![]() A one-of-a-kind musical figure, quintessentially American: able to identify with the outlaw, and vice-versa craggy, with a voice unlike anyone’s. ![]() The Dead’s other big Mississippi song is, of course, “Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodleloo.” But songs from the river’s banks dot the lyrics-“Canyman,” “Truckin’,” Black Throated Wind,” “Golden Road,” and many songs they covered. Freighters and barges and river queens and rafts… Paul to New Orleans, it’s considerably further on the lazy river road. Its course meanders-meaning that although it may be just over 1,000 miles, as the crow flies, from St. It’s the fourth longest river in the world. The river stretches 2,320 miles from its source in the northern reaches of Minnesota to its eventual destination in the Gulf of Mexico. The Mississippi River, evoked by geography but not mentioned in the song by name, occupies a big spot in the American imagination, featuring in literature (Huckleberry Finn, etc.) and song in commerce and in politics. (By the way, I started this task using the print version of DeadBase, but then my instincts as a librarian kicked in and I was able to quickly execute searches in -“The Deadlists Project.” Thank you so much! Louis, Missouri: 21 (plus 4 shows in Maryland Heights) (Six times played) Saint Paul, Minnesota: 6 (13 shows, if you count Minneapolis) (Twice played-none in Minneapolis)ĭavenport, Iowa: 0 (They played a total of 9 shows in Iowa) So, just for the fun of it, let’s look at how many times the band played at a city mentioned in “Big River,” and see if they played that song in any of those shows. Sometimes they purposely ignored opportunities like that-perhaps out of a perverse sense of not living up to anyone’s expectations-as in their single performance in Bakersfield, when they expressly did not play “Mexicali Blues.” I think the band must have had fun with those kind of opportunities. That show also featured "Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodleloo," done as the opener, with the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers only about ten miles away. Louis, so its performance there was appropriate, given that St. Its final performance was on July 6, 1995, at Riverport Amphitheatre, in Maryland Heights, Missouri. Also debuting at that show was “The Same Thing.” The show also featured what may have been Donna Jean Godchaux’s first appearance, on “One More Saturday Night.” They would play “Big River nearly 400 times over their career, rarely dropping out of rotation for more than eight or ten shows, and frequently appearing in many shows running, or with just a couple of shows separating appearances. I was very tempted, following last week’s “Dark Star,” to write about “El Paso,” another geography song by virtue of its title, because of the amazing emergence, in the new Sunshine Daydream release, of “El Paso” from a long and very trippy “Dark Star.” Suddenly, from outer space, we find ourselves in Texas.īut I had a request a few weeks back for “Big River,” so I’m honoring that, and perhaps “El Paso” will emerge, unexpectedly, on its own somewhere down the road.Īccording to DeadBase X, “Big River” appeared in the Dead’s repertoire on New Year’s Eve, 1971, at Winterland (so, technically, I guess it could’ve been 1972, given that it was a second set tune in that show, following “Black Peter”). Others include “Promised Land,” “Dancing in the Streets,” and some of the Dead’s originals, too, like “Jack Straw.” Johnny Cash’s song, “Big River,” is one of those wonderful songs I like to think of as “geography songs.” They offered the Dead the opportunity to sing about many of the places they might show up to play on any given tour. (I’ll consider requests for particular songs-just private message me!) Therefore, the best part, I would hope, would not be anything in particular that I might have to say, but rather, the conversation that may happen via the comments over the course of time-and since all the posts will stay up, you can feel free to weigh in any time on any of the songs! With Grateful Dead lyrics, there’s always a new and different take on what they bring up for each listener, it seems. ![]() Here’s the plan-each week, I will blog about a different song, focusing, usually, on the lyrics, but also on some other aspects of the song, including its overall impact-a truly subjective thing.
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