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.
Dancing in the Street
Grateful Dead Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Dancing, dancing, dancing in the streets
Calling out around the world
Are you ready for a brand new beat?
Summer's here and the time is right
For dancing in the streets
Down in New Orleans
New York City
All we need is music, sweet music
There'll be music everywhere
There'll be laughing and singing, music swinging
And dancing in the streets
It doesn't matter what you wear
Just as long as you are there
Come on, every guy grab a girl
Everywhere around the world
Dancing, dancing, dancing in the streets
Dancing, dancing, dancing in the streets
This is an invitation, across the nation
The chance for folks to meet
There'll be swinging and swaying, music playing
Dancing in the streets
Philadelphia, PA
Baltimore and D.C. now
Can't forget that Motor City
All we need is music, sweet music
There'll be music everywhere
There'll be laughing and singing, music swinging
And dancing in the streets
It doesn't matter what you wear
Just as long as you are there
So come on, every guy grab a girl
Everywhere around the world
Dancing, dancing, dancing in the streets
Dancing, dancing, dancing in the streets
Dancing, dancing, dancing in the streets
Dancing, dancing, dancing in the streets
Dancing, dancing, dancing in the streets
Dancing, dancing, dancing in the streets
Dancing, dancing, dancing in the streets
Dancing, dancing, dancing in the streets
Dancing, dancing, dancing in the streets
Dancing, dancing, dancing in the streets
Dancing, dancing, dancing in the streets
The Grateful Dead's cover of Dancing in the Street is a celebratory song about people coming together to dance in the streets all around the world. The song speaks to the universal joy of dancing to music, regardless of race or social status. The lyrics emphasize that all that matters is that everyone is there, moving to the music.
The song is a call to action, inviting people across the nation to come together for this celebration. It's a song that captures the energy of a summer day, when the sun is shining and the air is warm. The song speaks to the human need for connection and community, and how music can bring people together in a positive way.
One interpretation of the song is that it's an anthem for the civil rights movement that was gaining momentum at the time of its release. The lyrics suggest that dancing in the streets is a way of breaking down barriers and promoting social harmony. The song may have been seen as a hopeful anthem for a better future, where people of all races could come together and dance in the streets.
Line by Line Meaning
Dancing, dancing, dancing in the streets
The joy and exuberance of dancing in the streets is being celebrated through repetition of this line.
Calling out around the world
The song is going out to people all around the world.
Are you ready for a brand new beat?
Asking the people if they are ready for a unique and exciting beat.
Summer's here and the time is right
The time is perfect for enjoyment as it's the season of summer.
For dancing in the streets
Invitation to gather together and dance in the streets.
They're dancing in Chicago
People are already dancing in Chicago.
Down in New Orleans
People are dancing down in New Orleans.
New York City
People are dancing in New York City too.
All we need is music, sweet music
Music is a key ingredient to the enjoyment of dancing in the streets.
There'll be music everywhere
Music will be present throughout the streets.
There'll be laughing and singing, music swinging
People will be laughing, singing and the music will set the pace for the festivities.
And dancing in the streets
The streets will be filled with people dancing.
It doesn't matter what you wear
Emphasis on the acceptance of everyone regardless of their attire.
Just as long as you are there
The presence of people is all that matters to make the event vibrant.
Come on, every guy grab a girl
A call to join each other in pairs and dance happily.
Everywhere around the world
The inclusivity of the celebration is for all people from all corners of the world.
This is an invitation, across the nation
This song serves as an open invitation for everyone in the country.
The chance for folks to meet
A wonderful opportunity for people to come together and socialize.
There'll be swinging and swaying, music playing
Anticipation for the forthcoming lively music and performances.
Philadelphia, PA
A mention of the city of Philadelphia where people will be dancing.
Baltimore and D.C. now
The cities of Baltimore and D.C. too will have people enjoying this celebration.
Can't forget that Motor City
A recognition of Detroit, also known as the Motor City, where the people will be dancing too.
Dancing, dancing, dancing in the streets
Reiterating the core idea of dancing in the streets with joy and enthusiasm.
Dancing, dancing, dancing in the streets
Invitation for everyone to gather and dance joyfully.
Dancing, dancing, dancing in the streets
Another repetition of the idea of dancing together in celebration.
Dancing, dancing, dancing in the streets
Reiterate the message of dancing with exuberance and liveliness.
Dancing, dancing, dancing in the streets
Encouragement to dance again with happiness and togetherness.
Dancing, dancing, dancing in the streets
Emphasis on the joy and celebration of dancing in the streets repeatedly.
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd., Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: Marvin Gaye, William Stevenson, Ivy Hunter
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind