It’s also been suggested that this is a double nod, and includes the ultimate icon of being on the road, Jack Kerouac, who wrote these lines in On the Road: John Barlow, in this early lyric written for Weir, which appeared on his “solo album,” Ace, in 1972, makes passing nodes to several icons, including, I would say, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., with his line containing the phrase “Ah, Mother American Night,” (caps Barlow’s) which brings to mind Vonnegut’s novel Mother Night. I apologize for any incoherence in advance.)Īlso, as a former hitchhiker, I have to ask: did anyone ever get picked up by a commercial trucker? I know this happens in “Me and Bobby McGee,” but.really? And then in “Pride of Cucamonga,” there’s a hitchhiker getting on board a Diesel Mack-another commercial truck. (It has been a long several days, frankly, and I’m winging it here. This gets complicated, this stuff about the Dead and songs about being on the road or jumping onto buses or not being picked up by buses. He’s out on the edge of an empty highway…no wait-that’s the other one…no, not The Other One. He is, it seems, running away from a situation in which he did not get the better deal. In the case of this particular song, the singer is reminiscing about a failed relationship while trying, unsuccessfully, to hitch a ride-but the cars, the buses, and the semis won’t pick him up. Get your hitchhiking stories ready-there are bound to be some good ones out there. ) Does anyone hitchhike anymore? I have a ton of memories about this mode of transportation, dating mostly from the late 1970s when it was the only way, in some cases, to get from point A to point B. (The others I’m thinking of are …? Your responses welcome. Here’s one of at least three hitchhiker songs in the Dead repertoire. Seems like a good time to take a look at “Black-Throated Wind,” if ever there was one. Happy birthday, Bob Weir! (October 16.) Cue up “Beat It On Down the Line” with an insane number of opening drumbeats. (I’ll consider requests for particular songs-just private message me!) 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. The songs on this record, stylewise, are all over the place, more "Giant Sand", "Wilco" and "Eels" than "Pink Floyd" or "Jimi Hendrix" (you'll still find a few guitar work-outs on there though) - I just wanted to make a very diverse recording encompassing ALL of my musical tastes and not just "Mountains Of The Sun 2".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. Around that time I also finally bit the bullet and switched to a whole new recording setup which actually made producing and recording music fun again and for the next 6 months I sifted through all my demos and recorded song after song.īy June 2019 I had completed most of the work on 80 minutes of music, spread over 18 tracks (not counting the 30 seconds of silence I included as track 11 on the digital version to provide a break between the two parts of the album). I was still writing though and at the end of 2018 I had amassed over 30 demos of songs in various states of completion. I actually started writing it soon after releasing "Mountains Of The Sun" at the end of 2016 but the recording process was slow and grueling due to old and increasingly unreliable equipment.Īs a result I wasn't very satisfied with the material that came out of those recording sessions (the best of which I released as the "Home By The Sea" EP in 2017) and felt very frustrated and uninspired which led to me not really recording any new material for nearly a year. This album has been in the making for a very long time.
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