30 Days of Dead
It's a Dead Head's most wonderful time of the year! Welcome to another 30 days of unreleased Grateful Dead tracks from the vault, one for every day of the month, selected by archivist and producer David Lemieux. The tracks are yours, 100% free gua-ran-teed, but the real fun is taking part in the challenge for the chance to win some sweet swag from the Dead.
Those of you who know what to do, feel free to skip right on ahead. For those of you who need a refresher, here's the drill:
You know your Ables from your Bakers from your C's, but can your finely tuned ears differentiate the cosmic "comeback" tour from a spacey 70s show? Each day we'll post a song from one of the Dead's coveted shows. Will it be from that magical night at Madison Square Garden in '93 or from way back when they were just starting to warm it up at Winterland? Is that Pigpen's harmonica we hear? Brent on keys? If you think you know, lob your answer in and you just might find yourself taking home our daily prize of a 2025 Grateful Dead wall calendar or the grand prize – a copy of limited, numbered, FRIEND OF THE DEVILS: APRIL '78 boxed set!
"How does this song go?"
I mean, they tell you in the song that they are gonna mess it up here and there...
LOL
A perfect example of how apparently "the boys" (plus one grrrl) apparently had been screwing up some of the most meaningful lyrics (and easiest to remember) in the band's entire repertoire at least over 50 years ago and all the way up to the bitter end. Always hated when they messed up the lyrics to UJB. It made it sound way less meaningful. And they did it so very frequently, as if to say ahh we don't really care, and since there "ain't no time to hate", neither should you, our "damn good audience", care either since "it doesn't seem to matter", nor is it all that important for us actually learn by heart some of the most poignant lyrics ever written to one of our top five very best songs.
x
Thought this one might be a tougher find, but they gave us a leg up by accident (I assume). November always flies by - don't want the fun to end!!
345 performances yet today's UJB was Easy Peasy for me. One of my faves. Here's a trip: try playing it at 2x speed. It's like hearing a song you know well for the first time.