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.
Hey Jude
Grateful Dead Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Take a sad song and make it better
Remember to let her into your heart
Then you can start to make it better
Hey Jude don't be afraid
You were made to go out and get her
The minute you let her under your skin
And any time you feel the pain, Hey Jude
Refrain
Don't carry the world upon your shoulders
For well you know that it's a
Fool who plays it cool
By making his world a little colder
Da da da da da da da da da
Hey Jude don't let me down
You have found her now go and get her
Remember to let her into your heart
Then you can start to make it better
So let it out and let it in hey Jude begin
You're waiting for someone to perform with
And don't you know that it's just you
Hey Jude you'll do
The movement you need is on your shoulder
Da da da da da da da da da yeah
Hey Jude don't make it bad
Take a sad song and make it better
Remember to let her under your skin
Then you'll begin to make it better
Better, better, better, better
Better, yeah, yeah, yeah
The lyrics to "Hey Jude" by the Grateful Dead provide a message of hope and encouragement to the listener. The song begins by urging Jude to not feel bad and instead to take a sad song and make it better. The song then advises Jude to remember to let someone into his heart, and only then can he truly begin to make it better. The lyrics repeat this message of hope, reminding Jude to not be afraid, to not carry the weight of the world on his shoulders, and to let go of any pain he may be feeling.
The song continues with a message of inspiration and self-motivation, encouraging Jude to not let anyone down and to go after what he wants. The song acknowledges that sometimes we all feel like we're waiting for someone else to make a move or to perform with, but ultimately the power lies within ourselves to make a change. The song reminds Jude that the movement he needs is on his shoulder, urging him to take control and make a positive change in his life.
Line by Line Meaning
Hey Jude don't make it bad
Hey Jude, don't make the situation worse than it already is.
Take a sad song and make it better
Find positivity in difficult moments and work to improve the situation.
Remember to let her into your heart
Allow yourself to be vulnerable and let love in.
Then you can start to make it better
Once you've let love in, you can work to improve the situation and make it better.
Hey Jude don't be afraid
Don't let fear hold you back from pursuing love.
You were made to go out and get her
You have the strength and ability to pursue the person you love.
The minute you let her under your skin
Once you allow yourself to be vulnerable with the person you love, you can begin to improve the situation.
Then you begin to make it better
Once you've let love in, you can work to improve the situation and make it better.
And any time you feel the pain, Hey Jude
Whenever you're feeling down or discouraged, remember...
Refrain
...to repeat the positive words and messages you've learned.
Don't carry the world upon your shoulders
Don't take on more stress than you can handle.
For well you know that it's a Fool who plays it cool
Bottling up emotions and pretending everything is okay only makes the situation worse.
By making his world a little colder
Keeping emotions in can make you feel more isolated and alone.
Hey Jude don't let me down
Don't disappoint or fail the person you love.
You have found her now go and get her
Take action and pursue the person you love.
Remember to let her into your heart
Allow yourself to be vulnerable and let love in.
Then you can start to make it better
Once you've let love in, you can work to improve the situation and make it better.
So let it out and let it in hey Jude begin
Express your emotions and let them in, instead of bottling them up inside.
You're waiting for someone to perform with
You're searching for someone to share your journey with.
And don't you know that it's just you
You are the only one who can take action and make positive changes in your life.
Hey Jude you'll do
Have confidence that you have the strength and ability to improve your situation.
The movement you need is on your shoulders
You are the only one who can take action and work to improve your situation.
Da da da da da da da da da yeah
Hey Jude don't make it bad
Hey Jude, don't make the situation worse than it already is.
Take a sad song and make it better
Find positivity in difficult moments and work to improve the situation.
Remember to let her under your skin
Allow yourself to be vulnerable and let love in.
Then you'll begin to make it better
Once you've let love in, you can work to improve the situation and make it better.
Better, better, better, better
Better, yeah, yeah, yeah
Lyrics © O/B/O APRA AMCOS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@jessicamullaney4742
Amen!
This Band and music is my literal church
Check it out
Dead and Company did this tonight
7/2/22
Foxboro
It made embrace change... Because it was done well.
There was a time I refused to hear the music from Dead and Company because Jerry wasn't there. Heard it... Seen it live a handful of times... Tonight I watched it streaming...yes I am from Massachusetts... I had to work. Couldn't attend the show... But this was the 1st time I've ever watched live... Any show... And It was almost... Better than being there... Because of the filming... Live comments etc...
But they did This... 32 years later. Same date same spot
Awwwweee
@gratefuldead
"In June 1984, the Grateful Dead performed Dear Mr. Fantasy for the first time, at Red Rocks. A year later, also at Red Rocks, they added Dear Mr. Fantasy by including the Hey Jude coda to the Traffic classic. And then we waited. Finally, in winter 1988, the Dead brought back Hey Jude, again attached to Fantasy, and it would remain this way for a couple of years, until Brent left the building in July 1990." - David Lemieux
@jamestownvirginia8463
I like it but it should be left to Stevie wood. God bless the Dead 💓
@44elisdad
@James Doran Never heard any complaints in real time
@SteveFelt67
Amazing seeing Brent and Jerry singing that second verse together in unison while looking at each other. Gave me chills.
@miamuh5875
My last GD shows (with Jerry) were the 89 tour...in the old Miami Arena. If memory serves shey closed with this and their encore was Black Muddy River...maybe I'm confused on the dates, but I will never 4get the last song I heard Jerry play was BMR...💔
@cindycunningham3026
Can you find me on Stage by the speakers I hung out on the stage so much fun even in Wisconsin and 84
@ytsemind
You can tell how much Jerry loved playing with Brent. Brings tears to my eyes.
@devinmck1
It's visible ;)
@christinemott8799
You can tell
@mattking1724
Dont cry cuz' its over . Smile cuz' it happened !!