The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in Palo Alto, Ca… Read Full Bio ↴The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in Palo Alto, California. The band is known for its eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, country, jazz, bluegrass, blues, gospel, and psychedelic rock; for live performances of lengthy instrumental jams; and for its devoted fan base, known as "Deadheads." "Their music," writes Lenny Kaye, "touches on ground that most other groups don't even know exists." These various influences were distilled into a diverse and psychedelic whole that made the Grateful Dead "the pioneering Godfathers of the jam band world". The band was ranked 57th by Rolling Stone magazine in its The Greatest Artists of All Time issue. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994 and a recording of their May 8, 1977 performance at Cornell University's Barton Hall was added to the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress in 2012. The Grateful Dead have sold more than 35 million albums worldwide.
The Grateful Dead was founded in the San Francisco Bay Area amid the rise of the counterculture of the 1960s. The founding members were Jerry Garcia (lead guitar, vocals), Bob Weir (rhythm guitar, vocals), Ron "Pigpen" McKernan (keyboards, harmonica, vocals), Phil Lesh (bass, vocals), and Bill Kreutzmann (drums). Members of the Grateful Dead had played together in various San Francisco bands, including Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions and the Warlocks. Lesh was the last member to join the Warlocks before they became the Grateful Dead; he replaced Dana Morgan Jr., who had played bass for a few gigs. Drummer Mickey Hart and non-performing lyricist Robert Hunter joined in 1967. With the exception of McKernan, who died in 1973, and Hart, who took time off from 1971 to 1974, the core of the band stayed together for its entire 30-year history. The other official members of the band are Tom Constanten (keyboards; 1968–1970), John Perry Barlow (nonperforming lyricist; 1971–1995), Keith Godchaux (keyboards; 1971–1979), Donna Godchaux (vocals; 1972–1979), Brent Mydland (keyboards, vocals; 1979–1990), and Vince Welnick (keyboards, vocals; 1990–1995). Bruce Hornsby (accordion, piano, vocals) was a touring member from 1990 to 1992, as well as a guest with the band on occasion before and after the tours.
The name "Grateful Dead" was chosen from a dictionary. According to Phil Lesh, "[Jerry Garcia] picked up an old Britannica World Language Dictionary ... [and] ... In that silvery elf-voice he said to me, 'Hey, man, how about the Grateful Dead?'" The definition there was "the soul of a dead person, or his angel, showing gratitude to someone who, as an act of charity, arranged their burial". According to Alan Trist, director of the Grateful Dead's music publisher company Ice Nine, Garcia found the name in the Funk & Wagnalls Folklore Dictionary, when his finger landed on that phrase while playing a game of Fictionary. In the Garcia biography, Captain Trips, author Sandy Troy states that the band was smoking the psychedelic DMT at the time. The term "grateful dead" appears in folktales of a variety of cultures.
Live performances
The Grateful Dead toured constantly throughout their career, playing more than 2,300 concerts. They promoted a sense of community among their fans, who became known as "Deadheads", many of whom followed their tours for months or years on end. Around concert venues, an impromptu communal marketplace known as 'Shakedown Street' was created by Deadheads to serve as centers of activity where fans could buy and sell anything from grilled cheese sandwiches to home-made t-shirts and recordings of Grateful Dead concerts.
In their early career, the band also dedicated their time and talents to their community, the Haight-Ashbury area of San Francisco, making available free food, lodging, music, and health care to all. It has been said that the band performed "more free concerts than any band in the history of music".
With the exception of 1975, when the band was on hiatus and played only four concerts together, the Grateful Dead performed many concerts every year, from their formation in April 1965, until July 9, 1995. Initially all their shows were in California, principally in the San Francisco Bay Area and in or near Los Angeles. They also performed, in 1965 and 1966, with Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, as the house band for the Acid Tests. They toured nationally starting in June 1967 (their first foray to New York), with a few detours to Canada, Europe and three nights at the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt in 1978. They appeared at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, the Woodstock Festival in 1969 and the Festival Express train tour across Canada in 1970. They were scheduled to appear as the final act at the infamous Altamont Free Concert on December 6, 1969 after the Rolling Stones but withdrew after security concerns. "That's the way things went at Altamont—so badly that the Grateful Dead, prime organizers and movers of the festival, didn't even get to play", staff at Rolling Stone magazine wrote in a detailed narrative on the event.
Their first UK performance was at the Hollywood Music Festival in 1970. Their largest concert audience came in 1973 when they played, along with the Allman Brothers Band and the Band, before an estimated 600,000 people at the Summer Jam at Watkins Glen. They played to an estimated total of 25 million people, more than any other band, with audiences of up to 80,000 attending a single show. Many of these concerts were preserved in the band's tape vault, and several dozen have since been released on CD and as downloads. The Dead were known for the tremendous variation in their setlists from night to night—the list of songs documented to have been played by the band exceeds 500. The band has released four concert videos under the name View from the Vault.
In the 1990s, the Grateful Dead earned a total of $285 million in revenue from their concert tours, the second-highest during the 1990s, with the Rolling Stones earning the most. This figure is representative of tour revenue through 1995, as touring stopped after the death of Jerry Garcia. In a 1991 PBS documentary, segment host Buck Henry attended an August 1991 concert at Shoreline Amphitheatre and gleaned some information from some band members about the Grateful Dead phenomenon and its success. At the time, Jerry Garcia stated, "We didn't really invent the Grateful Dead, the crowd invented the Grateful Dead, you know what I mean? We were sort of standing in line, and uh, it's gone way past our expectations, way past, so it's, we've been going along with it to see what it's gonna do next." Furthermore, Mickey Hart stated, "This is one of the last places in America that you can really have this kind of fun, you know, considering the political climate and so forth." Hart also stated that "the transformative power of the Grateful Dead is really the essence of it; it's what it can do to your consciousness. We're more into transportation than we are into music, per se, I mean, the business of the Grateful Dead is transportation." One of the band's largest concerts took place just months before Garcia's death — at their outdoor show with Bob Dylan in Highgate, Vermont on June 15, 1995. The crowd was estimated to be over 90,000; overnight camping was allowed and about a third of the audience got in without having purchased a ticket.
Their numerous studio albums were generally collections of new songs that they had first played in concert. The band was also famous for its extended musical improvisations, having been described as having never played the same song the same way twice. Their concert sets often blended songs, one into the next, often for more than three songs at a time.
Tapes
Like several other bands during this time, the Grateful Dead allowed their fans to record their shows. For many years the tapers set up their microphones wherever they could, and the eventual forest of microphones became a problem for the sound crew. Eventually, this was solved by having a dedicated taping section located behind the soundboard, which required a special "tapers" ticket. The band allowed sharing of their shows, as long as no profits were made on the sale of the tapes.
Of the approximately 2,350 shows the Grateful Dead played, almost 2,200 were taped, and most of these are available online. The band began collecting and cataloging tapes early on and Dick Latvala was their keeper. "Dick's Picks" is named after Latvala. After his death in 1999, David Lemieux gradually took the post. Concert set lists from a subset of 1,590 Grateful Dead shows were used to perform a comparative analysis between how songs were played in concert and how they are listened online by Last.fm members. In their book Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can Learn From the Most Iconic Band in History, David Meerman Scott and Brian Halligan identify the taper section as a crucial contributor to increasing the Grateful Dead's fan base.
After the death of Garcia in 1995, former members of the band, along with other musicians, toured as the Other Ones in 1998, 2000, and 2002, and the Dead in 2003, 2004, and 2009. In 2015, the four surviving core members marked the band's 50th anniversary in a series of concerts that were billed as their last performances together. There have also been several spin-offs featuring one or more core members, such as Dead & Company, Furthur, the Rhythm Devils, Phil Lesh and Friends, RatDog, and Billy & the Kids.
The Grateful Dead was founded in the San Francisco Bay Area amid the rise of the counterculture of the 1960s. The founding members were Jerry Garcia (lead guitar, vocals), Bob Weir (rhythm guitar, vocals), Ron "Pigpen" McKernan (keyboards, harmonica, vocals), Phil Lesh (bass, vocals), and Bill Kreutzmann (drums). Members of the Grateful Dead had played together in various San Francisco bands, including Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions and the Warlocks. Lesh was the last member to join the Warlocks before they became the Grateful Dead; he replaced Dana Morgan Jr., who had played bass for a few gigs. Drummer Mickey Hart and non-performing lyricist Robert Hunter joined in 1967. With the exception of McKernan, who died in 1973, and Hart, who took time off from 1971 to 1974, the core of the band stayed together for its entire 30-year history. The other official members of the band are Tom Constanten (keyboards; 1968–1970), John Perry Barlow (nonperforming lyricist; 1971–1995), Keith Godchaux (keyboards; 1971–1979), Donna Godchaux (vocals; 1972–1979), Brent Mydland (keyboards, vocals; 1979–1990), and Vince Welnick (keyboards, vocals; 1990–1995). Bruce Hornsby (accordion, piano, vocals) was a touring member from 1990 to 1992, as well as a guest with the band on occasion before and after the tours.
The name "Grateful Dead" was chosen from a dictionary. According to Phil Lesh, "[Jerry Garcia] picked up an old Britannica World Language Dictionary ... [and] ... In that silvery elf-voice he said to me, 'Hey, man, how about the Grateful Dead?'" The definition there was "the soul of a dead person, or his angel, showing gratitude to someone who, as an act of charity, arranged their burial". According to Alan Trist, director of the Grateful Dead's music publisher company Ice Nine, Garcia found the name in the Funk & Wagnalls Folklore Dictionary, when his finger landed on that phrase while playing a game of Fictionary. In the Garcia biography, Captain Trips, author Sandy Troy states that the band was smoking the psychedelic DMT at the time. The term "grateful dead" appears in folktales of a variety of cultures.
Live performances
The Grateful Dead toured constantly throughout their career, playing more than 2,300 concerts. They promoted a sense of community among their fans, who became known as "Deadheads", many of whom followed their tours for months or years on end. Around concert venues, an impromptu communal marketplace known as 'Shakedown Street' was created by Deadheads to serve as centers of activity where fans could buy and sell anything from grilled cheese sandwiches to home-made t-shirts and recordings of Grateful Dead concerts.
In their early career, the band also dedicated their time and talents to their community, the Haight-Ashbury area of San Francisco, making available free food, lodging, music, and health care to all. It has been said that the band performed "more free concerts than any band in the history of music".
With the exception of 1975, when the band was on hiatus and played only four concerts together, the Grateful Dead performed many concerts every year, from their formation in April 1965, until July 9, 1995. Initially all their shows were in California, principally in the San Francisco Bay Area and in or near Los Angeles. They also performed, in 1965 and 1966, with Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, as the house band for the Acid Tests. They toured nationally starting in June 1967 (their first foray to New York), with a few detours to Canada, Europe and three nights at the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt in 1978. They appeared at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, the Woodstock Festival in 1969 and the Festival Express train tour across Canada in 1970. They were scheduled to appear as the final act at the infamous Altamont Free Concert on December 6, 1969 after the Rolling Stones but withdrew after security concerns. "That's the way things went at Altamont—so badly that the Grateful Dead, prime organizers and movers of the festival, didn't even get to play", staff at Rolling Stone magazine wrote in a detailed narrative on the event.
Their first UK performance was at the Hollywood Music Festival in 1970. Their largest concert audience came in 1973 when they played, along with the Allman Brothers Band and the Band, before an estimated 600,000 people at the Summer Jam at Watkins Glen. They played to an estimated total of 25 million people, more than any other band, with audiences of up to 80,000 attending a single show. Many of these concerts were preserved in the band's tape vault, and several dozen have since been released on CD and as downloads. The Dead were known for the tremendous variation in their setlists from night to night—the list of songs documented to have been played by the band exceeds 500. The band has released four concert videos under the name View from the Vault.
In the 1990s, the Grateful Dead earned a total of $285 million in revenue from their concert tours, the second-highest during the 1990s, with the Rolling Stones earning the most. This figure is representative of tour revenue through 1995, as touring stopped after the death of Jerry Garcia. In a 1991 PBS documentary, segment host Buck Henry attended an August 1991 concert at Shoreline Amphitheatre and gleaned some information from some band members about the Grateful Dead phenomenon and its success. At the time, Jerry Garcia stated, "We didn't really invent the Grateful Dead, the crowd invented the Grateful Dead, you know what I mean? We were sort of standing in line, and uh, it's gone way past our expectations, way past, so it's, we've been going along with it to see what it's gonna do next." Furthermore, Mickey Hart stated, "This is one of the last places in America that you can really have this kind of fun, you know, considering the political climate and so forth." Hart also stated that "the transformative power of the Grateful Dead is really the essence of it; it's what it can do to your consciousness. We're more into transportation than we are into music, per se, I mean, the business of the Grateful Dead is transportation." One of the band's largest concerts took place just months before Garcia's death — at their outdoor show with Bob Dylan in Highgate, Vermont on June 15, 1995. The crowd was estimated to be over 90,000; overnight camping was allowed and about a third of the audience got in without having purchased a ticket.
Their numerous studio albums were generally collections of new songs that they had first played in concert. The band was also famous for its extended musical improvisations, having been described as having never played the same song the same way twice. Their concert sets often blended songs, one into the next, often for more than three songs at a time.
Tapes
Like several other bands during this time, the Grateful Dead allowed their fans to record their shows. For many years the tapers set up their microphones wherever they could, and the eventual forest of microphones became a problem for the sound crew. Eventually, this was solved by having a dedicated taping section located behind the soundboard, which required a special "tapers" ticket. The band allowed sharing of their shows, as long as no profits were made on the sale of the tapes.
Of the approximately 2,350 shows the Grateful Dead played, almost 2,200 were taped, and most of these are available online. The band began collecting and cataloging tapes early on and Dick Latvala was their keeper. "Dick's Picks" is named after Latvala. After his death in 1999, David Lemieux gradually took the post. Concert set lists from a subset of 1,590 Grateful Dead shows were used to perform a comparative analysis between how songs were played in concert and how they are listened online by Last.fm members. In their book Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can Learn From the Most Iconic Band in History, David Meerman Scott and Brian Halligan identify the taper section as a crucial contributor to increasing the Grateful Dead's fan base.
After the death of Garcia in 1995, former members of the band, along with other musicians, toured as the Other Ones in 1998, 2000, and 2002, and the Dead in 2003, 2004, and 2009. In 2015, the four surviving core members marked the band's 50th anniversary in a series of concerts that were billed as their last performances together. There have also been several spin-offs featuring one or more core members, such as Dead & Company, Furthur, the Rhythm Devils, Phil Lesh and Friends, RatDog, and Billy & the Kids.
And We Bid You Goodnight
Grateful Dead Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Lay down my dear brothers, lay down and take your rest
Oh, won't you lay your head upon your savior's breast
I love you, oh but Jesus loves you the best
And we bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight
And we bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight
And we bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight
Lay down my dear brothers, lay down and take your rest
Oh, won't you lay your head upon your savior's breast
I love you, oh but Jesus loves you the best
And we bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight
And we bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight
Walking in Jerusalem, just like John
(Bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight)
I remember right well, I remember right well
(Bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight)
His rod and his staff shall comfort me
(Bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight)
Tell "A" for the ark, that wonderful boat
(Bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight)
Tell "B" for the beast at the ending of the wood
(Bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight)
You know, it ate all the children that would not be good
(Bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight)
Walking in the valley in the shadow of death
(Bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight)
Lay down my dear brothers, lay down and take your rest
Oh, won't you lay your head upon your savior's breast
I love you, oh but Jesus loves you the best
And we bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight
And we bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight
And we bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight
Lay down my dear brothers, lay down and take your rest
Oh, won't you lay your head upon your savior's breast
I love you, oh but Jesus loves you the best
And we bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight
And we bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight
Oh, won't you lay your head upon your savior's breast
I love you, oh but Jesus loves you the best
And we bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight
And we bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight
And we bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight
Lay down my dear brothers, lay down and take your rest
I love you, oh but Jesus loves you the best
And we bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight
And we bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight
Walking in Jerusalem, just like John
(Bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight)
I remember right well, I remember right well
(Bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight)
His rod and his staff shall comfort me
(Bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight)
Tell "A" for the ark, that wonderful boat
(Bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight)
Tell "B" for the beast at the ending of the wood
(Bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight)
You know, it ate all the children that would not be good
(Bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight)
Walking in the valley in the shadow of death
(Bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight)
Lay down my dear brothers, lay down and take your rest
Oh, won't you lay your head upon your savior's breast
I love you, oh but Jesus loves you the best
And we bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight
And we bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight
And we bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight
Lay down my dear brothers, lay down and take your rest
Oh, won't you lay your head upon your savior's breast
I love you, oh but Jesus loves you the best
And we bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight
And we bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight
The lyrics to Grateful Dead's "And We Bid You Goodnight" are a gentle and peaceful farewell to those who have passed on. The song's repetitive, calming melody and soothing lyrics encourage listeners to let go of their worries and rest in the comforting embrace of Jesus. The singer urges listeners to lay down and take their rest, reminding them that while he loves them, Jesus loves them best.
The song references a few different Biblical stories and ideas, including walking in Jerusalem like John, the staff of Moses, and the Ark of the Covenant. These references add to the overall sense of peace and spiritual connection that the song conveys. The line "walking in the valley in the shadow of death" also echoes Psalm 23, a passage often read at funerals that speaks of finding comfort in the face of death.
Overall, "And We Bid You Goodnight" is a beautiful and comforting farewell that acknowledges the pain of loss while providing a sense of hope and peace in the face of death.
Line by Line Meaning
Lay down my dear brothers, lay down and take your rest
Take a break, dear brothers, and rest for a while
Oh, won't you lay your head upon your savior's breast
Rest your head on the chest of your savior
I love you, oh but Jesus loves you the best
Although I love you, Jesus loves you even more
And we bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight
We say goodnight to you, three times to emphasize it
Walking in Jerusalem, just like John
Walk in Jerusalem, like John did
(Bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight)
We repeat bidding goodnight three times
I remember right well, I remember right well
I remember very clearly
His rod and his staff shall comfort me
I will find comfort in the guidance of the Lord
Tell "A" for the ark, that wonderful boat
Refer to the Ark, a great boat in the Bible
Tell "B" for the beast at the ending of the wood
Refer to the Beast at the end of the woods
You know, it ate all the children that would not be good
The Beast ate the children who misbehaved
Walking in the valley in the shadow of death
Walking in a dark and dangerous place
Lay down my dear brothers, lay down and take your rest
Take a break, dear brothers, and rest for a while
Oh, won't you lay your head upon your savior's breast
Rest your head on the chest of your savior
I love you, oh but Jesus loves you the best
Although I love you, Jesus loves you even more
And we bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight
We say goodnight to you, three times to emphasize it
And we bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight
We say goodnight to you, three times to emphasize it
And we bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight
We say goodnight to you, three times to emphasize it
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: Jerry Garcia, Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, Philip Lesh, Ronald Charles Mc Kernan, Bob Weir
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
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Melinda Carter
I sang this song to my dying uncle on his death bed while he was sleeping and tears ran down his face. He loved the Grateful Dead. That night he died
Paulo Disano
Crying as I text. God bless you.
Humble Pie
You gave your uncle such a gift. I'm sorry for your loss. Keep singing.
Doug Bounds
that made me tear up ...
Ice Mario
Just beautiful.
Noah Delawder
Melinda Carter I literally got chills reading that. Sorry for your loss
Isaac Burkey
Sometimes Jerry's voice almost brings me to tears. I love the way he comes in at "walking in Jerusalem just like John"
SteelCitySpeedShop J.R6
Ive been trying to start a conversation to have him anointed a Saint. Cause thats what he was and is. Think about the True Definition of a Saint. He is one. Bid you Goodnight 😀😎
starcat17
Many many times Jerry's voice has brought me to tears - JJG was the embodiment of SOUL💚😊🎶
...miss him so.🎸🎤💕
Kirsten Algie
My Dad sang this to me as a child... Even as an adult he will occasionally. I now sing it to my daughter. Everytime I hear it I could smile and cry simultaneously. 🙌🏼🙏🏼❤️