For the month of October, I’m taking the #OctAtoZBandChallenge challenge. The premise is simple. Pick a band starting with the day’s assigned alphabet letter and then choose a song from that band.
Day 7
Many music fans will just never get the Dead. It took me a long time to get there myself. In high school, I was completely puzzled as to why the small nucleus of deadheads at my school loved these guys so much. In college, this bafflement turned into cynicism. I would just roll my eyes and continue on with my Smashing Pumpkins and Nirvana. But I eventually got to appreciating the Dead without even going to a single live show - the experience that they’re obviously most known for. A big part of this turnaround is due to listening more closely to the song “Box of Rain”.
My first observation was the year in which it was recorded. In 1970, the Dead recorded two classic, full-length albums: Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty. This band was on a tear. Creating and jamming at a furious pace. Another noticeable aspect of the song is that it’s not sung by Jerry Garcia. That’s bassist Phil Lesh on vocals, the guy who also composed the instrumentation on the song. “Box of Rain” is proof of the band’s penchant to behave and function like a true jam band. Then we get to the chord structure. Unconventional in its progressions and complex in its structure, “Box of Rain” comes together with nine different guitar chords. There’s a rigor to the craft here that I can’t help but admire.
“What do you want me to do, to do for you to see you through? For this is all a dream we dreamed one afternoon long ago.”