Terrapin Station

Inside Jerry Garcia's last large-scale musical work

I took a break from analyzing the Grateful Dead while working on other things, but now it's time to resume, with a tune that is deeply loved by Deadheads and not of conceivable interest to anyone else.

Terrapin Station is a weirdly disjointed album, reflecting the conflicted motivations behind its creation. After their record label collapsed, the Dead signed with Arista, and both the band and the label wanted to move some units. Clive Davis hired Keith Olsen to produce, in the hope that he would bring some of that Fleetwood Mac magic to the table. However, the band brought in all kinds of odd material: Bobby's reggae song in 7/4, Phil's sarcastic parody of slick LA rock, Donna's first original song ever, and Jerry's 16-minute orchestral prog-rock suite with impenetrable lyrics. That did not add up to a recipe for heavy radio airplay.

My snarky tone notwithstanding, I do actually love most of the album. Bobby's 7/4 reggae song is excellent, my favorite thing he ever wrote with John Perry Barlow. (I'll probably do a future post on it.) Bobby also contributed a bumping arrangement of "Samson and Delilah", a song he learned from the great Reverend Gary Davis.

Anyway, the point of this post is to examine the suite that occupies the record's entire second side. The Deadheads almost universally prefer live versions. Here's a nice 1978 performance; the pace is leisurely, but the band members are enjoying themselves, and their enthusiasm is infectious.