Terrapin Station is the ninth studio album by the Grateful Dead, released J… Read Full Bio ↴Terrapin Station is the ninth studio album by the Grateful Dead, released July 27, 1977. It was the first Grateful Dead album on Arista Records and the first studio album after the band returned to live touring, following a nearly two-year hiatus.
The album reached No. 28 on the Billboard Album Chart and achieved gold album status in 1987, after being released for the first time on CD (by Arista Records) following the release of that year's In the Dark. Terrapin Station was remastered and expanded for the Beyond Description (1973–1989) box set in October 2004.
It was voted number 848 in the third edition of Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums (2000).
With the folding of their own record label and a change in management, the Grateful Dead signed with recently founded Arista Records. Label head Clive Davis had been interested in working with the band since his time at Columbia Records and had previously signed their colleagues New Riders of the Purple Sage. He added the Dead to the label with the agreement that they work under an outside producer – something they had not tried on a studio album since 1968's Anthem of the Sun (though 1970's American Beauty had been co-produced by engineer Stephen Barncard). Keith Olsen was chosen to produce and the band temporarily moved to Los Angeles, as Olsen preferred to work at Sound City, where he had recently achieved success producing Fleetwood Mac's 1975 comeback album.
Lyricist Robert Hunter wrote the lyrics for the first part of the "Terrapin Station" suite in a single sitting, during a rare Bay Area lightning storm. On the same day, driving across the Richmond–San Rafael Bridge, lead guitarist Jerry Garcia was struck by the idea for a singular melodic line. He turned his car around and hurried home to set it down in notation before it escaped him. Hunter said "When we met the next day, I showed him the words and he said, 'I've got the music.' They dovetailed perfectly and Terrapin edged into this dimension." He based the lyrics for the "Lady with a Fan" section on a traditional English folk song known variously as "The Lady of Carlisle", "The Bold Lieutenant" and "The Lion's Den". The ballad is No. 396 on the Roud Folk Song Index. It is also O 25 on the Laws list, which synopsizes "The lady decides to choose between two brothers who love her by determining which is braver. She tosses her fan into a lion's den and asks them to retrieve it." Hunter, who was also influenced by Sir Walter Scott, had composed "Terrapin Station" in two parts, the second never recorded or performed by the Grateful Dead.
Drummer Bill Kreutzmann ironed out the arrangement, explaining "We sat down and mapped it out. I said, 'This is how the song goes.' I showed (Mickey) all the parts that I felt worked really well, he added a couple, and that's what the song is today. We went back into the studio the next night and got it right. With the drum parts worked out, everything else snapped together like puzzle pieces."
Rhythm guitarist Bob Weir's "Estimated Prophet" was written in septuple time. His lyrics for the song (finished with writing partner John Barlow) examine a character's delusions of grandeur and California's propensity for false prophets. The song also quotes "Ezekiel Saw the Wheel". Drummer Bill Kreutzmann said "It's a great song but when (Weir) brought it to us, something was off. It needed a groove. It was in quick 7/4 but it didn't swing. Yet. For my homework that night, I combined two fast sevens and played half-time over it. The two sevens brought the time around to an even number – the phrasing is in two bars of seven, so technically the time signature is in 14/8. But that's getting technical. In layman's terms, 'Estimated Prophet' suddenly grooved."
"Dancin' in the Streets" is a cover of Martha & the Vandellas' "Dancing in the Street" from the early days of the band, given a new arrangement that prominently features singer Donna Godchaux. For the studio version, a funk-influenced guitar figure was added to a four-on-the-floor disco beat and polished with a commercial production contemporary to the era. The highly orchestrated "Sunrise" was Donna's first singing-songwriting effort for the Grateful Dead. (She and band pianist Keith Godchaux had written the songs for their duo effort Keith & Donna two years prior, on Dead spin-off label Round Records.) The song has been acknowledged as a tribute to the band's recently deceased road manager, Rex Jackson, for whom the Dead's charitable Rex Foundation was later named.
Bassist Phil Lesh's "Passenger" was inspired by Fleetwood Mac's "Station Man". The lyrics were written by ordained Buddhist monk Peter Zimels. However, as Lesh had stopped singing during this period due to vocal cord damage from improper singing technique, Weir and Donna Godchaux sang lead for both the recording and when it was later added to live set lists. Weir's "Samson & Delilah" was a new arrangement of Reverend Gary Davis's traditional song, retelling the story from the Tanakh. Weir had taken several guitar lessons from Davis at his Queens, New York, home prior to his death in 1972.
Olsen had a method for reining in the Dead: "During the cutting of the basic tracks it was pretty hard to get every member of the band in the studio at the same time ... so (Steve) Parish went out to the hardware store and got these giant nails and a great big hammer and as soon as everybody was in, he hammered the door shut from the inside ... we didn't have drifters from the other studios coming in to listen. We didn't have people leaving to go screw around elsewhere. We started getting work done." With Fleetwood Mac, Olsen had a hands-on approach, orchestrating the addition of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks and influencing song choice, arrangements and sequencing. He entered the Grateful Dead project with similar expectations, imagining a concept album or song cycle. Olsen said that Davis told him "I need a commercial record out of them." This caused some friction during the sessions as well as with the end results. Kreutzmann said "He'd have us play the same thing over and over again, and we're not really the type of band that can put up with that. ... Our very identity is based on the opposite principle."
Terrapin Station was first released on CD in 1986. In 2004 it was expanded and remastered for the Beyond Description box set. This version was released individually in 2006. Initial releases did not list time lengths for individual sections of "Terrapin Part 1", though the sections were apparent by style and authorship. Various CD releases break the song down into individual track sections, albeit some with nebulous track boundaries.
The album reached No. 28 on the Billboard Album Chart and achieved gold album status in 1987, after being released for the first time on CD (by Arista Records) following the release of that year's In the Dark. Terrapin Station was remastered and expanded for the Beyond Description (1973–1989) box set in October 2004.
It was voted number 848 in the third edition of Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums (2000).
With the folding of their own record label and a change in management, the Grateful Dead signed with recently founded Arista Records. Label head Clive Davis had been interested in working with the band since his time at Columbia Records and had previously signed their colleagues New Riders of the Purple Sage. He added the Dead to the label with the agreement that they work under an outside producer – something they had not tried on a studio album since 1968's Anthem of the Sun (though 1970's American Beauty had been co-produced by engineer Stephen Barncard). Keith Olsen was chosen to produce and the band temporarily moved to Los Angeles, as Olsen preferred to work at Sound City, where he had recently achieved success producing Fleetwood Mac's 1975 comeback album.
Lyricist Robert Hunter wrote the lyrics for the first part of the "Terrapin Station" suite in a single sitting, during a rare Bay Area lightning storm. On the same day, driving across the Richmond–San Rafael Bridge, lead guitarist Jerry Garcia was struck by the idea for a singular melodic line. He turned his car around and hurried home to set it down in notation before it escaped him. Hunter said "When we met the next day, I showed him the words and he said, 'I've got the music.' They dovetailed perfectly and Terrapin edged into this dimension." He based the lyrics for the "Lady with a Fan" section on a traditional English folk song known variously as "The Lady of Carlisle", "The Bold Lieutenant" and "The Lion's Den". The ballad is No. 396 on the Roud Folk Song Index. It is also O 25 on the Laws list, which synopsizes "The lady decides to choose between two brothers who love her by determining which is braver. She tosses her fan into a lion's den and asks them to retrieve it." Hunter, who was also influenced by Sir Walter Scott, had composed "Terrapin Station" in two parts, the second never recorded or performed by the Grateful Dead.
Drummer Bill Kreutzmann ironed out the arrangement, explaining "We sat down and mapped it out. I said, 'This is how the song goes.' I showed (Mickey) all the parts that I felt worked really well, he added a couple, and that's what the song is today. We went back into the studio the next night and got it right. With the drum parts worked out, everything else snapped together like puzzle pieces."
Rhythm guitarist Bob Weir's "Estimated Prophet" was written in septuple time. His lyrics for the song (finished with writing partner John Barlow) examine a character's delusions of grandeur and California's propensity for false prophets. The song also quotes "Ezekiel Saw the Wheel". Drummer Bill Kreutzmann said "It's a great song but when (Weir) brought it to us, something was off. It needed a groove. It was in quick 7/4 but it didn't swing. Yet. For my homework that night, I combined two fast sevens and played half-time over it. The two sevens brought the time around to an even number – the phrasing is in two bars of seven, so technically the time signature is in 14/8. But that's getting technical. In layman's terms, 'Estimated Prophet' suddenly grooved."
"Dancin' in the Streets" is a cover of Martha & the Vandellas' "Dancing in the Street" from the early days of the band, given a new arrangement that prominently features singer Donna Godchaux. For the studio version, a funk-influenced guitar figure was added to a four-on-the-floor disco beat and polished with a commercial production contemporary to the era. The highly orchestrated "Sunrise" was Donna's first singing-songwriting effort for the Grateful Dead. (She and band pianist Keith Godchaux had written the songs for their duo effort Keith & Donna two years prior, on Dead spin-off label Round Records.) The song has been acknowledged as a tribute to the band's recently deceased road manager, Rex Jackson, for whom the Dead's charitable Rex Foundation was later named.
Bassist Phil Lesh's "Passenger" was inspired by Fleetwood Mac's "Station Man". The lyrics were written by ordained Buddhist monk Peter Zimels. However, as Lesh had stopped singing during this period due to vocal cord damage from improper singing technique, Weir and Donna Godchaux sang lead for both the recording and when it was later added to live set lists. Weir's "Samson & Delilah" was a new arrangement of Reverend Gary Davis's traditional song, retelling the story from the Tanakh. Weir had taken several guitar lessons from Davis at his Queens, New York, home prior to his death in 1972.
Olsen had a method for reining in the Dead: "During the cutting of the basic tracks it was pretty hard to get every member of the band in the studio at the same time ... so (Steve) Parish went out to the hardware store and got these giant nails and a great big hammer and as soon as everybody was in, he hammered the door shut from the inside ... we didn't have drifters from the other studios coming in to listen. We didn't have people leaving to go screw around elsewhere. We started getting work done." With Fleetwood Mac, Olsen had a hands-on approach, orchestrating the addition of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks and influencing song choice, arrangements and sequencing. He entered the Grateful Dead project with similar expectations, imagining a concept album or song cycle. Olsen said that Davis told him "I need a commercial record out of them." This caused some friction during the sessions as well as with the end results. Kreutzmann said "He'd have us play the same thing over and over again, and we're not really the type of band that can put up with that. ... Our very identity is based on the opposite principle."
Terrapin Station was first released on CD in 1986. In 2004 it was expanded and remastered for the Beyond Description box set. This version was released individually in 2006. Initial releases did not list time lengths for individual sections of "Terrapin Part 1", though the sections were apparent by style and authorship. Various CD releases break the song down into individual track sections, albeit some with nebulous track boundaries.
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Terrapin Station
Grateful Dead Lyrics
Dancin' in the Streets Calling out around the world Are you ready for a brand…
Estimated Prophet My time coming, any day Don't worry about me, no Been so…
Passenger Firefly, can you see me? Shine on, glowing, brief and bright…
Samson & Delilah If I had my way If I had my way If I…
Sunrise Gazing at the fire, burning by the water Before he speaks…