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GOOD OL' GRATEFUL DEADCAST
American Beauty 50, Episode 8: Till The Morning Comes / To Lay Me Down
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- [00:00]
Rich Mahan
Announcing Dogfish Head Grateful Dead Juicy Pale Ale Collaborating for over a decade now, Dogfish Head and Grateful Dead have crafted a light bodied pale ale brewed with sustainable kerns of grains, granola and heaps of good karma for a refreshing brew that's music to your taste buds. Check out dogfish.com for more details and to find some Grateful Dead Juicy Pale Ale in your neck of the woods. Dogfish Headcraft Brewery is located in Milton, Delaware. Please drink responsibly the Good Old Grateful Dead Cast the Official Podcast of the Grateful Dead I'm Rich Mahan with Jesse Jarno exploring the music and legacy of the Grateful Dead for the committed and the curious. Welcome to the Good old Grateful Dead cast. We've got a double header for you this episode as we dive into track eight on American Beauty Till the Morning Comes and also the one track included in the American Beauty demos that didn't make it onto the album, the Sublime To Lay Me Down. As an extra treat, we also have a special guest whose story weaves perfectly into this episode, Donna Jean GodShow McKay. Make sure to visit us at dead.netdeadcast where you'll find the 10 episodes from last season which cover the 8 songs on Working Man's Dead, plus 2 bonus episodes loaded with music and insights. You can also catch up or revisit with the American Beauty episodes we've already released, which also now include two special bonus episodes of their own. Still hungry for more? We invite you to peruse the buffet of companion materials for each episode at our website dead.netdeadcast and you can link from there to any and all of the podcasting platforms available. Please help us by subscribing hitting that like button and subscribe and leave us a review. Thank you very much. It is the 50th anniversary of American Beauty and Working Man's Dead and the Grateful Dead have prepared a three CD set reissue of both of these albums. They include a pristine remastering of the original albums and each has a live show from the Capitol theater in early 1971. The show on the American Beauty release is February 18, 1971 is remixed from the original 16 track reel to reel multitracks at Bob Weir's TRI Studios. It sounds fantastic. You got to check it out. If you haven't along with these impeccably remastered three disc sets. Out now are not only the full band acoustic demos for American Beauty but also the rest of the studio outtakes from the American Beauty recording sessions. Be sure to check out the Angel Share American Beauty at your favorite streaming service or download provider and discover the DNA of these classic and timeless songs on American Beauty. Till the Morning Comes provides a bit of a musical mood lifter after Broke Down Palace. And while it didn't become a fixture in the Dead's live repertoire, it certainly wouldn't be American Beauty without it. Why wasn't it played live more than it was? Get ready to dive into that mystery as well as explore the unique beauty and depth of one of the Dead's most tender songs. To lay me down. Time to hand it off to your friend and mine, Jesse Giorno.
- [03:29]
Narrator / Host
It's true, live recordings of the Grateful Dead are a wondrous thing. A basic fact of the Dead's musical universe is that every night was different. Another way of saying that is that every show featured at least one performance unlike anything else on any other Dead tape. But that's true of the Grateful Ed studio albums as well. New Yorker staff writer Nick A lot.
- [03:50]
Stephen Malkmus
Of the albums they made, like, had songs on them that you didn't hear on the tapes that you weirdly would get. You know, you kind of start to dig because you didn't hear it anywhere else. And whether it was like Unbroken Chain, you know, was a song that you only got on albums on the album. So, like an album like American Beauty, you know, you never really hear Till the Morning Comes anywhere else. You didn't really hear Operator anywhere else. And those songs began to have an appeal as these, like, you know, they're kind of B sides you get a kick out of because they were just a little strange and they're almost like one offs. I always love the sort of sheer joy in brass until the Morning Comes. I mean, it just comes, like, surging along, you know, it's like this weird optimism that is then bent with weird chord changes later.
- [04:33]
David Lemieux
It's kind of a clumsy song.
- [04:35]
Stephen Malkmus
Like, the chord changes are, you know, they're still doing that intentionally weird thing that they'd been doing earlier on with like, and then the Oxymoxidase and all that. But with the stack vocals, it's pretty and sort of compensates for the weirdness of the arrangements and the chord changes. It was one of those, like, feel good songs in the way, like, Sugar Magnolia is supposed to be. But I've just, I've heard Sugar Magnolia so many times, both the album version even on radio or, you know, at shows like Sugar Mags doesn't really work on me until, like, I'm in the building and the building is bouncing.
- [05:21]
Song Lyrics / Singer
Till the morning comes It'll kneel you back Till the morning comes.
- [05:31]
Narrator / Host
Like a highway sign Grateful that archivist and legacy manager David Lemieux.
- [05:37]
David Lemieux
It's a bit of an anomaly on the album. It fits perfectly. I couldn't imagine the album without it. It's certainly not filler by any means, but it's a song that worked to be on that album, but just never seemed to find that live home properly. It's a wonderful sounding song too. Again, it fits perfectly on the album. I think sonically it's just as good as anything on the album. It just maybe that song isn't timeless. I don't know.
- [06:02]
Narrator / Host
Like all anomalies in the Grateful Dead's catalog, it tells a bigger story and reveals a bit more about that moment in the band's history. As far as I know, neither Jerry Garcia nor Robert Hunter ever mentioned Til the Morning Comes explicitly in an interview. Till the Morning Comes was one of six songs on American Beauty that the Dead quite possibly never played live before they began the process of recording the album. The earliest version on tape can be heard for the first time on the Angel Share American Beauty, which you can find on a nearby streaming service or for download in the store@dead.net the band is still in the process of arranging the song as the tape starts. Bill Kreutzman has just suggested a new drum concept for the song's intro, which Phil Lesh is making sure he understands.
- [06:47]
Bob Weir
Till the morning Comes. You want to have him do that? Just come in on his.
- [06:57]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
Sheriff.
- [07:01]
Bob Weir
Okay, I didn't get it.
- [07:05]
Narrator / Host
Is that it?
- [07:14]
Bob Weir
I don't get it.
- [07:15]
Narrator / Host
Jerry doesn't get it. So Kordzman slows down what he's doing to demonstrate.
- [07:23]
Bob Weir
Okay, okay. Now I get.
- [07:28]
Narrator / Host
Ain't the Same Man.
- [07:34]
Bob Weir
Okay, it was a good idea.
- [07:35]
Narrator / Host
As we heard in other episodes, just like at live shows, the band used the studio to fine tune arrangements, write new intros, and work out endings. All part of a never ending process and flow of music making.
- [08:03]
Song Lyrics / Singer
It'll do you fine. Till the morning comes Like a highway.
- [08:11]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
Sign.
- [08:13]
Song Lyrics / Singer
Showing you the way Leaving no doubt all the way on in all the way back out.
- [08:26]
Narrator / Host
One more bit of on the Fly arranging is obvious. As they finish, you can hear Phil shout out the last chord as they all land together before moving on to the next song of the demo session. Addicts of My Life, Coincidentally, or perhaps not in the same sequence as it appeared on the final album after the demo session in early August, Til the Morning Comes wasn't among the songs the band played at the brief session to Pacific High, nor does it seem like they played it during their mid month weekend at the Fillmore west either. It seems like they thought the song was ready. When the Grateful Dead stepped into Wally Heider's San Francisco studio in late summer 1970 to record what would become American Beauty, Till the Morning Comes as the first song they tracked for engineer Steven Barncard, it was something of an audition.
- [09:26]
Stephen Barncard
Mel Tanner came to me and he said, the Grateful Dead are coming to the studio. And I said, oh, okay. I was not a fanboy. I came to record jazz. I'm a jazz guy, you know, I basically was slumming it as an assistant until like, you know, I could actually do sessions. I wanted to produce, you know, I was getting into it, you know, I was really working a lot and enjoying the work. And I had basically very primitive, by today's standards, tools to work with. But to me it was like, well, these are the tools, let's make them work. And Mel Tanner told me, if you get the bass player in this band, we get the Grateful Dead. It was as simple as that. I guess that was the agreement that they'd made. First, we started in Studio A, which is my least favorite room. I didn't like the way the speakers were set up. I didn't like the Quad 8 console. And we did, I think, Till the Morning Comes and Candyman.
- [10:16]
Narrator / Host
Bob Weir, for one, remains in utter awe of Stephen Barnard's work recording Phil Lesh and his bass.
- [10:22]
Stephen Barncard
You know, he got Phil to minimize his studio setup. I don't know how he did that because Phil never particularly enjoyed playing quietly. But somehow he got it across to Phil that, you know, the bigger the sound is in the room, the smaller it's going to sound on the record. He was the only guy who's ever been able to really get Phil in a box. And magically so clearly Stephen Barnard was.
- [10:46]
Narrator / Host
The right head for the gig.
- [10:47]
Stephen Barncard
Once we started, once we did that session down in downstairs, I'd won the respect and that gave me great power to be able to. For instance, the vocals were interesting how we did that. We start with the track, we did all the vocals separately. We didn't do any live vocals. We cut solid tracks. They were obviously very well, wood shedded, but they were also wood shedded on the vocals. They had worked, worked, worked somehow maybe just sitting with acoustic guitar and just did it. But they were as easy to work with as David and Graham, as Crosby, Stills and Nash doing three part stuff. I did the lead first and then I set them up on one mic in Omni to do the backups. I'm thinking track economy here. And then I had each person in the stack do the double on a separate track. So I had adjustment so I could get the parts just right. And then I kind of just kind of micro tuned it so that it would do the phasing thing and. And you have those vocals on that record. It's. It was so easy. It was just so much fun and easy to. To do this record. It was like a absolute joy. And the other thing was Bear wasn't there or Healy or anybody else. They were all on the road. I don't know. Maybe Bear was in jail.
- [12:10]
Narrator / Host
It's true. Owsley Stanley was in jail as of only a few weeks prior. Dan Healy had worked with the Dead on earlier studio projects, though he had joined the crew of Quicksilver Messenger Service and would only return to the dead's orbit full time later in 1971.
- [12:24]
Stephen Barncard
I think we had Mickey for maybe the first few days. I don't think we did the whole record with Mickey.
- [12:29]
Narrator / Host
Well. Mickey had been a vital part of the band's wooliest experiments in the studio and continued to be a huge part of their live show. He didn't fit quite as comfortably into the band's newest studio work. In their memoirs, both Bill Kreutzman and Phil Lesh remember the studio sessions that year being a bomb for Mickey after the abrupt departure of Lenny Hart. But for the band's new stripped down songwriting, Bill Kreutzman says he took a hardline approach with his brother drummer about what was needed for the music. In his book deal, Kreutzman writes, in the studio, the drums needed to be as bare and essential as the music itself. We were there to serve the songs. Mickey's not on a lot of the songs on American Beauty, but he is on Till the Morning Comes, or at least the ending. Playing glockenspiel, I think. Yet kind of a weird lyric and perhaps a very good reason why the song hasn't become as timeless as virtually everything else the band wrote during this period. One of only a few Dead lyrics that I really cringe at in the 90s. In his online journal, Robert Hunter countered a charge of sexism and Sugar Magnolia by admitting, on the other hand, Till the Morning Comes is sexist, though no one ever seemed to notice it but me. Several years later, after lots of education, it's sexism veiled in stacked harmonies and a miniature wall of acoustic and electric guitars. It's hard to tell how they ended up playing the intro for the song, because Garcia comes in at full speed and the song maintains its momentum.
- [14:15]
Song Lyrics / Singer
Till the morning comes It'll kneel you back Till the morning comes.
- [14:25]
Narrator / Host
Like a highway side we asked Bob Weir about the guitars he was using during the American Beauty sessions.
- [14:32]
Stephen Barncard
I think I was playing through a Fender clone reverb, and I was playing. When I was playing electric, I was playing a Gibson 335, I think might have been a 345. Yeah, it was a 345 for acoustic guitar. I had a big Guild F50 that I. With a arched back that I had made by the Guild folks. It was a canon, but it recorded for some reason. It recorded real well. Great big boomy guitars normally don't record very well at all because you got all that sound, all that low end, particularly the low end sound. The needles on the VU meters are pegged, but it doesn't come across in the recording. But that guitar did. It had good balance. And so that was the acoustic guitar I was playing. And Steve was real good with his mic selection and placement.
- [15:27]
Narrator / Host
In fact, the acoustic Bob was using on American Beauty is the same custom guild that we talked about a few episodes back. Jerry Garcia wrote the music for Ripple on it, standing on the Canadian train tracks during the Festival Express tour. I do like some of the cosmic wisdom. Until the morning comes the shape it.
- [15:44]
Song Lyrics / Singer
Takes could be yours to choose what you may win what you.
- [15:55]
Narrator / Host
During the song's brief live incarnation, the song didn't have a jam. It didn't even have a guitar solo. Though there were some cool fills. It becomes obvious how tightly packed the arrangement really was, with little musical breathing room. I dig the hopped up energy, though, like a hypercharged Everly Brothers that was recorded Oct. 4, 1970, at Winterland in San Francisco. A version released on the Golden Road box set, and a tape with a somewhat curious history directly in the midst of American Beauty. The band had just finished the recording of their new album and were likely still in the midst of doing the final mixes at Wally Hiders in late September and very early October 1970. While the Grateful Dead's road crew didn't record anything between July and December of that year, the Oct. 4 gig at Winterland was broadcast in quadrophonic sound. Live from Winterland. For real.
- [17:07]
Bob Weir
If you're just tuned in, you know you want to know what's happening. You're watching television maybe, and you don't have a radio on. You can turn on a radio to KQED FM 88.5 and Ksan FM 95, and you have Quadrophonic sound. Put the KSAN speakers in the front in front of you with the television set on the right and the left. And put the KQED speakers behind you on the right and the left. And there you go with quadraphonic sound. This is the first quadraphonic broadcast from Winterland. I guess it's the first quadraphonic live broadcast I've ever heard of.
- [17:38]
Narrator / Host
It's hard to say exactly how everything transpired. And unfortunately none of the video of the night seems to have survived. And very little of the audio too. Certainly not enough to recreate the quadraphonic effect. But it was a fascinating experiment.
- [17:51]
Bob Weir
It's really incredible how the sound is being put together. Have you explained that? No. I mean, it's coming out of here and it's going into Wally Hyder's remote truck out in the street and being mixed on a 16 channel machine. And then it comes back into here where Bob mixes it forward and sends it out to KSAN and KQED and KQED tv. And then he also phases so he can go from, you know, one speaker to the other and move the sound around the bass or whatever.
- [18:15]
Narrator / Host
With the Wally Heiter remote truck facilitating the broadcast. No wonder the Dead got tapes. Let's linger at Winterland for a moment, the former ice skating rink at Post and Steiner in San Francisco. There was a lot going on that night as the Dead's new album was nearing completion. Earlier that week, Jerry Garcia's mother Ruth had died following a horrific accident. Earlier in the month, and only just before that, Phil Lesh's father Frank had passed as well. The emotions poured into the heart of the new album the band recorded in August and September. The day before this Winterland show, the new album's name was officially announced in a one line dispatch in the local music columns. American Beauty. Robert Hunter's girlfriend Christy had suggested the first draft version of the title, Big Fat Full American Beauty Rose. It was edited down at winterland on Sunday, October 4th. It was the original San Francisco scene at full blast for the quadraphonics special. It was a quadruple Sunday night bill with the Dead, Jefferson Airplane nearing the end of Marty Balin's time in the band and Quicksilver Messenger Service Flame, one of their own final shows with John Cipollina along with the New Riders of the Purple Sage. Just a few months away from recording their own first album at Wally Hiders here at KSAN DJ Corners, New Riders of the Purple Sage songwriter John Dawson.
- [19:33]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
How's it out there, man? I didn't get to look.
- [19:35]
Bob Weir
It's very bright and there's lots of bright lights going off and there's lots of good music being played and everybody's pretty high.
- [19:44]
Narrator / Host
I guess Marmaduke was probably right. As the KSAN correspondents learn as they continue their backstage interviews here, someone's just told them that this is their first concert.
- [19:54]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
The first concert you've ever attended.
- [19:56]
Song Lyrics / Singer
Wow.
- [19:57]
Bob Weir
This must really be a mom. I've snorted cocaine.
- [19:59]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
Oh, wow.
- [20:01]
Song Lyrics / Singer
Full nasal passages, man, all the way down.
- [20:05]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
This is the first time I've ever had to deal with that on the air. Well, it had to be dealt with sometime.
- [20:12]
Narrator / Host
You're on the court again.
- [20:13]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
You're on the cord. Well, if you don't think you're on the air, just call.
- [20:17]
Narrator / Host
There were some comings and goings that night, too, some of them heavy.
- [20:21]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
Did you see Florence dancing? The gal that was dancing on the stage?
- [20:26]
Narrator / Host
Florence is Florence Nathan these days known as Rosie McGee. She was one of the members of the Dead's family who went along on the Medicine Ball Caravan tour that left in early August. She writes about it at length in her memoir, Dancing with the Dead, available@rosiemcgee.com She returned to San Francisco that night after her European adventures, coming straight to the show from the airport and dancing directly onto the Winterland stage. There was also tragic news circulating backstage and probably through the crowd. Reported on K San I really hate.
- [20:57]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
To say this, this is something that just really blew my mind, but I understand Janis Joplin has just been found dead in Hollywood. Wow.
- [21:09]
Song Lyrics / Singer
Wow.
- [21:13]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
After that, I really don't know what to say. We'll be back in just a minute.
- [21:17]
Narrator / Host
Janice was 27 years old, Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter's neighbor in Larkspur, a one time partner of Pig Pens and close friend to everybody in the Dead. She and the band had shared adventures together over the summer, both on the Festival Express and again after their return. As a tribute, Garcia and Hunter would write Birdsong, debuted by the dead in early 1971 and which cherry recorded for his solo debut, Garcia All I know.
- [21:44]
Song Lyrics / Singer
Is something like a bird within her sing.
- [21:54]
Bob Weir
All I know.
- [21:55]
Song Lyrics / Singer
She sang a little while and then flew on. Tell me all that you know I'll show you snow and rain.
- [22:13]
Narrator / Host
But as heavy as that was, there was another story unfolding at Winterland on October 4, 1970, as American Beauty was wrapping up. Though only one person knew it at the time, this story was out in the crowd. And to tell it here is the incredible Donna Jean GodShow McKay. I interviewed her a few Years ago, when I was writing my book Heads and we talked about just this night, as you might know, Donna Jean Thatcher had been a studio vocalist at the legendary Muscle Shoals in Alabama, singing on hits with Elvis Presley, Percy Sledge, Cher and many others. She sings here on Suspicious Minds.
- [22:48]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
Caught in a trap.
- [22:52]
Song Lyrics / Singer
I can't walk.
- [22:53]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
Out.
- [22:56]
Song Lyrics / Singer
Because I love too much pain.
- [23:00]
Narrator / Host
That'S a topic for another day, though. Here's Donna Jean.
- [23:03]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
I just had a hankering that would not stop to go to California. And I had had that, you know, pretty much all of my life. You know, when I remember thinking about things like that, I wanted to go to California so bad. It just came a time where I knew that this was the right time to go. And a friend of mine had already gone out to San Francisco. And really, it was because of her that, you know, I had the audacity to do that myself. The only time that I had heard of the Grateful Dead, at some point. I can't tell you what year it was, but hearing the name the Grateful Dead, and I thought, oh, my God, you know, who. Who in their right mind would name their band the Grateful Dead? And I just remember having those kind of thoughts. You know, I was totally ignorant about what the music was like. You know, anything about the Grateful Dead. Long story short, when I did get out to California, everybody, of course, in the San Francisco Bay area was into the Grateful Dead and the airplane and Quicksilver messenger service, the new riders of the Purple Sage. I mean, these were the San Francisco people, you know, and Janice and Jimmy. I really wasn't seeking to do anything musical as much as I knew that I just needed a new adventure in my life. And whatever way that took, you know, I was all about it. Once I did get out there, you know, everybody was a dead end. I mean, I ended up working at Union Oil in San Francisco. Two of my friends who had gone out there before me were working there and got me a job at Union Oil. And everybody at Union Oil was into the Grateful Bed. And I was, you know, this little Southern girl who had really never, you know, I'd never gone what I would call abroad, you know. You know, in another atmosphere. You know, I had always been here in the south, and I was just mesmerized by the whole scene. I remember the first couple of days I got there and my friends were already at work, and I was, you know, in the apartment on Sacramento and Hyde, I believe it was, and looking out the window, just scared to death because everybody had long hair.
- [25:42]
Narrator / Host
Donna Jean's friends at work were serious Grateful Dead freaks.
- [25:45]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
Yeah, anytime the Dead played, you know, they would go. And, you know, at that point, I said, well, you know, let. Let me listen to, you know, to what they're doing. And so they played some albums, you know, and I said, God, they. And some of the live stuff. And I thought, you know, I had come from this pristine recording studio atmosphere where everything was arranged, produced, you know, everything was pristine on that level. And so when I heard the Grateful Dead, I said, you guys, you're deceived. These guys don't know how to play music. And I actually said that. I said, they don't even know how to play. You know, I don't know what the deal is. And I was just incensed at how everybody was just so into the Grateful Dead, you know, And I said, well, whatever, but you're on drugs. And that's why you. You know, you have to be on drugs to listen to this music and think that it's good. And so I kind of refused at first to go to a Grateful Dead concert. And I was working as well, you know, and I had to get up early in the morning, and so I was not into just wasting the night away and then having to go to work. But this one, one time, they convinced me to go to a Dead concert. And Grateful Dead, we're playing at Winterland with the New Riders, Quicksilver, the Airplane, and then the Grateful dead.
- [27:15]
Narrator / Host
So on October 4, 1970, Donna Jean joined this gang of early Deadheads to go see the band on a Sunday night at Winterland.
- [27:22]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
And of course, you know, we were, like, the lowest on the totem pole when it came to getting tickets and everything. So we were on the back row of the balcony of Winterland, and Keith was there, too. And Keith and I had never really talked at all, but he was one of the friends of this girl that I was working with at Union Oil. And that's how Keith and I kind of met.
- [27:47]
Narrator / Host
Keith was Keith God show. And they became Deadheads together.
- [27:50]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
He had seen the Dead before. Not too many times before we saw them together, but he had seen the Dead before, and he, you know, he was into it. And, you know, I didn't even know Keith played the piano. You know, we hadn't even talked. You know, we barely said hello. And that was about it. The new writers came on, and I thought, well, you know, that's kind of cool. And then Quicksilver, and I thought, well, that's really cool, too. And then the airplane, and, well, that's really Cool. And then the Grateful Dead came on, and here I am on the back row. And on top of that, I wouldn't take any drugs or smoke any pot or anything. I said, I'm going to prove to you guys that you were out of your friggin mind, you know, I'm not going to take anything. And I didn't. I was just stone cold sober on every level. And the debt started playing and I just. I couldn't believe it. I kept saying to myself, how do they do that? How do they do that? And I was just blown away, absolutely blown away by what the Grateful Dead did. Because I had never heard any music that sounded like that before. And they were so on. It was like one of their really, really super magical nights. And every note was just in every drum beat. And everything was absolutely perfect within what the Grateful Dead do, you know, which is not like anybody else had ever done, really. And I was amazed and blown away. And I can't remember who it was that was sitting next to me, but one of my friends, probably from Union Oil, and I said, when I sing again, it's going to be with that band. So I went home that night and I couldn't go to sleep. I just couldn't go to sleep. And so I kept everybody in my apartment awake and I said, how did they do that? You know, I was just incredulous that a rock and roll band could make that kind of music. So it was shortly after that, I guess we saw the band several more times before Keith and I got married.
- [30:07]
Narrator / Host
It was a whirlwind Deadhead romance tied to synchronicity and music.
- [30:11]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
And I couldn't get enough. Once I'd seen them the first time, I just could not get enough of the Grateful Dead. And that's all I wanted to listen to.
- [30:21]
Narrator / Host
Seeing the Grateful Dead got Donna Jean on the bus. But like many people, it was the magical studio albums from 1970 that grabbed her and Keith.
- [30:29]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
Working Man's Dead came out and American Beauty. And so Keith and I were listening to those records every single day. Yeah, every day we would listen to them.
- [30:39]
Narrator / Host
Not to say they ignored the other albums. Live Dead was in their collection, too.
- [30:43]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
I couldn't believe the uniqueness of that song with St. Stephen. And I just thought the lyrics were brilliant, their harmonies were brilliant, the chord changes, everything was just so other. I had never heard anything like that before. And so I would have to say that St. Stephen was my first favorite Grateful Dead song. And of course, it's a jillion other people's favorite Grateful Dead song, you know, so I'm not alone in that. You know, just as a singer and a harmony singer, I was absolutely taken by how they constructed their vocals, and the chord changes were just so other. I was amazed.
- [31:30]
Narrator / Host
Hope we can get more into Donna Jean's incredible story in the future, but I had that interview and it was too good not to share. As I said, October 4, 1970, was a pretty legendary night in Dead history.
- [32:02]
Stephen Barncard
Yeah, Till the Morning Comes is a good tune, though a little overwritten to my way of thinking, which is why it kind of fell out of our repertoire. And yeah, we're bringing it back these days and trying to put a through line thread through it where you can hang your hat, but I don't think any of us really felt that it fell together all that readily in its first incarnation.
- [32:26]
Narrator / Host
Tales from the Golden Road co host.
- [32:27]
Gary Lambert
Gary Lambert Again, one of the most scant performance histories, although I think that's another one that may have turned up at more shows in fall of 70 than are documented. I think I may have heard it at the 46th Street Rock Palace. I know I heard it at Stony Brook, and I think I also heard it at Fillmore East. I think they played it on September 18th in that run of Fillmore East. The Stony Brook is the most solid of the ones, as I recall. One of those mysteries as to why a song gets dropped, why it doesn't last. It seemed like a song that was never going to open up into anything else. It had some nice little tricky changes in it, but it didn't really seem that organic. And maybe they just didn't think it had enough substance just to stand as a song. It also occurs to me that just possibly at some point, someone suggested that the lyric, you're my woman now, make yourself easy was not the most fortuitous thing to be singing in that moment of emerging feminism in America. I don't know if the Dead would have paid attention to anyone who said that, but it's a bit of a problematic lyric.
- [33:35]
Narrator / Host
It might not be timeless in some ways. Till the Morning Comes Sounds of a specific time American Beauty wasn't the only Grateful Dead LP arriving in record stores in the fall of 1970. Till the morning Comes would almost fit better on the other one. Vintage Dead arrived in stores in October 1970, a month before American Beauty. It contained music by the Dead recorded at the Avalon ballroom, probably in December 1966. It wasn't exactly a bootleg, because the tapes had been acquired legally during the early years of the Dead's career before they were under contract to Warner Bros. But it wasn't exactly consensual either. Historic Dead would follow in early 1971, another slab of 66 dead. While they've never been officially released by the Dead, you can find them affordably in used record bins and occasionally even thrift stores. Some have noted that the Working Man's Dead outtake Mason's children until the Morning Comes share a certain energy. To my ears, they're both part of the last thread of the Dead's early speedy vibe in the days before Pigpen graduated from a Vox Continental combo organ to a proper Hammond. Stephen Malkmus of Pavement is a fan of Till the Morning Comes, and that's exactly why.
- [35:09]
Bob Weir
Yeah, I like that one too. That one sounds like it's pasted on a bit from a different. Like an acid test. Older, younger and it sort of reminds me of that era or something, you know. I read this book, it's called Be Not Content. It's like kind of young man's acid voyage, you know, over like eight years. The guy's a biker, he's not a Hell's Angel. William Craddock. But not only does he go to an at the writer go to an acid test. That song, you know, the one we said didn't entirely fit on the album. The garage rock song. Yeah, I could hear that playing at that early in the dad's playing and I could kind of hear that when he's tripping out. And then it goes from that to a little bit later when, you know, the dissolution or the, you know, the hippie dream is dying. And they're hanging out at that biker bar in. It's near Santa Cruz, you know, and it's kind of like harder, worse drugs. And I don't know, it sort of just. I get some of that feeling from this. I don't get the bad drugs on this album, but I get the. The end of something a little bit on the album too.
- [36:24]
Narrator / Host
I second Stephen Malkmus recommendation of William Craddock's Be Not Content. It's a devastatingly funny and powerful novel about the very early years of the psychedelic revolution, written right in the thick of it and first published by Doubleday in 1970. A Mind Movie worth revisiting. Unfortunately, it's exceedingly rare now. Rudy Rucker's Trans Real Books published a new edition in 2012, but sadly that went out of print earlier in 2020. The book's incredible first person account of the Muir beach acid test is excerpted in the much easier to find Grateful Dead Reader, edited by David Dodd and Diana Spalding. But if you can find a copy of Be Not Content and are really into 60s literature, it's worth whatever price is currently being asked. And yes, I've looked up the current prices. At least for the moment, it seems like you can read a bunch of it via Google Books. We've Posted links@dead.net Deadcast till the morning Comes might be a blip in the bigger scope of Dead history, but it was a strange portal into the Dead. It was the only one of the album's Garcia Hunter songs that didn't become a beloved part of the group's live repertoire at any point during their career, disappearing after 1970 and never returning. Considered in the context of side two of American Beauty, though, Till the Morning Comes makes perfect sense. After the folk strum of Ripple and the heartbreaking dirge of Broke down palace, the Till the Morning Comes was almost like a fit to order mood lightener. Logically, in some ways, though, there was a different song that perhaps belonged in the third slot of American Beauty's second side on piano, Jerry Garcia.
- [38:09]
Song Lyrics / Singer
Lay me down once more to lay me down with my head.
- [38:34]
Stephen Barncard
And sp.
- [38:42]
Song Lyrics / Singer
Let the world go almost in dreaming to lay me down one last time to lay me down.
- [39:15]
Narrator / Host
That was from the new collection the Angel Share American Beauty Streaming near you, recorded in early August 1970 at Pacific High in San Francisco with Jerry Garcia on piano, To Lay Me down was the third set of lyrics written by Robert Hunter on a productive day in May 1970, which we've talked about in our last two episodes about Ripple and Broke Down Palace. To recap the story and add a little more, this is what Hunter wrote in the All Good Things box set. On the second day of my first visit to England, I found myself alone in Alan Trist's flat on Devonshire Terrace in West Kensington with a supply of very nice thick linen paper, sun shining brightly through the window, a bottle of Greek retsina at my elbow. The songs flowed like molten gold onto the page and Stan is written. The images for To Lay Me down were inspired at Hampstead Heath, the original title to the song the day before lying on the grass and clover on a day of swallow tailed clouds across from Jackstraw's Castle a pub, reunited with a girlfriend of my youth after a long separation. Of the three songs written that day, it's possible that To Lay Me down was the first that Jerry Garcia set to music. Gail Helland, credited as Cosmic Gale on Working Man's Dead, was along for the Festival Express train trip in July and remembers seeing Garcia teach the song to Bonnie Bramlett of Delaney and Bonnie. Musically, it was also a small breakthrough for Garcia. Here he is talking about To Lay Me down with our comrades David Ganz and Blair Jackson in 1981. You can read the whole interview in David's book, Conversations with the Dead.
- [40:49]
Bob Weir
About the time I did my first solo album, I started writing that group of songs there. I started writing using the keyboard.
- [40:58]
Song Lyrics / Singer
To Lay Me Down.
- [40:59]
Bob Weir
Yeah, To Lay Me Down.
- [41:01]
Narrator / Host
That's probably my first keyboard song. I mean, a lot of times I have to figure out what I'm doing.
- [41:04]
Bob Weir
But in a way that's liberating, you.
- [41:06]
Narrator / Host
Know, because everything would be confining.
- [41:10]
Bob Weir
No, it's not. It's not.
- [41:12]
Narrator / Host
It puts you in the situation of seeing relationships in a kind of a fresh way.
- [41:17]
Bob Weir
Since I don't spend a lot of time looking at a keyboard to get.
- [41:20]
Narrator / Host
Into the keyboards, I only started to.
- [41:22]
Bob Weir
Do that relatively recently. I sit down with the piano and sing. That's what I do. Like, if I'm working off of lyrics that are already there, then what I'll do is play a chord or play a couple of chords and just let them ring and see what saying the lyrics does, does. And starting from. Sometimes I like to just start from what rhythmically the phrasing suggests to me or the meter suggests, and then I go from there.
- [41:48]
Narrator / Host
There are two versions of To Lay Me down in circulation from before the Angel Share demo. We heard both from the mysteriously dated shows after Festival Express but before the start of the American Beauty sessions. Jerry plays guitar on both. When the band reached Wally Heiders to make the final recordings for American Beauty, it doesn't seem as if they tracked a proper full version of To Lay Me Down. In August and September, though, the band played Stands at the Fillmore's west and east, where their acoustic sets featured an upright piano played mostly by Pigpen. And at the Fillmore east in September, Jerry Garcia sat down for a song each night. Gary Lambert was lucky enough to catch some of these shows, which included at least two versions of To Lay Me down with Garcia playing it like this.
- [42:30]
Gary Lambert
I always wondered, you know, exactly why that happened. I don't know if the film Maurice had a house piano, otherwise it would have been used before, or if maybe there was another band coming in that week for whom they'd rented a piano. I never have known for sure. There's a real characteristic to Jerry's piano playing, you know, when you heard it, which was notably on his first studio album. And I have also always believed that it's him playing the overdubbed piano on Wharf Rat. If you listen to the Skull and Roses version of Warfrat, it's quite consistent, very little embellishment. I think it's Merle Saunders on organ and Jerry on piano. And my reason for thinking that is it's very consistent with Jerry's very unadorned style of piano playing. You're not going to hear a lot of fancy Floyd Kramer right hand trills out of Jerry. You know, it's just like triad based and solid, you know, And I love it. I mean, it's interesting that To Lay Me down popped up and then Jerry put in on the solo album. And if I remember right, it took a while before it came back into the Grateful Dead set.
- [43:37]
Narrator / Host
Grateful Dead archivist and legacy manager David Lemieux.
- [43:40]
David Lemieux
My introduction to that was Reckoning, one of the first records I got. I'd never heard it before. Loved it immediately. Of course, reading the back of the vinyl, there's not a lot of originals on there by Garcia Hunter. There's China Doll, Ripplebird Song, Till Amy down, and I think that's it. But I remember thinking, well, what album is this on? It's a Garcia Hunter original. And, you know, there was no Google back then. And so it took me a little while to realize that it was on Jerry's first record many years later, 1999, when, when Blair and Steve and David Gans were producing so Many Roads, that's when I first heard To Lay Me down from the Grateful Dead studio session that I realized, oh, this was given consideration for American Beauty. But to me, it's hard for me to visualize it on here only because it's such a perfect album as it is. And likewise, Jerry's first solo record is so perfect as it is. And I can't imagine the version of To Lay Me down being anything but that, which is Jerry playing all the instruments except for the drums with the bar.
- [44:47]
Song Lyrics / Singer
God is close together. Let the world go back.
- [45:14]
Narrator / Host
But after Gary Lambert saw the band played at the Fillmore east with Garcia on piano, it didn't turn up again until the fall of 1973. Now it was Keith God show on concert grand and sounding gorgeous. A platform for the Quintet Dead's dynamics. That was recorded September 18, 1974 in Dijon, France. Released on the 30 trips around the sun box set. When the band took their touring hiatus starting in October 1974, to lay me down went away again for a while. It returned in 1980, when the dead began playing acoustics heads for the first time in a decade, which you can hear about in our Dead Behind Dead Ahead bonus episode. Here it is from Reckoning. I love this harmony blend with Brent Midland.
- [46:33]
Song Lyrics / Singer
Lay Me Down.
- [46:52]
Narrator / Host
One musician who fell in love with To Lay Me down from the version included in the Dead Ahead concert film was acoustic guitar phenom Billy Strings.
- [46:59]
Stephen Malkmus
That Radio City Music hall performance. Watching that video, that song just stuck out to me. So I had to watch it so many times. And what did they play right before that? It was like on the Road again or something, man, playing a song like that that has just such this big fun energy. I mean, you can dance your ass off to that song, and it's like, we're having a good time, and they end that song and then they go into fucking. To Lay Me down is so slow and so whispery and soft the way that Jerry would sing it. He would whisper the words, you know, because of course you would, you know, for a song like that, you can't, like, belt it out or sing it. It's so soft and sensitive and it's. It's so sad, you know? And, man, that little part of that live show where they go from that song to that song, and it's just fucking switches the entire mood of the entire place. And it's just like you go from being up on top of a mountain, just so happy, and then it's like a big thunder cloud rolls in and just pours on your party, and you're just like, fuck. Oh, yeah, I forgot all the people that I loved that died, you know? And the other thing I really love about that is the repetition. To lay me down to lay me down to lay me down to lay me down to lay me down to lay me down so many times, and it just gets, like, stuck in your head and it gets to just find four words that you can get away with saying over and over and over like that. To lay me down. I mean, I don't know how you can, like, be so good that you can find those words. Because any other four words, it would be like, man, you know? But this is just like the emotion of the song, and those words, they just fit. I mean, that's that magic that they had as songwriters, you know, Robert, Jerry, and just amazing stuff. Timeless. Totally timeless stuff. It could have been from the past or the future or any time in between, and it will still be just as relevant as ever, you know.
- [49:15]
Song Lyrics / Singer
To lay me down.
- [49:20]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
Oh.
- [49:23]
Song Lyrics / Singer
To lay me down to lay me down one last time to lay me Down.
- [49:43]
Narrator / Host
That was Billy Strings and Molly Tuttle doing To Lay Me down at the Gray Fox Bluegrass Festival in 2018. Another version I love is by Meg Baird, included on several benefit compilations, most recently the Storehouse Presents, which you can find on Bandcamp.
- [50:14]
Song Lyrics / Singer
Let the world go by like clouds are streaming.
- [50:28]
Narrator / Host
After the Dead's acoustic sets in 1980, the song instantly hopped back into the band's electric rotation, where it appeared on and off until the early 90s, when, with Jerry Garcia occasionally dipping into it for his own acoustic sets with John Kahn.
- [50:41]
David Lemieux
David Lemieux I saw them play it a few times. One time in particular, I saw them on April fools88 play it live, and they played it extremely well. I saw1 in 1989 that wasn't very good at all. I didn't think so. It was a song that they seemed to hit and miss live, which I like. I like that it's a song that isn't always perfect.
- [51:00]
Narrator / Host
We'll send you off with a little bit of that version David really loved. Recorded on April Fool's Day, 1988, at Brendan Burn arena in New Jersey. Released on Road Trips, Volume 4, Number 2.
- [51:41]
Rich Mahan
I love how Jerry was talking about how he put the lyrics Hunter had given him to music, saying the words to hear their rhythm, to see what they suggest to him about how it should flow. Such great insight into his writing process. Mason's Children until the Morning Comes could almost be the last vestiges of an old self that the Dead were shedding from their musical past. Lots of similarities between those two tunes. Thanks very much for tuning in. Please visit us over@dead.net deadcast be well and be kind. See you next episode. Executive producers for the good old Grateful Dead cast Mark Pincus and Doron Tyson. Produced for Rhino Entertainment by Rich Mahan Productions and Jesse Jarno. Special thanks to David Lemieux. All rights reserved.