The Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead were more than just a band; they were the musically guiding force behind a mass of people brought together by their love for the Dead, peace, drugs and love. The disruptive vortex of social and political movements of which one can describe the tumoltuous times of the 1960s and ‘70s combined with the every growing index finger of mainstream culture pushing and pointing at a generation to conform to a way of life defined in value by material objects and possessions was the atmosphere in which the Grateful Dead grew out of and was where they made their mark in history. The Grateful Dead did not play music for any single cause or movement. Most of their songs were not politically motivated and didn’t serve as any direct political message. The Grateful Dead did not have a political agenda behind their actions. The thousands of Deadheads spanning across the globe followed their music because it went hand in hand with the, “ hippie” way of life. Disconnected and disinterested from the political and social movements taking place in American history at the time, the hippies originated in San Fransico in the early sixties and, “Were the barometer of our sick society, they were dropouts who were turned off by wars
Jerry Garcia, whom many see as the prevailing icon of the band once said this about the band, “I think of the Grateful Dead as being a crossroads or a pointer sign and what we’re pointing to is that there is a lot of universe available, that there’s a whole lot of experience available over here. We’re kinda like a signpost and we’re also pointing to danger, to difficulty, we’re pointing to bummers. We’re pointing to whatever there is.”(DR) The Grateful Dead made their political statement by not making a statement at all. “The Dead have always advocated freedom of choice-hence, it’s their choice.”(p.296 sweet chaos) The Dead chose not to ever really make a clear stance on any pertenent political issue. Overwhelmingly their music speaks of the old American west. “Rather than attack suburbia, the Grateful Dead instead sought to align itself with a steady stream of fictional and complex drifters, and ne’er do wells who ran away from the dreams of success of their times, and wandered to the West.”(150 perspect) Of the songs that tell stories of this nature, we see their characters fail in the end. However there is evidence that in failure these characters showed that they were courageous in the fight for success, but that success was simple not in the deck of cards and such, they are destined to failure. In the song, “Loser,” the main character whom remains nameless just wants to play a hand of poker believing he’s going to strike a good hand and turn around his misfortunes, and has to borrow the money to get on the table and when he does, he looses the hand, leaving the table claiming he will win eventually (listener not left confident). In this there is a common theme of the Grateful Dead that being, “ the noble marginal character who is doomed to failure in spite of his determination and good heart, done in by his weak nat
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Approximate Word count = 1261
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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