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.
Whiskey in the Jar
Grateful Dead Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
I met Colonel Pepper and his money he was counting
I drew forth my pistol and I rattled my sabre
Saying "stand and deliver, for I am a bold deceiver"
Musha ringum duram da
Whack-fall the daddy-o
Whack-fall the daddy-o
The shining yellow coins did sure look bright and jolly
I took the money home and I gave it to my Molly
She promised and she vowed that she never would deceive me
But the devil's in the women for they never can be easy
Musha ringum duram da
Whack-fall the daddy-o
Whack-fall the daddy-o
There's whiskey in the jar
When I awoke between the hours of six and seven
Guards were standing 'round me in numbers odd and even
I flew to my pistols, but alas I was mistaken
I fired off my pistols and a prisoner was taken
Musha ringum duram da
Whack-fall the daddy-o
Whack-fall the daddy-o
There's whiskey in the jar
They put me in jail without a judge or jury
For robbing Colonel Pepper in the morning so early
They didn't take my fist so I knocked down the sentry
And I bid a long farewell to that cold penitentiary
Musha ringum duram da
Whack-fall the daddy-o
Whack-fall the daddy-o
There's whiskey in the jar
Some take delight in fishing and bowling
Others take delight in carriage a-rollin'
I take delight in the juice of the barley
Courting pretty women in the morning so early
Musha ringum duram da
Whack-fall the daddy-o
Whack-fall the daddy-o
There's whiskey in the jar
“Whiskey in the Jar” by the Grateful Dead is a traditional Irish folk song that tells the story of a highwayman who robs a military officer and is subsequently betrayed by his lover. The song begins with the singer riding through the Gilgarra Mountains when he meets Colonel Pepper counting his money. The highwayman holds him up with his pistol and saber, demanding that he stands and delivers his money. Following this, the chorus "Musha ringum duram da, whack-fall the daddy-o, whack-fall the daddy-o, there's whiskey in the jar" is sung.
The following verse talks about the highwayman taking the money home and giving it to his lover, Molly. She promises she will never deceive him but, as the third verse suggests, she does. The highwayman is caught and thrown in jail, without trial or judge, for robbing Colonel Pepper early in the morning. In the last verse, the singer talks about his pleasures in life, which are drinking barley and courting pretty ladies.
The song has undergone many changes since it was first written in the seventeenth century, and the versions recorded by the Grateful Dead, Thin Lizzy, or Metallica all differ in style and lyrics. However, the central theme of the song remains the same.
Line by Line Meaning
As I was a-goin' over Gilgarra mountains
I was walking over Gilgarra mountains
I met Colonel Pepper and his money he was counting
I saw Colonel Pepper counting his money
I drew forth my pistol and I rattled my sabre
I brandished my weapons
Saying "stand and deliver, for I am a bold deceiver"
I demanded that he give me his money
Musha ringum duram da
Nonsensical phrase
Whack-fall the daddy-o
Nonsensical phrase
There's whiskey in the jar
A celebration is in order
The shining yellow coins did sure look bright and jolly
The coins looked beautiful and happy-making
I took the money home and I gave it to my Molly
I brought the money to my partner Molly
She promised and she vowed that she never would deceive me
She swore to never betray me
But the devil's in the women for they never can be easy
Women are difficult to understand
When I awoke between the hours of six and seven
I woke up early in the morning
Guards were standing 'round me in numbers odd and even
There were guards surrounding me
I flew to my pistols, but alas I was mistaken
I tried to use my pistols, but it didn't work
I fired off my pistols and a prisoner was taken
I accidentally shot someone and they were arrested
They put me in jail without a judge or jury
I was imprisoned without a trial
For robbing Colonel Pepper in the morning so early
Because I stole from Colonel Pepper in the morning
They didn't take my fist so I knocked down the sentry
They didn't take away my ability to fight, so I punched a guard
And I bid a long farewell to that cold penitentiary
I said goodbye to the prison
Some take delight in fishing and bowling
Some people enjoy fishing and bowling
Others take delight in carriage a-rollin'
Others enjoy riding in carriages
I take delight in the juice of the barley
I enjoy drinking whiskey
Courting pretty women in the morning so early
I love flirting with women early in the day
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Peermusic Publishing, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: Traditional, Jerome J. Garcia, Michael S. Hart, William Kreutzmann, Philip Lesh, Leo Vincent Welnick
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
airtow
Makes me feel really good knowing that the Dead played all those great tunes not for fame, money, or status, but for us. What a wonderful gift.
Ng Falcon
Amen
MYCOLOGY MATTERS
Yes sir
Toyota Kawasaki
No band plays for us. It's all about the money.
Ray Bin
Same goes for legendary Doc Watson....
Lance Stroll
& heroine
Josh Mehan
Can't we all just appreciate all types of music. If you hear rap and stuff and get pissed, just think of it as: That's the way they express themselves, so do we, we all just do it in different ways.
Haragei Lucid
Haters gonna hate. I hope there is always whiskey in your jar good sir.
anti-rehab relapse
Shane thats a load of bullshit. My favorite band is grateful dead, favorite hiphop groups are wu tang and boot camp clik. I love rock, metal , hip hop, r&b, country, punk , and many in between.And goodhip hop contains alot of deep, profound, meangful poetry
Azna61
I love my Irish music, but I took time to listen to this version, and I must say, it is quite fun and enjoyable. Music is about personal expression and an Irish song done by the Grateful Dead done well is unexpected and pleasurable.