I am totally having a Grateful Dead day today, and I feel motivated to share with you all.
Annotated Lyrics: Scarlet Begonias, Ripple, Uncle John’s Band, and Tennessee Jed. The other track, Me & My Uncle, is a cover.
So, why these songs?
Scarlet Begonias is probably the Dead song I come back to most often–it’s fun to listen to, and there’s something in there for me to chew on. “Once in a while you get shown the light, in the strangest of places, if you look at it right.” Despite how cornball this may sound, that line actually caused me to have an epiphany, the after-effects of which are still occurring in my life fairly regularly. I’d try to explain it, but I think it’s a “kick from the knee” thing–the explanation doesn’t make sense until you already understand it. (My epiphanies seem to often come from the least likely places, which I guess, makes this a meta-epiphany.)
Me & My Uncle is the paradigm case of poker songs. I once had a pretty good poker player tell me that I’d be quite a good player if I only had that killer instinct (I’m pretty good at the math, lying, and psychology bits). I’ve never really developed it–I’m a softie at heart, I guess–but when I need to simulate it for a little while, I just keep this going in my head. Note also that this song is the source for the subtitle up at the top there. (Not the Terence, the other bit.)
Ripple is another of my favourites, and one I threw in there just to mess with the Grateful Dead haters–it’s probably the closest thing to what they think the Dead is, a little too stoner philosophical. Still, I think there’s a lot in there that resonates, not least of which is this verse:
There is a road, no simple highway
Between the dawn and the dark of night
And if you go, no one may follow
That path is for your steps alone
Uncle John’s Band always reminds me of my days as a blue (polyester) collar worker, when we would work late into the night cleaning up a commercial kitchen and listening to Workingman’s Dead. Cumberland Blues was probably a more appropriate tune for that scenario, but we were a pretty happy crew, and much more into peace, love, and talking ’bout thing by the rising tide. We didn’t have time to hate.
And that leaves Tennessee Jed. It has a talking dog. What else do you need to know?
