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.
Hard to Handle
Grateful Dead Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
I can give you what you want
But you got to come home with me
I got a whole lot of good ole
Loving and I got some in store
When I get through throwing it on to
You got to come back for more
Ain't nothing but drug store love
Pretty little thing let me light your candle
Cause mama, I'm sure hard to handle
Now yes I am
Action speaks louder than words and I'm
A man with great experience
I know you got another man
But I can love you better than him
Take my hand
Don't be afraid I'm gonna prove
Every word I say
I'm advertising love for free so won't
You place your ad with me?
Boys and things will come by the dozen
Ain't nothing but drug store love
Pretty little thing let me light your candle
Give it to me baby, I got to have it
Some of your love
It's all I need, early in the morning
Late in the evening
The Grateful Dead's Hard to Handle is a song about a man trying to convince a woman to come home with him because he can give her what she wants. The song opens with the man boldly announcing that he is a man of the scene and that he can give her the kind of loving that she desires, but only if she goes home with him. He reminds her that he has a lot of good old loving, and there's even more in store for her once they get started. He's confident in his abilities and promises to be hard to handle.
Throughout the song, the man puts on a show of bravado and self-assuredness. He tries to convince the woman that he's better than any other man she's been with and that he can prove it. He pleads with her not to be afraid to take his hand and come home with him to experience his love for herself. The chorus, 'Boys and things will come by the dozen, Ain't nothin' but drug store love, Pretty little thing, let me light your candle,' serves to remind the woman that she has options, but none like him. He's more than just pretty words; he's got action and experience behind him.
The song captures the essence of a man trying to convince a woman to come home with him, promising to give her what she wants and needs. But despite his bold words and confident demeanor, it's not entirely clear whether the woman will take him up on his offer, adding a layer of romantic tension to the song.
Line by Line Meaning
Baby, here I am, and I'm a man upon the scene
I am here, present and ready, as a confident and experienced man
I can give you what you want, but you got to come home with me
I am willing and able to fulfill your desires, but only if you join me in my space
I got a whole lot of good old loving and I got some in store
I have a lot of love to give, both now and in the future
When I get through throwin' it on to you, got to come back for more
Once I show you the depths of my love, you will desire to return for more
Boys and things will come by the dozen
There will be many suitors eager to win your heart
Ain't nothin' but drug store love
But their love will be shallow, meaningless and easily attained
Pretty little thing, let me light your candle
Beautiful lady, allow me to ignite your passions and desires
'Cause, mama, I'm sure hard to handle; now, yes, I am
Because I am a challenging lover, but ultimately worth the effort
Action speaks louder than words, and I'm a man with great experience
My actions will prove my worth, as I have accumulated much knowledge and skill in love
I know you got another man, but I can love you better than him
I am aware you are seeing someone, but I am confident in my abilities to provide more fulfilling love than him
Take my hand, don't be afraid; I'm gonna prove every word I say
Trust in me and I will prove to you that my words are true, through my actions
I'm advertising love for free, so won't you place your ad with me?
I am offering my love freely and openly, so would you be willing to reciprocate?
Give it to me, baby, I got to have it - some of your love
Give me your love, it is necessary for me to survive
It's all I need, early in the morning, late in the evening
Love is the only thing I require, at all times and in every moment
Lyrics © O/B/O APRA AMCOS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Chris Chandler
I love you Pigpen beyond words. But I can't express how huge of a magical sound these four guys made this night & this jam!!!
John Smithers
I love that I can sit hear and jam out watching live Grateful Dead from 1971. Thank you YouTube. And thank you to whoever originally filmed this. And thank you to the person who put it all together. And thank you to the person who posted it here.
bluesyoucanuse
Not to mention the amazing clarity of the recording. Simply out of this world. Best Dead song ever recorded!
Moti Ben Shoshan
Bless Kreutzmann! Amazing fill and a unique way of holding this jam together.
420chaiguy
The Kreutz!!The legend!!
Larry Luv
Right was thinking the same and as always to PIG now and forever….
Kyle F
one of my all-time favorite songs. really wish we'd been blessed with more Pigpen. gone too soon...⚡️⚡️ music never stops..!
Skydog
One of the best examples of why my favorite era of the Dead was with PIGPEN!
David Oettinger
@Jim Hostetler Couldn't agree more. I saw both Keith and Brent and found there was no comparison. It would get frustrating and clawing listening to Mydland constantly "lean" on his keys. And those songs he wrote? There's a reason why the Dead, The Other Ones, Further or Dead & Company didn't play them. But no one in the history of the GD could have been any worse than Vince Welnick. That era is largely unlistenable in large part due to his "playing." What were they thinking when they brought him on board?
Karmic Experiment
Cheers to that