• https://www.dead.net/features/greatest-stories-ever-told/greatest-stories-ever-told-let-me-sing-your-blues-away
    Greatest Stories Ever Told - "Let Me Sing Your Blues Away"

    By David Dodd

    Here’s the plan—each week, I will blog about a different song, focusing, usually, on the lyrics, but also on some other aspects of the song, including its overall impact—a truly subjective thing. Therefore, the best part, I would hope, would not be anything in particular that I might have to say, but rather, the conversation that may happen via the comments over the course of time—and since all the posts will stay up, you can feel free to weigh in any time on any of the songs! With Grateful Dead lyrics, there’s always a new and different take on what they bring up for each listener, it seems. (I’ll consider requests for particular songs—just private message me!)

    “Let Me Sing Your Blues Away”

    Keith Godchaux’s setting of Robert Hunter’s words in “Let Me Sing Your Blues Away” suits the mood perfectly. The full-treatment arrangement it receives on Wake of the Flood highlights the song’s classic feel—a song you think you must have heard before, somewhere, maybe on a car radio listening to the top ten...long ago, maybe.

    Godchaux, pianist of amazing talent, was born and died in the month of July. Born July 19, 1948; died July 23, 1980.

    Perspective is everything when it comes to age and aging. Think about how old Keith was when he joined the band in 1971: just 23. This song, his only contribution of an original number to the Dead’s repertoire, has him singing: “When I was a young man, I needed good luck…” and I’m pretty sure Hunter was consciously writing those words for Keith to sing. Perhaps, in Hunter’s way, he was writing a song that would ring true for the singer for years to come; perhaps imagining Keith singing the song at 30, at 40, at 50. But he was only 25 when the song was recorded or released, and he died at just barely 32.

    I’ve been thinking a lot about Keith. He was the piano player when I started following the Dead, and at the time, I was playing a lot of piano, so he was the first in a series of keyboardists whose work I scrutinized and enjoyed. At that time, two other prominent piano players named Keith commanded my attention along with Godchaux: Emerson and Jarrett. (I remember thinking, when Bruce Hornsby joined the band for awhile, that they finally had that Keith Jarrett sound in the band.) Godchaux seemed able, effortlessly, to add just the right touch, the perfect little fill in the right place. His early playing was so incredibly tasty and mind-blowing, that it became tough, as his tenure with the band drew to a close, to listen—or more, to watch, as he seemed to be asleep at the keyboard. Sure, there were always still flashes of brilliance, but it seemed like an echo.

    Keith joined the band at the famous, to me, October 19, 1971 show at Northrup Auditorium on the University of Minnesota campus in Minneapolis, where the band debuted a string of new songs, six in all. DeadBase X actually lists two rehearsal sessions with Keith, on September 30, and again on October 1, in Santa Venetia, California (really unincorporated San Rafael…). Less than three weeks later, there he was onstage, a band member.

    “Let Me Sing Your Blues Away” was performed live for the first time on September 8, 1973, at Nassau Veterans Memorial in Uniondale, NY. The other first in the show was “Weather Report Suite, Part I.” “Let Me Sing” opened the second set. It was played a total of six times, all in September 1973, seeing its last performance on September 21 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia. On each of those performances, after the first one, the horn player Martin Fierro played on the song. (DeadBase X does contain a gap, showing a performance on September 18 in Syracuse, New York, which lacks a set list. Seems likely they played it then, too, so—make it seven performances even. I fully expect this article to elicit a comment from someone who has that show on tape, and can share the set list!)

    It was released on Wake of the Flood on November 15, 1973.

    Hunter’s lyric is built for nostalgia from the get-go, with its first-line reference to a dated word for an automobile: “hack.” I mean, does anyone say “Hop in the hack”? Did they ever? Doesn’t matter (though I am curious). That feeling of freedom you get from being in a car, from being a young man in a car, playing the car radio, is something I can almost taste—thinking about driving my sister-in-law’s Mustang during my last year in high school, when she generously (or foolishly) entrusted it to me for a time. “I’m here to drive those blues away,” he sings, and he does mean “drive.” With a car. The song is full of lines about cars:

    Well hop in the hack
    Turn on the key
    Pop in the clutch
    Let the wheels roll free

    and

    It don’t matter much
    Pick any gear
    Grind you a pound and
    drop the rear

    I imagine, years after I have written and published the annotated lyrics book, that the lines using the device “one for the money,” etc., owe their origin to something earlier than “Blue Suede Shoes,” but that’s the song I hear playing in the background with these lines, just as I do in “U.S. Blues,” where they are echoed again. A tiny bit of work online reveals this note referencing The Annotated Mother Goose (p. 259):

    One to make ready
    And two to prepare
    good luck to the rider
    And away goes the mare.

    The annotation says this is 'a race starting jingle, the forerunner of the modern 'one for the money, two for the show, three to make ready and four to go!’

    So the construction has its origins in horse-racing. “Two for the show” could refer to the third-place entry in a horse race, I suppose, too. But as usual, these kinds of persnickety speculations don’t really reveal all that much in the way of meaning…

    Hunter’s lovely line about only loving two things in this world: “rock and roll and my turtle dove,” can only be a reference to Donna Jean Godchaux, written by Hunter for Keith to sing.

    Sadly, Gochaux died in an automobile accident. I guess I can only hope that he was humming to himself a line from his own song: “Honey, walk that walk with style and grace. This ain’t no knock-down, drag-out race.”

    Tell a story about cars. About racing. About Keith. Three to get ready and four to fly...

    361046

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  • One Man
    10 years 2 months ago
    Wake Outtakes
    I must belatedly direct you toward the album outtakes here: https://archive.org/details/gd73-08-xx.sbd-wotf.davef.2522.sbeok.shnf to hear Keith's tune without the embellishments. His voice is live, not double-tracked, and you can really hear what he was going for. I love this.
  • Deadicated
    10 years 7 months ago
    Casey Jones
    Before Keith is forgotten again, is this the number one best GD song? I will always like the Workingman's version - it has its charm. It is, however, Keithless. Granted there were classic versions before his arrival - 7/02/71, for one - but, my God the molars started grindin' when the boys were vampin' on the C/B-flat/f!!! Lord have mercy!Keith rocked out seriously. Can't wait 'til October.
  • Strider 808808
    10 years 7 months ago
    49er
    Space is the place. Quirky, surreal, bad and beautiful record. Again like Anthem, the album cover sets the tone. Greens and blues. Rick Griffin dream land. Keith was great at his best. The album brings me back to 1973 and my first journey to New Mexico. Martin Fierro and Jimmy Carl Black both had roots in El Paso and Anthony, New Mexico. Thank you Keith. Happy Birthday Jerry.
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By David Dodd

Here’s the plan—each week, I will blog about a different song, focusing, usually, on the lyrics, but also on some other aspects of the song, including its overall impact—a truly subjective thing. Therefore, the best part, I would hope, would not be anything in particular that I might have to say, but rather, the conversation that may happen via the comments over the course of time—and since all the posts will stay up, you can feel free to weigh in any time on any of the songs! With Grateful Dead lyrics, there’s always a new and different take on what they bring up for each listener, it seems. (I’ll consider requests for particular songs—just private message me!)

“Let Me Sing Your Blues Away”

Keith Godchaux’s setting of Robert Hunter’s words in “Let Me Sing Your Blues Away” suits the mood perfectly. The full-treatment arrangement it receives on Wake of the Flood highlights the song’s classic feel—a song you think you must have heard before, somewhere, maybe on a car radio listening to the top ten...long ago, maybe.

Godchaux, pianist of amazing talent, was born and died in the month of July. Born July 19, 1948; died July 23, 1980.

Perspective is everything when it comes to age and aging. Think about how old Keith was when he joined the band in 1971: just 23. This song, his only contribution of an original number to the Dead’s repertoire, has him singing: “When I was a young man, I needed good luck…” and I’m pretty sure Hunter was consciously writing those words for Keith to sing. Perhaps, in Hunter’s way, he was writing a song that would ring true for the singer for years to come; perhaps imagining Keith singing the song at 30, at 40, at 50. But he was only 25 when the song was recorded or released, and he died at just barely 32.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Keith. He was the piano player when I started following the Dead, and at the time, I was playing a lot of piano, so he was the first in a series of keyboardists whose work I scrutinized and enjoyed. At that time, two other prominent piano players named Keith commanded my attention along with Godchaux: Emerson and Jarrett. (I remember thinking, when Bruce Hornsby joined the band for awhile, that they finally had that Keith Jarrett sound in the band.) Godchaux seemed able, effortlessly, to add just the right touch, the perfect little fill in the right place. His early playing was so incredibly tasty and mind-blowing, that it became tough, as his tenure with the band drew to a close, to listen—or more, to watch, as he seemed to be asleep at the keyboard. Sure, there were always still flashes of brilliance, but it seemed like an echo.

Keith joined the band at the famous, to me, October 19, 1971 show at Northrup Auditorium on the University of Minnesota campus in Minneapolis, where the band debuted a string of new songs, six in all. DeadBase X actually lists two rehearsal sessions with Keith, on September 30, and again on October 1, in Santa Venetia, California (really unincorporated San Rafael…). Less than three weeks later, there he was onstage, a band member.

“Let Me Sing Your Blues Away” was performed live for the first time on September 8, 1973, at Nassau Veterans Memorial in Uniondale, NY. The other first in the show was “Weather Report Suite, Part I.” “Let Me Sing” opened the second set. It was played a total of six times, all in September 1973, seeing its last performance on September 21 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia. On each of those performances, after the first one, the horn player Martin Fierro played on the song. (DeadBase X does contain a gap, showing a performance on September 18 in Syracuse, New York, which lacks a set list. Seems likely they played it then, too, so—make it seven performances even. I fully expect this article to elicit a comment from someone who has that show on tape, and can share the set list!)

It was released on Wake of the Flood on November 15, 1973.

Hunter’s lyric is built for nostalgia from the get-go, with its first-line reference to a dated word for an automobile: “hack.” I mean, does anyone say “Hop in the hack”? Did they ever? Doesn’t matter (though I am curious). That feeling of freedom you get from being in a car, from being a young man in a car, playing the car radio, is something I can almost taste—thinking about driving my sister-in-law’s Mustang during my last year in high school, when she generously (or foolishly) entrusted it to me for a time. “I’m here to drive those blues away,” he sings, and he does mean “drive.” With a car. The song is full of lines about cars:

Well hop in the hack
Turn on the key
Pop in the clutch
Let the wheels roll free

and

It don’t matter much
Pick any gear
Grind you a pound and
drop the rear

I imagine, years after I have written and published the annotated lyrics book, that the lines using the device “one for the money,” etc., owe their origin to something earlier than “Blue Suede Shoes,” but that’s the song I hear playing in the background with these lines, just as I do in “U.S. Blues,” where they are echoed again. A tiny bit of work online reveals this note referencing The Annotated Mother Goose (p. 259):

One to make ready
And two to prepare
good luck to the rider
And away goes the mare.

The annotation says this is 'a race starting jingle, the forerunner of the modern 'one for the money, two for the show, three to make ready and four to go!’

So the construction has its origins in horse-racing. “Two for the show” could refer to the third-place entry in a horse race, I suppose, too. But as usual, these kinds of persnickety speculations don’t really reveal all that much in the way of meaning…

Hunter’s lovely line about only loving two things in this world: “rock and roll and my turtle dove,” can only be a reference to Donna Jean Godchaux, written by Hunter for Keith to sing.

Sadly, Gochaux died in an automobile accident. I guess I can only hope that he was humming to himself a line from his own song: “Honey, walk that walk with style and grace. This ain’t no knock-down, drag-out race.”

Tell a story about cars. About racing. About Keith. Three to get ready and four to fly...

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Every Dead (or Dead related) show I've been to, I've NEVER seen anybody wearing or selling a Keith Godchaux T-shirt! Lots and lots of Jerry shirts. Occasional Phil, Bobby & Pigpens shirts. Only one for Billy and Mickey......... But we have yet to have our first t shirt with Keith's image! That famous photo above is the exact image I'd love on the shirt. Anyone who can make it?? By the way I recall once asking ex-Phil Lesh & Friends member (and current Dark Star Orchestra member) Rob Baracco, if they'll ever break out the song "Let Me Sing Your Blues Away." He told me no, because Phil refuses to do it!!!! I wonder why....
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Perhaps he was driving a cab? ("Hop in the hack")
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What a nice song! I've always liked it a lot. Not sure I have much to say, but I thought I'd chime in with a little stream-of-consciousness musing. I was looking at cars in the Siam Paragon mall in Bangkok last night; there are Lamborghini, Maserati and Rolls Royce shops...and a nice Lotus on display (just for starters). A little bit of a contrast with the overnight bus I rode to get here the night before, but I was listening to the second disc of Europe '72, vol. 2 in the wee hours on my Bose headphones, and the interchange between Bobby and Pigpen at the end of Not Fade blew me away. I'm a Brent guy because that's the era I saw them in, and he was awesome...but I've spent millions (?) of hours soaking up the Keith-era stuff, and I am reminded that everyone in the band plays a part, and that when the music is awesome, everyone shares the credit. It's easy to say Keith's playing was inspired and brilliant at times (moreso in the early 70s) and less so at times (mostly later), but even Jerry was just 'one of the guys', as I was reminded by a friend and former boss who started seeing them in '78. Of course, by the time I got on the bus, there was a bit of a Jerry cult going, but that's beside the point. Rock on, Keith! Wake of the Flood...
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I saw DSO do this song at the GAMH a few years ago. I don't have a specific memory, but I assume he must have sang it.
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In the circles of my youth in early seventies Brisbane it was common to refer to a taxi as a hack. Although I never heard anyone say, "hop in the hack". I suspect Hunter used "hop" to bring in the rock 'n' roll theme, but it also has a nice echo in the freight train riding worlds of Jimmie Rodgers and Woody Guthrie. Keith's playing in 72 / 73 / 74 was outstanding.
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Absolutely one of my favorite songs. I've probably spent more time laughing over this tune and lyrics than any song ever written by anybody. In fact, I think I'll go put that CD on the stereo right now... Here Comes Sunshine's sounding pretty nice too...and if those two songs together don't sing your blues away, then I just don't know what will! Peace.
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This song isn't, I'm afraid, one of my favourites. It has never worked for me, I've always found it disjointed and awkward. Having said that, I think that getting Keith Godchaux into the band was an excellent idea as he added a great deal to the band's sound, and I think he was an essential part of the band's sound during my favourite period of their three-decade life: late 1971 to late 1974. Listening to the live recordings of those years brings home what a marvellous contribution he made. And unlike some of the band's fans, I have no objection to Donna Godchaux's singing, even her call in 'Playing in the Band' which drives some folks quite mad. Keith's death in 1980 was a sad loss. Having had a rough time in the band at the end of the 1970s -- and it is sad to hear how lifeless Keith's playing had became -- it is truly awful that having made what I think was a necessary break, Keith and Donna were hit by tragedy. I'm sure that having put the tough times of the late 1970s behind them, Keith and Donna could have made a good musical contribution, and that Keith's playing could once again have taken off like it did at its best. Sadly that wasn't to be.
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It's remarkable that this song is so unique, yet fits so well into the repertoire surrounding Wake of the Flood. I always loved it and wished there were more live versions. Is there a really good one? I also wished that Keith had taken the lead vocal role (or even backing vocal) more often. He could sing our blues away, why not try some other songs? I'm going to listen to Wake today. It's been a while.
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David, I was at the 9/17/73 show in Syracuse and the auditorium was not full. They didn't perform on the 18th.
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Gans played it fairly early on in the GDHours' beginning...one of my first 5 live GD cassettes... the WRSuite that comes after is EPIC as well... Martin Fierro GOES BANANAS during the Let It Grow jam... (it's not for everyone, as has been stated by many heads...) personally, i've always REALLY dug Let Me Sing... it's a tune that's been with me since "the bus came by..." Garcia & Donna Jean seem to be reeeeally diggin' it on 9.15 as well, adding to it's 'Best Version' status for me... ~ace.
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Does anyone no why Jerry stuck strictly to strats from the time Keith joined the band until late '73? Love Keith. Those spaces in late '71 when Billy would crash his little cymbal and then ring those bells, Jerry crawlin' and climbin' with Keith striking a note here, a note there. Ah, what a world that was.
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Funny, but I've been thinking a lot about Keith lately, too, but mostly because of his mystique. Like many of us who were born too late to see the band live in the '70s, I was raised on the '76/'77 Betty boards and it wasn't until later that I realized that he was struggling during this time despite his brilliant (at least to me) playing, or that his real brilliance shown through most vividly in the first few years of his tenure, which is obvious now that I've had more time to listen. And he loved to rev up Pigpen back then, which was awesome. Early on, it was always strange to juxtapose my live experiences with Brent and Vince with these tapes, because as awesome as these guys were it wasn't the jazzy grand piano vibe, alternately restrained for flourish and melodically explosive, that I was used to hearing. Instead, it was more the explosive, head-on rock vibe; improvisational, too, which was great, but I've always felt like if I'd been there for the whole ride I'd be able to come down on the '70s side with some sense of authority. But since I wasn't there: mystique! Of course, I've heard from older heads about how by '78 KG would be ushered to his seat and exasperate the band, but the guy I still see in my head is the one that David posted, gently smiling with as much triumph as a guy like him could muster, believing in his talent yet still unassuming and unsure. Like most of us. I'd love to hear more from folks who were at these shows to get a better sense of who he was.
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Given a fresh listen, I am struck by how complex this song is musically. Sure, it sounds goofy with that cartoon voice singing the whimsical words, but how many key changes happen? I know nothing about playing sax -- how difficult is it to modulate like that?
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In all my years of obsession with the GD, I have never heard his speaking voice. He and Donna's interview weren't included in the GD movie because, what i have read, Donna said they were both "absolutely flying on acid." from the time he joined the GD through the "retirement" in 74 he was awesome. After that he was much more "supportive" in his playing. In any case, I know extremely little about KG. LMSYBA has never done anything for me. However, it is one more song published than I have written. God bless Keith.
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great album, albeit...kinda...soft...at times. The cover art is one (two actually...front and back) i wish I had on a t shirt. LMSYBA sounded pretty good; much better than when I first heard it back in 82.
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12 years 7 months
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I used to skip this song quite a bit. Yes, I am a hypocrite because I said I never Skip songs...well, I dont anymore and I love this song now. I always thought Keiths playing was great, pre/post hiatus, but I did always think it was weird that he never seemed into it. I mean, not everyone has to dance around like Mick Jagger but c'mon, smile a little. There is a part from the live in Egypt DVD where Phil is really having fun and looking like he is about to smack Keith in the face with his bass, jokingly of course but Keith just sits there...not even a flinch. Keith, you were an amazing musician but very mysterious. I hope you enjoyed your time with the GD, more than what you showed.
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Cryptical70 Phil and Friends played the entire Wake of the Flood on 11-7-12 when they showed up in Montclair, New Jersey soon after Hurricane Sandy hit. Class act! Peace
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Space is the place. Quirky, surreal, bad and beautiful record. Again like Anthem, the album cover sets the tone. Greens and blues. Rick Griffin dream land. Keith was great at his best. The album brings me back to 1973 and my first journey to New Mexico. Martin Fierro and Jimmy Carl Black both had roots in El Paso and Anthony, New Mexico. Thank you Keith. Happy Birthday Jerry.
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Before Keith is forgotten again, is this the number one best GD song? I will always like the Workingman's version - it has its charm. It is, however, Keithless. Granted there were classic versions before his arrival - 7/02/71, for one - but, my God the molars started grindin' when the boys were vampin' on the C/B-flat/f!!! Lord have mercy!Keith rocked out seriously. Can't wait 'til October.