Since this is a semi-academic exercise, I feel the need to set forth what I knew about the Grateful Dead prior to these current days.

Other than whatever top-40 exposure I had to Casey Jones and Truckin’ as a child, my only meaningful exposure to Jerry and the crew in my teen years was through my best friend, D.

D had older siblings and he raided their record collections to the extent that Workingman’s Dead and Steal Your Face, not to mention Europe ’72, were topics of his conversation.  D and I shared a passion for another well-known band and the Dead would have been but a meaningful sidelight to him.

Driving around in D’s car in those days, I became passingly familiar with the oddly gentle music of the Dead from the early 70s.  I recall finding the Chuck Berry tunes rather weakly strummed compared to my harder-rocking bands, and I probably made some comments about that.  With time, I found myself captivated by the unusual tenor of songs like Uncle John’s Band, U.S. Blues, a song I thought was called “Don’t Murder Me”, and something I vaguely recall about William Tell.

The reputation of Deadheads and their all-encompassing involvement was apparent to me by the late-70s, and as I entered college I turned down impassioned music-loving friends who could not understand why I wouldn’t try to go see the Dead with them when they came through town.

I knew in my bones that I liked their odd music, and I feared my own obsessive tendencies, which were safely devoted to bands that were much less accessible to their fans than the Dead.

Most of all, I thought the music had great historical content, and that it would require a lot of deep probing to understand at that time of my life.  More recently I have come to learn of the roles of Robert Hunter and John Perry Barlow, and their unique contribution to writing the lyrics for the band.  It does not surprise me today that another passion of mine, the Internet, hosts resources such as the Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics.  But I would be getting a bit ahead of myself to delve into that site too greatly at this point.  I’ve only taken a few peeks, I swear.