In the process, he came up with a chorus consisting of a couple of phrases that are now, eternally, in the cultural psyche: “Sometimes the light’s all shining on me / Other times I can barely see. And Hunter took the bare bones outline of some of the band’s adventures and misadventures and fleshed them out with memorable features, highlighting their trips around the country with specific references to places and occurrences. The music credit is shared by Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, and Phil Lesh. There are rumors that he originally wrote “Garlands of neon and flashing marquees out on Main Street” as an intentionally hard-to-sing line, just to enjoy watching Weir try to wrap his mouth around them, eventually relenting and substituting “arrows of neon,” just to make it possible to sing.
The lyrics were written under pressure, in the studio, during the recording of American Beauty, with Hunter running back and forth with hastily-written verses that somehow, despite the fact that were purpose-written on the spot, seem to have some pretty good staying power.
Sometimes I think about this song, and I wonder about the weight of years, relatively speaking-how all the years combine, and how, when this band, which was ultimately to tour for 30 years, was just five years old, several members got together to write an autobiographical song in which the refrain noted “what a long strange trip it’s been.” And if it seemed long after five years, how must it have seemed after 10, 20, 25…? Did it start to seem that all this life was just a dream? (I’ll consider requests for particular songs-just private message me!)
Song keep on truckin free#
Therefore, the best part, I would hope, would not be anything in particular that I might have to say, but rather, the conversation that may happen via the comments over the course of time-and since all the posts will stay up, you can feel free to weigh in any time on any of the songs! With Grateful Dead lyrics, there’s always a new and different take on what they bring up for each listener, it seems. Here’s the plan-each week, I will blog about a different song, focusing, usually, on the lyrics, but also on some other aspects of the song, including its overall impact-a truly subjective thing.
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