Project 5

Let my inspiration flow in token rhyme, suggesting rhythm.

That will not forsake me ‘till my tale is told and done.

––“Terrapin Station” (1977)

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On a cold November night in my freshman year of college, a close friend visited me and several others from my hometown who went to school in Boston at the time. I attended college in the city that year, and I was miserable. I struggled in the new setting, no longer seeing my closest friends each day. I felt trapped by a new way of life that I was not prepared for. I was not yet cut out to be thrown into the city, and I was burdened each day with the feeling of isolation and anxiety. I was unhappy.

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The long night of shenanigans, goofing around the city streets making jokes, and talking about what we made of this new college life, away from home. We were tired,  and by the midnight hours, everyone had gone to sleep, besides the visiting friend and I. We grabbed our snacks and made for the common room on the nineteenth floor of the dormitory with a clear view of the downtown city lights. We dragged chairs up to the window and gazed out silently.

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            Taking in enough of the scene, I flung myself to the common room couch and propped myself on my back, facing the ceiling in my drowsy, and delirious high. My friend sat near me, took his phone from his pocket, and began to play music, closing his eyes. Being as tired as I was, I began to drift to sleep, when the current song caught my attention. I knew I had never heard it, yet it felt suspiciously familiar to me. It was soft and easy. It was almost like country music but felt so airy and far away from it all the same. I lifted my head from the couch and asked him what the song was.

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            He opened his eyes and calmly said, “‘Brokedown Palace,’” with a pause after. “By the Grateful Dead.”

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            I had heard the band's name before. Just “Grateful Dead” alone would have made me believe they played death metal, but it was nothing like that. I heard acoustic guitar, pedal steel, piano, and beautiful vocal harmonies. Maybe it was the circumstances of the evening or the particular attention I was paying to the music, but it pierced my soul. The song talked about things grounded in life and nature: love, home, death, rivers, weeping willows. It was heartfelt.

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Going home, going home,

By the waterside I will rest my bones.

Listen to the river sing sweet songs

To rock my soul.

––“Brokedown Palace” (1970)

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Music has always been the most important part of my life. I inherited my taste in music largely from my father, who saw music as something that was to be experienced, something to be cherished and even worshipped. I grew up listening to The Beatles, my grandmother’s favorite. They have had the greatest influence on my obsession with music.

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I started playing the guitar in fifth grade, prompted by my grandmother. I sat at her desk for hours with an acoustic guitar twice my size. I taught myself using an old chord chart given to me by my grandma and trying to learn some of my favorite songs. I practiced Beatles songs along with the songs of Led Zeppelin, Simon & Garfunkel, and Peter, Paul, and Mary.

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I began performing songs in concert with my cousins at family parties. We shared a great love of music, influenced by the community of family members who imparted their tastes to us. I set out a solid foundation of guitar skills throughout middle school but reached a plateau at the beginning of high school. I was not getting any better and soon I was tired of playing the same songs. During high school, I rarely picked up my guitar. The music I listened to always remained close to me, but I did not consistently play for several years after.

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Throughout my life, the lyrics of songs have held just as important a place in my heart with music as the notes that I heard being played did––fitting for an English major. Poetry fused to the instruments and the melodies, culminating in the song. The lyrics of songs might be related to my life and any aspect of it: happiness, sorrow, romance, fear. Songs have been a vehicle for beautiful stories and beautiful emotions, one that is shared between the artist and the listener.

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Fare you well, fare you well.

I love you more than words can tell.

Listen to the river sing sweet songs

To rock my soul.

 ––“Brokedown Palace”

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Hearing “Brokedown Palace” was a small revelation, and I felt a larger one might be at hand. I soon dove into the Dead’s album American Beauty––the birthplace of that stunning song. The album struck me. It was rustic––a mix of folk, country, and psychedelia. It was easy. The music was rooted in an old American history through the lens of the forward-thinking minds of late sixties counterculture. It came at a time when I most needed it, with sounds and lyrics that took me to a space of tranquility and joy amidst the dull and gray emotions I was feeling in the city. Today, it is my favorite album ever, and every song means the world to me. “Ripple”, though, took the shortest route to the core of my soul.

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If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine

And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung,

Would you hear my voice come through the music,

Would you hold it near, as it were your own?

––“Ripple” (1970)

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The songs––with lyrics written by Robert Hunter and music composed by guitarists Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir––spoke on the ideas of beauty, nature, music, and love. It was touching and relatable. They also painted clear portraits of characters in their songs, illustrating the canvas of sound with the stories of outlaws, criminals, hopeless romantics, gamblers, winners, and losers.

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Got two reasons why I cry away each lonely night,

The first one’s named sweet Anne Marie, and she’s my heart’s delight.

The second one is prison, babe, the sheriff’s on my trail

And if he catches up with me, I’ll spend my life in jail.

––“Friend of the Devil” (1970)

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Although not exactly relatable, these kinds of songs reached some creative outlet within my mind, prompting images and scenes with their words. This kind of music was inspiring, and I  soon picked up the guitar once again. I began taking lessons in Boston. I was influenced by my father, who at age fifty began to play the guitar himself, as well as the new music that was beginning to have a special effect on my life.

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The pandemic gave me an avenue to continually practice, with online lessons being done through Skype. I was getting in touch with new techniques and concepts that elevated my playing and rejuvenated my spirit for learning and practicing. I began to play “Ripple”, “Friend of the Devil”, and other songs from the Dead’s discography. It was meditative. These were moments of peace in a time of intense stress, isolation, and anxiety. I reconnected with a love from my past all while looking forward to a growing connection with a new one.

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I dug further into what there was to be offered in the music of the Grateful Dead, and I soon found where an even greater musical treasure was hidden. The band was known for their plethora of live performances, in a career of consistent touring. Each show was different from the previous, and there was never a setlist that was repeated exactly like any other. What laid before me then (and still as it does today) was a nearly endless (over 2300) resource of performances to dive into. I began leaning into the world of live Grateful Dead music with the 1969 album Live / Dead. It was nothing like what I heard on American Beauty, even though it came out a year prior.

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Dark star crashes, pouring it’s light into ashes.

Reason tatters, the forces tear loose from the axis.

––“Dark Star” (1968)

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Songs like “Dark Star” showed me the Dead at their most innovative. Any rendition of the song could stretch up to over half an hour in length. It served as a vehicle for intense improvisation and exploration of sound. It could range from tight, focused, and beautiful melodies to loud, dissonant, and spacey jamming. It cemented to me how versatile the band was. These live performances reached toward the past and gazed into the future––all within the present. Old country, blues, and bluegrass sounds merged with the influence of exploratory jazz masters like John Coltrane. They harnessed a sound that is not bothered by time, popular culture, or musical trends. There is something for everyone. It attracts a highly devoted group of fans, and I was becoming one of them.

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            Four years later, my path on Grateful Dead music grew exponentially. I tore through each studio and live album, finding favorites like “Wharf Rat”, “Terrapin Station”, “Morning Dew”, and “Jack Straw”. Today, my extensive knowledge on their music has become a hobby that I am most proud of. I boast that I can tell you the greatest performances of any song you’d like. “The Music Never Stopped”? The best one was performed on February 3rd, 1978. “China Cat Sunflower”? June 26th, 1974, at the Providence Civic Center. “Eyes of the World”? November 30th, 1973, at the Boston Music Hall, or September 3rd, 1977, in Englishtown, New Jersey. The most beautiful version of “Dark Star” was performed on February 18th, 1971. The most transcendent and jazzy one was performed on November 11th, 1973.

 

They’re a band beyond description, like Jehovah’s favorite choir.

People joining hand in hand while the music plays the band.

Lord, they’re setting us on fire!

––“The Music Never Stopped” (1975)

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The Grateful Dead has a wealth of music that has contributed in unimaginable proportions to my personal development. The Dead helped me transfer from school in Boston to UMass Amherst. They accompanied me on a trip driving across the country, working on a cattle ranch, and they have been there as I have progressed through school as an English major. They have helped me come to be who I am now, with music that has served as a space of safety and comfort in my best times and my worst times.

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I’ll get a new start, live the life I should.

I’ll get up and fly away,

I’ll get up and fly away, fly away.

––“Wharf Rat” (1971)

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Since finding my love of guitar playing, it has been central to my daily life. Today, there is scarcely a day that I go without picking up the guitar for several minutes or several hours. Being able to play my favorite songs, or to play along with a long jam to practice my own improvisational skills, act as moments of meditation and reset amid any stress or anxiety I may have. I have grown proud of my development, and I still take the same guitar lessons with the same guitar teacher, Buddy, every Wednesday. It has been gratifying to see myself progress in so many ways over the past years, with songs getting more and more complicated each week.

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            From my days of performing with my cousins at family Christmas concerts, I have been interested in performing music myself. I do not envision music as a serious dream for me to try and pursue, but a goal of for me as a guitarist is to perform live. I want to perform at least once, whether that is with a band, performing covers of Grateful Dead songs, or on my own, just myself and a guitar. Being bashful as I am, performing has always been difficult and embarrassing, and even when friends ask me to play for them, it is challenging. I would like to break myself out of that comfort zone and overcome that stage fright.

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It all rolls into one, and nothing comes for free.

There’s nothing you can hold for very long.

And when you hear that song come crying like the wind,

It seems like all this life was just a dream.

––“Stella Blue” (1973)

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Wherever I may find myself in life––wherever I go, whoever I am with, and whatever I may be doing––the lyrics and music will stay with me. Nothing will take that away. It is a part of my past and will always be a part of my future. The music was here before I lived, and the music will still be here long after I have gone away. If after graduation I find myself teaching around the world, going to graduate school, or working in editing or journalism, the Grateful Dead will be there. My guitar will be there to play, whether for myself or others. I will always be able to have that treasurable joy throughout the highs and lows of life. It symbolizes and reinforces what makes me feel most like me. The stickers I put on my computer and water bottle or the keychain on my bag do not act as an endorsement of the Grateful Dead, but act as an endorsement of myself and what is unique about me.

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Sometimes we live no particular way but our own.

Sometimes we visit your country and live in your home.

Sometimes we ride on your horses, sometimes we walk alone.

Sometimes the songs that we hear are just songs of our own.

––“Eyes of the World” (1973)