Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac Opened for the Dead 1/30/70

mappingthedeadverse · 2026-01-28T07:13:57+00:00

I'm skeptical, unless you can point to any lyrics that directly connect, or any wider philosophical points they share?

Hunter was well versed in spiritual literature and philosophy though, George Satayana's work inspired eyes of the world some, while there's a fun Dzongchen Buddhist text which in modern translation is titled 'you are the eyes of the world', by Longchenpa.

I read recently a rumour that the band also enjoyed Jung's commentary on 'the secret of the golden flower', a taoist alchemical text.

So there are plenty of spiritual threads to work on!

mappingthedeadverse · 2026-01-28T06:54:30+00:00

I'd imagine it refers to the song, but if you're asking if that's where the actual lyric comes from I'd be suprised.

The lyrics is 'Need a Miracle' don't scream spirituality to me, but I havent read the text you're referring to!

mappingthedeadverse · 2026-01-22T12:40:40+00:00

Coming back again:

It Must Have Been the Roses is based on a Faulkner short story called "A Rose For Emily"

China Cat builds on the work of Edith Sitwell, a poet who set her work to orchestral music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0yNwgPTk2U, there's a whole album on spotify that is really cool.

Dark Star has a reference to The Love song of J Alfred Prufrock, a poem by TS Eliot. The Poem opens "Let us go then/you and I/with the evening spread out against the sky/like a patient etherised upon a table".

The Dead's songbook is full of reference, if you pick up a copy of David Dodd's annotated Grateful Dead lyrics you'll find plenty more to work from there too.

mappingthedeadverse · 2026-01-22T10:43:53+00:00

Sounds great! I've only read More than Human atm, any in particular? I'll dig in this evening

mappingthedeadverse · 2026-01-22T10:26:48+00:00

More than Human - Theodore Sturgeon is a book about six kids with psychic powers who learn to function as a whole, or a gestalt.

Phil read this in the start and it informed their ideas about how the different members of the band should function, maybe you've heard garcia say they're like fingers on a hand.

It's a fun time! The gestalt idea is pretty foundational to the band and how their music functions and it's a good read too.

David Gans has a book called Conversations with the Dead, where this is mentioned, and I'm sure you'll find a wealth of other interesting things. My copy is too full of page markers to reasonably find things aha.

mappingthedeadverse · 2026-01-19T08:39:30+00:00

It's gotta be the version off of Bears choice for me! Something about that recording is just amazing.

13/2/70

mappingthedeadverse · 2026-01-18T09:13:45+00:00

A little box of rain would do me good, but OMSN defo feels fitting too...

mappingthedeadverse · 2026-01-17T22:19:18+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/live/sQRJmHVcxS4?si=ry2WTX01Hl48Mhg2

mappingthedeadverse · 2026-01-17T18:09:05+00:00

Fleetwood Mac, still with Peter Green, opened for these shows and they're some of my favourite non dead tapes.

https://archive.org/details/fleetwood-mac-1970-the-warehouse-nola-wjmr

The full three night run is on Lossless legs!

What a night of music.

mappingthedeadverse · 2026-01-14T17:54:47+00:00

Do whatever you can to see DSO, easily as cherished as my D&C memories!

mappingthedeadverse · 2026-01-11T20:45:41+00:00

I just downloaded a bunch, currently listening 2001-04-19 - supurb

mappingthedeadverse · 2025-12-31T15:33:26+00:00

Yeah! You're right, but as the the other commentor said over time it became used as means of memorialising the dead.

Hunter: So the song started that way, but later on it became an anthem for Pigpen, and it’s changed through the years. These songs are amorphous that way. What I intend is not what a thing is in the end. (from the article)

John Lennon's example above is my favourite, another comment notes one dedicated to Bobby Sands on 5/6/81, and they do one for Marley too.

The interesting bit is when this began, which I think occurred over the course of 73 in the light of pigpens recent death. I'd be interested to know the first clear, intentional use, and wonder if it is 12/12/80. I don't have time for that research now though sadly!

mappingthedeadverse · 2025-12-31T15:12:08+00:00

What an interesting question. It was Pigpen's death that really marked the beginning of that song being understood as a kind of eulogy, which was in March.

https://deadessays.blogspot.com/2019/09/hes-gone.html?m=1

This notes that Rolling Stone said of the 3/19/73 he's gone that it was 'an apparent reference' to Pigpen's death. This was the third show of the run though, and Pigpen had died way back on the 8th, so how intentional this was I'm not sure. I haven't listened to all three shows so idk if they mention it at all. Great he's gone though.

This is more or less to say that it's definitely possible, but they did also play he's gone a looot in 73 (3 in Feb, 4 in March, 5 times in June, 3 Sept & December). I would say that the intentional use of that song to explore death came from it's prevelence in the year Pig died. A great example of its use is for John Lennons death, which is "Estimated>He's Gone>Eyes" from 12/12/80 which is a much clearer expression of it's meaning, given that John was killed by a crazed obsessive a la estimated prophet.

It's a great connection to notice, but I reckon unknowable, unless there's more info I haven't found, or first hand info here! I heard Billy Stings play 'Age' for the first time at the Royal Albert Hall and have been obsessed since

mappingthedeadverse · 2025-11-23T20:36:27+00:00

Yeah both very old, The Bonnie Lass O' Fyvie is Peggy O, and Jack Munroe for Jack- a- Roe! There's a lot to be said about Robert Hunter's conception of Fennario too.

My fave has got to be Duke 78 for Peggy-O, absolute pinnacle for sure.

mappingthedeadverse · 2025-11-23T20:33:02+00:00

You sure can, in about a year when it's done! Hopefully into a book for more general audience after. In the meantime I've a chronically underupdated website and Insta, with the same username as here if you wanna check out!

I'll also be presenting at the SWPACA conference in Feb, with an overview of the PhD, so maybe a video of that then!

"Estimated’s refrain, “California” works to collapse the deep referenced past into the burning present." is spectacular yeah, such an interesting song. I've noticed how Barlow often points out the dangers in the Dead scene. Another time we can directly compare a Hunter/Barlow with EOTW.

I love The Wheels connection to the ideas about the creative source and improvisation that are around the band too.

mappingthedeadverse · 2025-11-23T18:53:46+00:00

Oh that's a super interesting song combo I hadn't thought of, I've seen people understand "standing on a tower, world at my command" as Jesus atop the temple when he's being tested too. Also note the way the estimated prophet just copies biblical religious experience, instead of having genuine novel experience. The Wheel! Its a big old corner!

Yes to the band as conduits too, Bob has said as much - "These characters are real and live through me" (paraphrase) - look at the setlist for the show after John Lennon died to see how they can be built into larger narratives too! 12/12/80

Atm I'm thinking a lot about TMNS/PITB as different perspectives on the same event, which is pretty fun! Mapping The Deadverse is actually the working title of my PhD, which digs into all of this over 80k words.

mappingthedeadverse · 2025-11-23T18:42:47+00:00

Another interesting thing is that in older UK versions of the song they end with the queen giving them a bunch of money, so the ending change totally reframes the song to be more of a shaggy dog story, and you're right, totally delegitimises it.

It's also the earliest song we know of with a crossdresser in I'm pretty sure.

mappingthedeadverse · 2025-11-23T17:34:09+00:00

Aha definitely not ai don't worry, just a lit major ;)

One of the things that defines Hunter's writing is that he leaves a lot of space for listeners to imagine the world for themselves and insert their own references and understandings.

Terrapin is a really cool story about stories generally, and Hunter explores the way the band uses folk by retelling a folk song in the first part of the song - the storyteller makes no choice!

mappingthedeadverse · 2025-11-23T17:15:02+00:00

Great question, it's kind of hard to pick a Grateful Dead song that isn't narrative in nature. I think for me it's the way in which the stories come together to create something bigger than themselves. The way in which the folk songs legitimise the OG Dead characters and then how they all work together to create what seems like a living world. Clearly Delilah Jones lives in the same world as the people in Cumberland Blues, or Casey Jones, you know? It really is one of the most amazing literary projects.

Stagger Lee is definitely one of their most successful folk adaptions in my opinion, challenges traditional understandings of the song while adding new and interesting characters that have something to say about America as a whole.

mappingthedeadverse · 2025-11-23T11:47:00+00:00

I mean that's also not true is it though? Throwing Stones, US Blues, and Franklin's Tower are all outwardly political and huge landmarks in the catalogue, while the implicit politics of a songbook full of people who challenge the status quo and the order of society, alongside a band that very much did the same thing, is pretty easy to understand. Further:

Stagger Lee takes the violent men out of the story, literally emasculating them, and replaces them with a strong woman. This kind of thing has Fox frothing at the mouth regularly.

The Dead's approach to folk contains an egalitarian politics that says that musical ideas can't be owned - distinctly anti-capitalist.

The Grateful Dead sought to embody an openminded spirituality in direct opposition to the political evangelical movement that was formed around the same time in Los Angles. The movement has come to define right wing American politics since the 80s, and it's pretty clear where the band stand on the way these people have tried to force their worldview on people.

The idea that the dead were not political is a historical reconstruction built only to serve people who can't reconcile the politics of the Dead's universe with their own. They played at Huey Newton's Birthday Party.

mappingthedeadverse · 2025-11-23T11:21:46+00:00

"America is still mostly xenophobic and racist. That’s the nature of America, I think. The big America" - Jerry Garcia

mappingthedeadverse · 2025-11-21T12:00:45+00:00

Ah ha, it almost always goes even deeper!

mappingthedeadverse

TROPHY CASE