‘Touch of Grey’: Who wrote the highest-charting single from the Grateful Dead?
With their loyal army of fans who followed them wherever they went, from Palo Alto to the Fillmore East, you’d have thought that the Grateful Dead could, and arguably should, have had more hits than they did.
They have one of the most ardent, dedicated and committed fanbases of any popular act ever, and the Deadheads would probably rival even the Beatlemaniacs and Swifties in love for their favourite artists. But that love more often than not converted to ticket and album sales, rather than giving success to each new single. That, or their fans were too stoned to get out and buy their latest releases en masse.
However, after 20 years of truckin’ together, the Dead did finally achieve a hit single when they released ‘Touch Of Grey’ in late 1987. Rising to a peak position of nine on the Billboard Hot 100, the track would be the group’s only foray into not just the top ten, but even into the top 40 of the charts.
Perhaps the song’s popularity can be put down to the fact that it boasts something that other Grateful Dead songs don’t, in the form of a music video. Maybe there wasn’t enough film in the world to contain all the footage needed to illustrate some of their longer, more rambling and explorative numbers.
Directed by Gary Gutierrez, the surreal video, which features the band in both their living selves and in animatronic-dead form, received plenty of airplay on MTV, which likely helped propel them up the charts, with the song sounding exactly like what you’d expect a Grateful Dead song from 1987 to sound like. Great, noodling playing and tight rhythms with some kind of dated, cheesy-sounding production values and instrument tones; Jerry Garcia’s playing is sublime, but the sound his guitar makes is ridiculous.
That’s all finished off with a fun hook and the Dead’s trademark deceptively casual but incisive lyrics, which, like basically all of the best Grateful Dead songs, were written by a combination of Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter. Together, they’d written some of their best-loved and best-known songs. ‘Truckin’, ‘Friend of the Devil’, ‘West L.A. Fadeaway’ and ‘Brokedown Palace’. ‘Alabama Getaway’, ‘Black Muddy River’ and ‘New Speedway Boogie’. ‘Sugaree’ and ‘Stella Blue’, to name a few
When you really listen to the combination of Robert Hunter’s lyrics and Jerry Garcia’s guitar playing or arranging, you don’t have to wonder too hard about why it was that the Grateful Dead had so many fans, but you do have to wonder a little about why they didn’t do better in the charts.
Just you try and tell me that ‘Best of My Love’, ‘One of These Nights’, ‘New Kid in Town’ or ‘Heartache Tonight’ by the Eagles are better than any of ‘Truckin’, ‘Friend of the Devil’ or ‘West LA Fadeaway’, and yet all of those went to number one.
Maybe the Dead should have spent more time making music videos and less time spiking their fellow musicians.
