My Best Grateful Dead Songs
Folk, Country, Blues, Rock, Psychedelic
I was going to title this article simply “Best Grateful Dead Songs” but that is too click-bait-y. The Dead have so many wonderful songs, every Deadhead will have a different list of “Best.” This is mine, and it is just for fun. And it is just for today … I may feel differently tomorrow.
If you are not a Deadhead, I’ve added a bit of commentary to orient you. If you are a Deadhead, you already know everything I’ve got to say.
This article is deadicated to my reader Tennessee Jed.
Folk music
The Dead and especially Jerry Garcia have very deep roots in folk music. Before the Dead became The Dead, Jerry, Bobby, and Pigpen were in a jug band named Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions. Throughout his career, Jerry also had many collaborations with David “Dawg” Grisman, a master mandolin player and folk music scholar. If you’ve never heard the all-star bluegrass album Old And In The Way, I suggest you take the trouble to look it up. Here are few of my favorite Dead songs in the folk music tradition.
- Cumberland Blues
- Uncle John’s Band
- Brown-Eyed Women
- Goin’ Down the Road Feelin’ Bad
- Ripple
Blues
Like many rock bands (Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin), The Grateful Dead had a heavy blues influence. But they also played songs that are flat-out singin’ the blues. Here are my faves.
- Black Peter
- He’s Gone
- Morning Dew
- Stella Blue
- Warf Rat
- Ship of Fools
- Maybe It Was The Roses
Country
Many Dead songs cross over the line between folk music and modern country western music. In addition, Bobby Weir loves to sing classic country songs. Here are some tracks C&W fans may enjoy:
- Jack Straw
- Mexicali Blues
- El Paso (“Down in the west Texas town of El Paso…)
- Mama Tried
- Big River
Rock
And the Dead can flat out rock!
- St. Stephen
- U.S. Blues
- Playin’ in the Band
- Bertha
Psychedelic Music
For all that wide variety of music, The Grateful Dead are generally known to civilians as jam band that plays psychedelic music. It is true that, in the middle of the second set of every concert, The Dead would get into a “space jam” for about 20 minutes or more. (You might be treated to a mini space jam in the first set, as well.) The space jam is a wandering, amelodic, often arrhythmic collage of sounds, including a lengthy percussion only segment.
And the public is right, space jams are damn boring. Boring, and “How can you listen to that crap?” … unless, however, you are flying on acid. Then it takes you to wonderful places. And forever afterwards, you can maybe appreciate a space jam because you can recollect how it felt and where it took your brain when you were on LSD. (Sounds good, but, to be honest, I skip the space jams when I listen to Dead recordings now. They are boring. How can you listen to that crap?)
You can hear a space jam in the song Dark Star on the Live Dead album, as well as “Feedback” on another side of the album. In addition, eleventy-billion recordings of Dead concerts are available online and elsewhere, because The Dead encouraged amateur live taping of concerts. Here are a few of my favorite psychedelic songs from Dead albums.
- Dark Star (NOT the CSN song)
- China Cat Sunflower
- That’s It for the Other One
Albums
As a bonus, here is my pick for best album. Drum roll, please! rumblerumblerumblerumblerumblerumblerumble…
………………………… Live Dead ……………….………
Why? Because it has the definitive performances of Dark Star and St. Stephen, one album side each. It is a double album.
A lot of folks might choose American Beauty for a favorite album as it includes the radio hit Truckin’, Sugar Magnolia, Friend of the Devil, and the heart-breakingly beautiful Ripple.
Or Workingman’s Dead. It concludes with the other Dead radio hit, Casey Jones (“Drivin’ that train, high on cocaine…). It opens with the radio hit Uncle John’s band, but the radio play was for the Indigo Girls cover version.
(The only other Dead song that got much radio play is Touch of Grey. The less said, the better.)
Personally, my #2 fave album, after Live Dead, is the Wake of the Flood.
Well, I could blather on about Grateful Dead (and related) music forever, but I’ll wrap it up here. Thanks Jerry, Bobby, Phil, Bill, and Mickey for providing the soundtrack for much of my life!
