Posted on 12/25/2017 6:08:11 PM PST by Mafe
In September 1975, The Grateful Dead released what was to become its highest chart-topping album for the next twelve years, Blues for Allah. In an interview at the time, the group’s lyricist, Robert Hunter, described the album’s title song as “a requiem for King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, a progressive, democratically-inclined ruler (and incidentally a fan of the Grateful Dead) whose assassination in 1975 shocked us personally.” Hunter went on to note proudly that the lyrics of the album, inspired as it was as much by Bach as by Eastern influences, were printed in Arabic on the back of album.
This remarkable, trance-like title track referenced Biblical prophecy, Ozymanides, and A Thousand and One Nights. But most of all, it brought attention to the death of one of the Middle East’s then-universally acknowledged enlightened rulers who disdained excess displays of wealth and who opened the first schools for female students in the country. The construction of this vast, progressive-rock tone-poem is a straight line of discursive guitar themes later superimposed by poignant, haunting vocals. It includes two sections, ‘Sand Castles and Glass Camels’ and ‘Unusual Occurrences in the Desert’, in which powerful political statements were woven into the artistry. “What good is spilling blood?/It will not change a thing”, observes one line; another is a plea for a resolution of Muslim/Jewish conflict: “Let us meet as Friends/the Flower of Islam/the Fruit of Abraham”. Prophesizing the geopolitics of the region, the song grimly warns: ‘The ships of state sail on mirage/and drown in sand.”
(Excerpt) Read more at mises.org ...
I love the Dead, but this song has never been among my favorites.
I prefer Terrapin Station to this. Far more evocative and melodic.
The Dead were one of the worst bands in history.
Saw them twice and they sucked both times. The only “good” stuff they did was entirely by accident.
L
I have never seen them live, but I imagine that their concerts were a bit on the “loose” side.
For some bands, the discipline of the studio (money=time) can create some really timeless songs. I have a number of Grateful Dead songs in my own repertoire, but since I am usually solo, the extended jams don’t happen. So it is a tight little song with a beginning, a middle, and an end.
As a songwriter, nothing would please me more than to just do my own music, but, heck, I gotta eat! LOL!
The songs from that era that HAVE endured are not the “protest songs”. They are the songs that tell a story, that address relationships, and, of course, love songs.
Same thing with the music of previous eras. The political songs fall away and leave only the ones that address timeless subjects.
The songs that seemed so “deep” back then, seem really stupid now. I hear you! :-)
Blowing In The Wind, Fortunate Son, Respect, If I Had a Hammer, War, What’s Going On, This Land Is Your Land, Strange Fruit
These songs survive as classic and maybe more. My adult children are familiar with them and i didn’t introduce them, to the songs. As long a people are dissatisfied or have a cause, right or wrong, some old protest songs will survive. Some are just good music and part of the american songbook
He’s just using that time-honored technique of saying he hates it to get a reaction. The reality is it there’s tons of amazing rock and roll that they did.
Not all, but tons. Really the only reason for bragging how much they suck is just to show how cool you must be
A brief study of history shows this to be incorrect.
About the only thing I can say about the Dead is that I am grateful they are.
I had a fraternity brother who was on a Grateful Dead album cover.
He was a baby at the time...
True story.
The ones that are good music will indeed survive.
the ones that aren’t, won’t.
But, yes, you mentioned some good ones.
The banal ones, hopefully, will go the way of Kwanzaa. :-)
Merry Christmas! :-)
Yes. there is a lot of that around. LOL.
Merry Christmas! ;-)
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