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.
Estimated Prophet
Grateful Dead Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Don't worry about me, no
Been so long I felt this way
But I'm in no hurry, no
Rainbows end down that highway
Where ocean breezes blow
My time coming, voices saying
And they tell me where to go
Don't worry 'bout me
No, no, don't worry 'bout me, no
And I'm in no hurry
No, no, no, I know where to go
California preaching on the burning shore
California
I'll be knocking on the golden door
Like an angel standing in a shaft of light
Rising up to paradise
I know I'm going to shine
My time coming, any day
Don't worry about me, no
It's going to be just like they say
Them voices tell me so
Seems so long I felt this way
And time sure passin' slow
Still I know I lead the way
They tell me where I go
Don't worry 'bout me
No, no, don't worry 'bout me, no
And I'm in no hurry
No, no, no, I know where to go
California a prophet on the burning shore
California
I'll be knocking on the golden door
Like an angel standing in a shaft of light
Rising up to paradise
I know I'm going to shine
You've all been asleep
You would not believe me
Them voices telling me you
Will soon receive me standing on the beach
The sea will part before me
(Fire wheel burning in the air)
You will follow me and we will ride to glory
(Way up the middle of the air)
And I'll call down thunder and speak the same
And my work fills the sky with flame
And might and glory going to be my name
And men going to light my way
My time coming, any day
Don't worry 'bout me, no
It's gonna be just like they say
Them voices tell me so
Seems so long I felt this way
And time sure passin' slow
My time coming, any day
Don't worry about me, no
Don't worry about me
No, no, don't worry about me, no
And I'm in no hurry
No, no, no, don't worry about me, no
And I'm in no hurry
No, no, no, don't worry about me, no
And I'm in no hurry
No, no, no, time coming any day
No, no, no, no, no (ooh)
No, no, no, no (ooh)
No, no, no, no, no, no (ooh)
No, no, no, no, no, no (ooh)
No, no, no, no (ooh) no, no, no (ooh)
The Grateful Dead's "Estimated Prophet" is an adventurous, prophetic song that is filled with a sense of optimism and clarity. The lyrics suggest the arrival of a spiritual leader who is on their way to California, where they will "knock on the golden door" and be "standing in a shaft of light" before finally "rising up to paradise."
The song's narrator is confident and determined, insisting that listeners shouldn't worry about him because he "knows where to go." He's also convinced that his time is coming, that "voices" are guiding him, and that he will be "led the way" to his final destination. The song's imagery of fire, thunder, and the parting of the sea all echo biblical stories, promising a sense of divine intervention and a powerful, transformative experience to come.
Overall, "Estimated Prophet" is a rich and multi-layered song that celebrates the possibility of transcendence and the beauty of the human spirit.
Line by Line Meaning
My time coming, anyday, don't worry about me, no
I know my time is coming soon, but don't worry about me, I'll be okay.
Been so long I felt this way, I'm in no hurry, no
I've been feeling this way for a while now, but I'm in no rush to make any sudden moves.
Rainbows and down that highway where ocean breezes blow
I envision a beautiful journey ahead with rainbows and ocean breezes.
My time coming, voices saying they tell me where to go.
I know my time is coming because I hear voices guiding me towards my destination.
California, preaching on the burning shore
I see myself in California, preaching on the beach while the sun sets.
California, I'll be knocking on the golden door
In California, I know I'll reach my ultimate goal and success will be waiting for me.
Like an angel, standing in a shaft of light. Rising up to paradise, I know I'm gonna shine.
I feel like an angel, bathed in light and rising to a place of happiness and success where my shine will be unforgettable.
It's gonna be just like they say, them voices tell me so
I trust the voices that I hear, and they have never let me down. They promise that everything will be as I have seen it.
Seems so long I felt this way and time sure passin' slow
It feels like I've been waiting for this moment for a long time, and time seems to be dragging by.
Still I know I lead the way, they tell me where I go.
Despite the wait, I am confident that I am being led in the right direction by the voices that guide me.
You've all been asleep, you would not believe me
You have been unaware of what is coming, and my success might come as a surprise to you.
Standin' on the beach, the sea will part before me
I see myself standing on the beach and as I step forward, the ocean parts, allowing me to walk on the sea.
Fire wheel burning in the air!
I see a burning, fiery wheel suspended in the air, maybe representative of my unstoppable progression towards success.
You will follow me and we will ride to glory, way up, the middle of the air!
I want you to follow me on this journey, and we'll rise together to the top of the world where we will not be touched by anything.
And I'll call down thunder and speak the same and my work fills the Sky with flame. And might and glory gonna be my name and men gonna light my way.
I will summon strength and power when I reach my peak, and my work will be celebrated everywhere, with glory and respect following my every move.
And I'm in no hurry, no no no, don't worry about me, no
I know where I'm headed, and as always, I'm in no rush to get there. But don't worry about me, I'll be just fine.
Lyrics © O/B/O APRA AMCOS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind