It surely looks like rain
Thank you, Bobby
It’s becoming clear to me that I see America through Grateful Dead tinted glasses. Their songwriting touches into a flavor of Americana that may have existed at one point in time in this country, but certainly not in my lifetime. If you’ve read Kerouac’s “On the Road” you’ve dipped your toe into that world. Poker games, adventures on horseback through the desert, and dances under the stars on the Northern California coast.
It feels old-timey and modern all at once, and it somehow still exists on a different plane, through a thin veil broken by the turning of a volume knob. On Saturday night, when Bob Weir, the youngest of the original Dead members joined the great gig in the sky, it felt like a piece of the Cosmic Americana that he helped create also passed into the next realm. Like a satellite launched into space with no intention of returning, the contrails echoing and reverberating, the music of the Grateful Dead simultaneously faded and got a little louder. It was another reminder that when the mortal vessels who wrote this music have left us, all we’ll have left is this thick, well-worn songbook.
That music seeped into my life when I was in middle school, a few years after Jerry Garcia had already left this world. While many people my age got into the Dead because of their parents or older siblings, I was turned on to them by a group of musician friends. Looking back, it feels like a happy accident because at that time in the early 2000s, it wasn’t really “cool” for middle schoolers to be Deadheads. Luckily, my younger brother got what was happening with the music, too, and joined me for the ride. In a way, it became our secret shared language, over which we could bond and apply to our respective musical learnings.
Since the actual “Grateful Dead” was no more, I kind of felt like I had missed it. Then, in 2004, “The Dead” (all of the original living members with a few bonus players) announced that they’d be hitting the road together. I felt like I was being given a golden opportunity to see this music live. In the 20 years since that sticky June evening in northern Virginia, I’ve taken every opportunity I could to experience these musical masters and storytellers live in whatever configuration they’d bless us with.
Because the thing I realized is, Bobby and the rest of the Dead were and are more than musicians playing music. They’re transmitting a cultural happening. They captured a spirit and an essence that words fall short of explaining. It has to be heard and felt and seen. It’s as timeless as we choose for it to be. It isn’t just “summer of love hippy music,” nor is it just “classic rock.” It’s a rich and long chapter in the ever changing and evolving Great American Songbook. It’s original and new and also deeply nostalgic. For me, the nostalgia is for a time and place that only exists in my soul and in my heart. I haven’t physically set foot there, and yet I know it so well and I know that someday I’ll return there again.
Yes, the skeleton iconography and even the band name itself dramatically nods to death, but it’s always been a celebration of life, and it reminds us that this physical life is just part of the journey. There is still an even bigger adventure that we can all take together into the unknown of the cosmos. And now, Bobby has finally taken his trustfall into the space that he’d been conjuring through musical expression for the last 60 years.
When I took Levina to the Sphere in 2024 to see Dead and Co., one of the last songs they played was “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” and as Bobby’s face was projected on that massive dome, I don’t think the irony of the song was lost on any of the thousands of souls there that night. My cheeks were soaked with tears as I sat with the possibility that that would be my last time seeing Bobby live.
Those tears were flavored with sadness, but also with joy and gratitude for being able to experience this music with thousands of other people, all feeling their own emotions tied to the band and their music. It was the people, the fans, that I began thinking about when I considered the moment when the last original member of the Dead passed on. Where will we go? Who will be the lead torch bearer for this legacy? There are plenty of bands who have been playing Grateful Dead music for years and I have no doubt that will continue, but like the great tall tales of Paul Bunyan, John Henry, and Johnny Appleseed, perhaps the Grateful Dead will be folded into bedtime stories and fables about a time that has come and gone. Parents will tell their children about Tennessee Jed, and older siblings will tell their younger siblings about Dark Star.
It’s up to each soul touched by this happening to continue sharing the stories and music. The band lit a match, but it’s up to us to keep the flame burning.
I mourn the fact that I’ll never get to see Bobby snarl into the microphone again, snidely smiling from underneath his beard. But I deeply celebrate the fact that his music will continue ringing in my ears. That eternal flame of the Grateful Dead flickered a little Saturday night as Bobby’s spirit whooshed by at breakneck speeds, but just for a moment. Like a dutiful soldier, it snapped back to attention and continued to burn and steadily hum.
Thank you for your lessons, your music, and your heart, Bobby.
A couple other things Bob Weir related (and not)
This version of Bobby’s “Looks Like Rain” is really beautiful
I love this cover of Bobby’s “Greatest Story Every Told” by the Persuasions
This song from Bobby’s 2016 album feels like a tender goodbye letter
My Spring breathwork schedule (private and corporate) is starting to fill up. Drop me a line if you’d like to schedule an experience.
I’m leaving today for a 10-day silent retreat in Mexico, so pardon any delays in getting back to you.
Thanks for reading and for being you,
C