardness is perhaps one of the reasons why it has such a raw emotional resonance. Despite being a great political commentator, Dylan was known for closing out his records with some of his most personal material, and this, at the time, was perhaps his finest example to date, capping off Bringing It All Back Home in style.
Never Miss A Tale
The Far Out Bob Dylan Newsletter
All the latest stories about Bob Dylan from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.