‘Truckin”: The Grateful Dead song Robert Hunter fed one line at a time
If there is one thing you can predict about the Grateful Dead, it is that their process is anything but predictable. While their famous creativity was distilled on the stage, when Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Robert Hunter and the rest of the band went into the studio, they were equally as experimental. There are many notorious sessions to add fuel to that particular fire, but one song stands out among their impressive catalogue as a beacon of the band’s creativity.
‘Truckin” was the Grateful Dead’s highest-charting single before the smash hit ‘Touch of Grey‘, and with good reason. The number is pumped full of guitar licks and rolling rhythm, which will please any Dead fan but also comes with the delightful caveat that it was written by four of the band’s songwriters.
Few of Grateful Dead’s songs were written this way, and the nuance can certainly be heard in this robust production. A slung shuffle makes the sonic landscape of the track feel blurry, but it hasn’t stopped the song from being recognised as an integral piece of pop culture by the Library of Congress, which included the song as a national treasure in 1997. However, the unique way the lyrics were crafted shines most brightly for the group’s artistry; for that, we can thank Robert Hunter.
Very few lyricists are as entwined but seemingly unknown to the rock and roll world as Hunter. A longstanding member of the group and one of Jerry Garcia’s oldest friends, together, they worked seamlessly on new tracks, with Hunter providing truly poetic lyrics and Garcia interpreting them with his guitar. Hunter contributed extensively to the Grateful Dead’s huge catalogue and started with their album Aoxomoxoa back in 1969, working alongside Garcia until he died in 1995.
‘Truckin” can be regarded as one of Hunter’s best moments, gaining the Dead a huge hit and doing it in a typically unique style. Released in 1970 as part of American Beauty, the song is summed up by Bob Weir as when the group started “to become real guys, and really enjoying the hell out of it”. The tune is about the group’s addiction to the road and how it felt to get out on tour with the group and their adoring fanbase: the Deadheads.
“What a long, strange trip it’s been,” sings the band in the song. It was the perfect line to encapsulate the group’s joy and sorrow surrounding their touring schedules, which were always arduous. Hunter’s original conception was based on him continually adding verses to the track as significant events occurred on their tours. For example, “Busted down on Bourbon Street” referenced when the band members were involved in a drug bust in New Orleans, which saw 19 people arrested, including Weir, Phil Lesh and Bill Kreutzman — the band bailed everyone out the following morning.
The constantly evolving verses didn’t quite materialise as Hunter had envisioned, however, and the song needed to be recorded for the group’s new album. It meant that Hunter spent his time during the session feeding Weir the lyrics to the new tune line by line.
Iconic lyrics like the William S. Burroughs reference, “Dallas – got a soft machine”, or Pepsodent parody verse, “What in the world ever became of sweet Jane?/ She lost her sparkle, you know she isn’t the same/ Livin’ on reds, vitamin C, and cocaine/ All a friend can say is, ‘Ain’t it a shame?'” were all provided straight from Hunter’s notepad to Weir on the mic.
This unique spontaneity propelled the Grateful Dead into the hearts and minds of the counterculture movement and made ‘Truckin” one of their most beloved songs.
