• https://www.dead.net/features/greatest-stories-ever-told/greatest-stories-ever-told-brokedown-palace
    Greatest Stories Ever Told - "Brokedown Palace"

    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!)

    "Brokedown Palace"

    A few days ago, I was lucky enough to be at a backyard house concert featuring Mark Karan, playing acoustic and mostly solo. He ended his show with a beautiful version of “Brokedown Palace.” A friend of mine, standing next to me, turned to me when it was over and said, “Just in case—that’s the song I want played at my memorial service.” I told him, “Me, too.”

    I have heard it played at a couple of memorial services over the years, always to excellent effect. It’s a song that begs to be sung again and again, and there have been some excellent cover versions over the years, including, in particular, versions by Joan Osborne, found on her album, Pretty Little Stranger, and a gorgeous instrumental version by Jeff Chimenti with Fog.

    The lyric to “Brokedown Palace” was written by Robert Hunter as part of a suite of songs that arrived via his pen during a stay in London in 1970. He entitled it “Broke-Down Palace,” and now that it exists as a piece of writing, it seems to have always existed. It was composed on the same afternoon as “Ripple” and “To Lay Me Down,” with the aid of a half bottle of retsina.

    Its first performance was on August 18, 1970, at the Fillmore West in San Francisco, and became a staple of the live repertoire. After the 1974 hiatus, “Brokedown Palace” appeared almost exclusively as the closing song of the show, as an encore. It had the effect of sending us out of the show on a gentle pillow of sound, the band bidding us “Fare you well, fare you well…”

    The story the song may be telling for any one of us is wide open. Hunter doesn’t give us much. The song can be a song to someone departed from life, or just from the relationship with the singer. Or maybe the singer is departing, and possibly departing this life, or possibly departing a relationship. Some have suggested it is a song about reincarnation, and the journey through existences (“…many worlds I’ve come since I first left home”). So, regardless, the song appeals to us repeatedly throughout changing life circumstances and, in different contexts, rings true over and over again. (I’ve harped on this idea of hearing a lyric differently at different points in our lives repeatedly over the course of my dead.net posts, but it’s kind of a major theme, I think. Let me know if I should stop pointing this out….)

    For me, the “many worlds” line always spoke to experiences I had inside the many worlds to be found in the human brain, when we can unlock those experiences. Enough said about that, although I suspect several of you may wish to share stories about your own “many worlds.”

    In The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics, I quote from a note I received from a reader, recounting hearing Ken Kesey speak at the University of Virginia in 1998. I just spent a little time tracking down a transcript of that talk, and here’s the part about “Brokedown Palace”:

    I lost my son in a wrestling accident. On the way to a wrestling meet, the van went off a cliff. I remember the feeling….I’ll get back to that… ok I’ll tell it….You know, if anybody knows the song "Broke Down Palace," (fair thee well, fair thee well, I love you more than words can tell), after Jed had been dead a few months we went to see the Dead. They were playing at our opera house. They did their usual stuff and got their big ovations and then, they started playing "Broke Down Palace" and they all turned toward me and all our family was sitting up there. They all turned toward us and the guys in the audience began to turn toward us. And that song was sent from the Grateful Dead to our bruised hearts. And it was like having somebody reach out and putting their hand on your shoulder and saying, "Yeah we feel it." And when it was over there was no applause. Everybody knew it. We were all crying. And how many bands do you know that could do that? Like when Eric Clapton begins to sing "Tears in Heaven," this is real. This isn’t rock and roll. This is the heart speaking out to other people whose hearts have been wounded. And there are a bunch of us.

    While the song does stand alone extremely well, it also inhabits a particular place on the American Beauty album, rising out of “Ripple,” and leading into “Till the Morning Comes.” It echoes bits and pieces of “Box of Rain” (“such a long long time to be gone, and a short time to be there”) and lends emotional background and depth to “Operator.” Even “Truckin’” resonates with “Brokedown Palace”—“Back home, sit down and patch my bones…” The entire suite of songs holds together incredibly well, and I believe that “Brokedown Palace” is the glue.

    The act of planting a weeping willow, of doing something that won’t be fully realized, or grown, in any immediate sense, is a key to the song. While there are plants in other songs on the album (last week I counted eight in “Sugar Magnolia” alone, including a willow), this is the one where the singer plants the tree. Stays. Makes a home—another recurring theme throughout the album. The singer is going to plant a tree by the water’s edge and thereby see continuity and change in one view—the tree standing in one place, “the river roll, roll, roll.” Of course, the tree will “grow, grow, grow,” so it’s not truly standing still, not static, but it is, at least, stable.

    Ready to hear your stories of how this song has resonated for you, what comfort you may have taken from it, or anything else that you might care to relate about “Brokedown Palace.”

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  • juliehell
    10 years 4 months ago
    Greatest Story Ever Told - Promised Land
    I nagged my local record store in 1981 to get me the single Promised Land by Elvis - the one I had heard on the local country station. After 6 months he finally came through. in 1982 at my first Greek show the Dead played Promised Land. Well of course they did....
  • juliehell
    10 years 4 months ago
    Greatest Story Ever Told - Promised Land
    I nagged my local record store in 1981 to get me the single Promised Land by Elvis - the one I had heard on the local country station. After 6 months he finally came through. in 1982 at my first Greek show the Dead played Promised Land. Well of course they did....
  • juliehell
    10 years 4 months ago
    Greatest Story Ever Told - Promised Land
    I nagged my local record store in 1981 to get me the single Promised Land by Elvis - the one I had heard on the local country station. After 6 months he finally came through. in 1982 at my first Greek show the Dead played Promised Land. Well of course they did....
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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!)

"Brokedown Palace"

A few days ago, I was lucky enough to be at a backyard house concert featuring Mark Karan, playing acoustic and mostly solo. He ended his show with a beautiful version of “Brokedown Palace.” A friend of mine, standing next to me, turned to me when it was over and said, “Just in case—that’s the song I want played at my memorial service.” I told him, “Me, too.”

I have heard it played at a couple of memorial services over the years, always to excellent effect. It’s a song that begs to be sung again and again, and there have been some excellent cover versions over the years, including, in particular, versions by Joan Osborne, found on her album, Pretty Little Stranger, and a gorgeous instrumental version by Jeff Chimenti with Fog.

The lyric to “Brokedown Palace” was written by Robert Hunter as part of a suite of songs that arrived via his pen during a stay in London in 1970. He entitled it “Broke-Down Palace,” and now that it exists as a piece of writing, it seems to have always existed. It was composed on the same afternoon as “Ripple” and “To Lay Me Down,” with the aid of a half bottle of retsina.

Its first performance was on August 18, 1970, at the Fillmore West in San Francisco, and became a staple of the live repertoire. After the 1974 hiatus, “Brokedown Palace” appeared almost exclusively as the closing song of the show, as an encore. It had the effect of sending us out of the show on a gentle pillow of sound, the band bidding us “Fare you well, fare you well…”

The story the song may be telling for any one of us is wide open. Hunter doesn’t give us much. The song can be a song to someone departed from life, or just from the relationship with the singer. Or maybe the singer is departing, and possibly departing this life, or possibly departing a relationship. Some have suggested it is a song about reincarnation, and the journey through existences (“…many worlds I’ve come since I first left home”). So, regardless, the song appeals to us repeatedly throughout changing life circumstances and, in different contexts, rings true over and over again. (I’ve harped on this idea of hearing a lyric differently at different points in our lives repeatedly over the course of my dead.net posts, but it’s kind of a major theme, I think. Let me know if I should stop pointing this out….)

For me, the “many worlds” line always spoke to experiences I had inside the many worlds to be found in the human brain, when we can unlock those experiences. Enough said about that, although I suspect several of you may wish to share stories about your own “many worlds.”

In The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics, I quote from a note I received from a reader, recounting hearing Ken Kesey speak at the University of Virginia in 1998. I just spent a little time tracking down a transcript of that talk, and here’s the part about “Brokedown Palace”:

I lost my son in a wrestling accident. On the way to a wrestling meet, the van went off a cliff. I remember the feeling….I’ll get back to that… ok I’ll tell it….You know, if anybody knows the song "Broke Down Palace," (fair thee well, fair thee well, I love you more than words can tell), after Jed had been dead a few months we went to see the Dead. They were playing at our opera house. They did their usual stuff and got their big ovations and then, they started playing "Broke Down Palace" and they all turned toward me and all our family was sitting up there. They all turned toward us and the guys in the audience began to turn toward us. And that song was sent from the Grateful Dead to our bruised hearts. And it was like having somebody reach out and putting their hand on your shoulder and saying, "Yeah we feel it." And when it was over there was no applause. Everybody knew it. We were all crying. And how many bands do you know that could do that? Like when Eric Clapton begins to sing "Tears in Heaven," this is real. This isn’t rock and roll. This is the heart speaking out to other people whose hearts have been wounded. And there are a bunch of us.

While the song does stand alone extremely well, it also inhabits a particular place on the American Beauty album, rising out of “Ripple,” and leading into “Till the Morning Comes.” It echoes bits and pieces of “Box of Rain” (“such a long long time to be gone, and a short time to be there”) and lends emotional background and depth to “Operator.” Even “Truckin’” resonates with “Brokedown Palace”—“Back home, sit down and patch my bones…” The entire suite of songs holds together incredibly well, and I believe that “Brokedown Palace” is the glue.

The act of planting a weeping willow, of doing something that won’t be fully realized, or grown, in any immediate sense, is a key to the song. While there are plants in other songs on the album (last week I counted eight in “Sugar Magnolia” alone, including a willow), this is the one where the singer plants the tree. Stays. Makes a home—another recurring theme throughout the album. The singer is going to plant a tree by the water’s edge and thereby see continuity and change in one view—the tree standing in one place, “the river roll, roll, roll.” Of course, the tree will “grow, grow, grow,” so it’s not truly standing still, not static, but it is, at least, stable.

Ready to hear your stories of how this song has resonated for you, what comfort you may have taken from it, or anything else that you might care to relate about “Brokedown Palace.”

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A few days ago, I was lucky enough to be at a backyard house concert featuring Mark Karan, playing acoustic and mostly solo. He ended his show with a beautiful version of “Brokedown Palace.” A friend of mine, standing next to me, turned to me when it was over and said, “Just in case—that’s the song I want played at my memorial service.” I told him, “Me, too.”

I have heard it played at a couple of memorial services over the years, always to excellent effect. It’s a song that begs to be sung again and again, and there have been some excellent cover versions over the years, including, in particular, versions by Joan Osborne, found on her album, Pretty Little Stranger, and a gorgeous instrumental version by Jeff Chimenti with Fog.

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My wife wants me to sing Brokedown at her memorial when the time comes. I have always imagined it would be very hard, but who knows. maybe the magic will take over and I can glide right through it. Besides, she is six years younger than me, and she can't sing, so maybe it's a moot point. As with most, it is one of our favorites.
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As usual, Dr Dodd has provided an insightful introduction to this exquisite song. Thank you, David. The song is so perfect it seems almost silly to talk about it. The fact that Hunter could write Brokedown Palace *and* those two other timeless gems on the same day is practically a miracle. Was there ever another instance of such a burst of creativity? How many other poets have searched, in vain, for such inspiration in a bottle of retsina? My guess is more than a few. I often felt melancholy around the line “Mama mama, many worlds I’ve come…”. For me, this was about growing apart from my mother. At the time I was first immersing myself in the glories of American Beauty I was only about 18 or 19. But even at that young age I’d had many adventurous experiences, not least with lsd, that I knew I could never possibly share with her, or indeed the rest of my family. I would continue to know and love her but a gap in the psyche and worldview had opened that would remain open until her death. And “...I love you more than words can tell” Doesn’t that perfectly capture the unspeakable nature of real Love? Amazing. Once I planted a weeping willow. That was in the late ‘80s and it was the first time I had cause and opportunity to plant a tree of my own choice. It was not next to a bank’s green edge, but nonetheless how could it not be a weeping willow? That was at Cornell in the front yard of Von Cramm Co-Op. Is there a reader in Ithaca NY who could tell me if it is still there?
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Wow...I love that guy (even though I've never met him...I could say the same about some GD band members!). Certainly an honorary member of the band. That rant of his at the Halloween show after Uncle Bobo died was quite something (New Years Eve intros!). It's funny...I was listening to the studio version of Terrapin (good lyrics!) just a couple of days ago, and I posted it on my facebook page, later adding a comment to the effect that I would like it played at my funeral. A little odd, perhaps, since it seems to be about life rather than the ineffable. Not a 'farewell' sentiment like Brokedown, but like the Palace it has some real emotional depth; for me at least. I can't think of an encore I love more than Brokedown, although Baby Blue is up there. I wouldn't worry about being redundant David. You're right; the 'different contexts and times' idea is a major theme of sorts. I absolutely loved that last paragraph about planting the willow, making a home, and the passage of time. Thanks, and keep writing!
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There is a chance that Brokedown Palace made its live debut on August 17, 1970 at Fillmore West. Yes, Deadbase states that the first "Brokedown" was on 8/18/70. But that is because there is no setlist for the night before. We might never know unless an actual recording surfaces.
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I agree with handjive on the "mama, mama many worlds..." line. It's kind of like when you stop and think of all the little things in life, situations that didnt seem like much at the time but sent your life in a new direction. How did I get here kind of thought, but not in a bad way. Just that inevitable change that separates you from your loved ones...mentally and/or physically.
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I've told my children that The Wheel must be played at my memorial service. To me, it's about moving on, that life continues and even though I'm no longer there, everyone I've left behind should keep moving and trying - cover just a little more ground. And speaking of "covering a little ground", I've also set aside funds for them to travel to many of my favorite places on this earth to scatter a few of my ashes at each so that "I'll always be there". They'll get to travel and maybe gain a little more insight about me seeing the places that held a place in my heart.
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This was a really good encore tune, being played only a handful of times (maybe two handfuls) during the actual show. I'll never forget the time in 81 at Nassau when they did a double-start for Brokedown. Jerry came up to the mike and said "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right." For whatever reason, there were a lot of double-starts to Brokedown through the years.
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At the Bill Graham memorial show The dead are playing a furious jam, and Kesey speaks about his son, and The Dead playing "Brokedown Palace" he then quotes a poem by e.e. cummings and the jam goes really intense. One of the most amazing moments...
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I always loved Brokedown Palace as an encore. I remember a false start they had at the Telluride show in '87. They started out in the wrong key until Garcia comes on the mic and says "wait a minute this is all f%$#!d up". I still laugh when I think of it. So very human. One of my all time favorite songs.
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They did the same thing twice in '85, once at a Red Rocks show and the other in Pittsburgh. They both are Jerry-led goofs and are pretty funny as well.
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Great restart at Telluride when Jerry told the crowd he f*#cked up
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It was played at my first show, but I didn't know it was "Brokedown Palace" until I heard AB. Seguing straight out of Ripple (another song I loved from the moment I heard it), it was one of the best songs I had ever heard. One thing I don't get is why so many people say "fare thee well" when it is "fare YOU well." (only a Deadhead would care, I suppose.) Cassidy's lyrics say "farin' {or fare} thee well now". A great song.
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in its album version to folks who recoil when you mention the group's name. Of course, that doesn't happen as much as it did in the day but this song still goes a long way in starting that process of opening a mind previously closed to anything "Grateful Dead". Also good to open a mind blank to the Dead-I know several Laotian political refugees who have settled here and who never heard of the group-this song on this album along with Workingmans Dead and others started a process of eager discovery. In fact there is a type of old Laotian folk music that reminds me of some of the Dead- in the sense that it is a real musical creation of a place you can inhabit-not just songs that quickly end. It is hard to describe but I think of the Dead's music as a place you can go to and live in for awhile. Their music has a prominent lead, melody line that sometimes resembles Garcia's style as well. In any event "a great little song".
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This song reminds me of the last words of Stonewall Jackson before he passed with his devoted wife at his side... "Presently a smile of ineffable sweetness spread itself over his pale face, and he said quietly, and with an expression, as if of relief, "Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees." Quoted from Dr. Hunter McGuire. "Death of Stonewall Jackson". Southern Historical Society Papers 14 (1886).
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Played this one at open mic the other night and got quite a few compliments from people who'd never before heard the song or knew anything about the Grateful Dead. I usually introduce the song as written by Hunter, but smilingly told one girl who liked it that it was called Gospel Dead. As with Operator and Cassidy, I always like to keep this one dusted off and handy, but I do the intro in the key of D, so that the verses start in G. A bit easier on the fingers and aging voice than the original key. This is the last song I ever heard them play - encore at RFK in '95. After seeing him up close earlier during Dylan's set, I knew that Jerry was dying and told the kid sitting next to me later that this was the last time we'd be seeing him. Sad to say that I was right. Fare you well, indeed. Summer's not been quite the same since.
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Some albums you listen to over and over and American Beauty probably tops my list. Mr. Dodd has nailed it again, the way the songs such as Brokedown can mean different things at different times and the perfection of the suite of images presented by the various songs. The first half of the second side was always the most affective to me, with the validating images of Ripple leading into the intense loneliness of Brokedown before the uplift of the other songs. Brokedown is about aloneness, solitude, living in a world where you’ve said farewell to all the singing birds, even you. Whether this happened because the narrator died (or is dying and is telling us about what’s going to happen, the way I’ve always heard it), because his lover left him and he’s totally bummed, or because of an apocalyptic event doesn’t matter, the point is that he is facing a solitary world beyond. But on further reflection, perhaps this is a return home, and perhaps giving actions like creating a symbol (planting a weeping willow) and singing a lullaby will see us through. And then the morning comes and you realize that you’re not alone in the world and that there’s someone watching out for you while you watch out for her. Maybe this is as simple as the narrator finding a new lover, but I think the first three songs of the second side are parables that work together to tell us that love, validation, and self-sufficiency will all happen … they aren’t always easy and there will be fear and loneliness mixed in, but look for them and you'll find them. I've got to say too that this is one of the most covered Dead songs to my experience. I especially love Ollabelle's and Adrienne Young's versions of this song, both of which are on YouTube.
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Thanks to all for the thoughts on this song. Each week, because of the opportunity to write this blog, I have the gift not only of being able to spend some time thinking in depth about a song, but then the additional and amazing gift of hearing the thoughts of everyone who takes the time to comment on the post. So it's an exponentially enriching experience. I will be very interested, when and if I get through to the end of this project, to then go back and re-read, and then rewrite and rethink yet again. Thanks, everyone, for the ongoing conversation!
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Escaping the town of noise where I work I travel to my small piece of land on the Gila River and always take relief with the sound of the water in gentle rapids. Also the bird songs of morning and evening as the sounds of joy. Have planted hundreds of red willow cuttings for stream bank restoration and stabilization and many times remembered "Brokedown Palace". Goin Home Goin Home. Also an interesting juxtaposition from this song is from Workingmans Dead. Easy Wind- "And the river keeps a talkin but you never heard a word she says." Thank you Pigpen. I also see the word palace as interchangeable with the word temple as an allegory of the ageing human body moving towards the great beyond. Going to leave to brokedown palace. Make myself a bed by the waterside. The river of life always flowing and recharging. The banks green edge as a place of healing and reflection and preparation for the next stage. Neal Cassady didn't die, he just stole another body. American Beauty is a masterpiece for the ages. Jerry's use of pedal steel guitar on Brokedown Palace is poignant. Listen to the river sing sweet songs to rock my soul.
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This song got me through the deaths of my best friend, my mother, and my sister. It's been 9 years. Then I heard Phil speak at Further, All Good 2013. He told everyone to look to the person next to you that you love. I put my arm around my 21 year old niece. He asked that everyone consider organ donation because a fine young man gave him a liver and he was grateful to be alive and singing on stage for us then. I was grateful too. It was beautiful tribute.
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I nagged my local record store in 1981 to get me the single Promised Land by Elvis - the one I had heard on the local country station. After 6 months he finally came through. in 1982 at my first Greek show the Dead played Promised Land. Well of course they did....
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I nagged my local record store in 1981 to get me the single Promised Land by Elvis - the one I had heard on the local country station. After 6 months he finally came through. in 1982 at my first Greek show the Dead played Promised Land. Well of course they did....
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I nagged my local record store in 1981 to get me the single Promised Land by Elvis - the one I had heard on the local country station. After 6 months he finally came through. in 1982 at my first Greek show the Dead played Promised Land. Well of course they did....
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I nagged my local record store in 1981 to get me the single Promised Land by Elvis - the one I had heard on the local country station. After 6 months he finally came through. in 1982 at my first Greek show the Dead played Promised Land. Well of course they did....
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On our way from Minnesota to California my dear friend Melissa and I stumbled into Red Rocks in 1982 - too new to the scene to know this was RED ROCKS and that all 3 nights were sold out. Still we waited in the rain and actually made our way through the school and the cemetery and the searchlights and the parking lot and got to hear a few songs the first night. We thought we were so cool! We could tell our friends we got close enough to hear the band! The second night we found tickets and went to the show. The first set closed with Might As Well. We looked at each other and realized that indeed we had "never had such a good time, in our life before". Maybe we didn't belong there, but there we were. I have a silk screen print of the 1982 Red Rocks shirt in archival framing on my wall - as if I needed a reminder of that oh so special night.
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it sounds like you belonged there just fine.
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This is such a beautiful song. For me, right now, it's got such a warm place in my heart. I'm a college educated army veteran. I'm also a recovering addict. In active adiction, my only "true love" was the drugs. Keep in mind I used for more than half my life. Drugs, heroin was what brought me to "my hands and my knees"....So when I found the program of Narcotics Anonymous, I was able to leave my "brokedown palace". My river is the group of fellow addicts singing sweet songs that truly do rock my soul....I've planted my weeping willow as well, by staying around, and making a change to this new way of life, right beside my "river"....many many world's I've come trying anything and everything I could to stop using, and NA is the only answer I've found, and it's now my home. I can see how this song can mean different things depending on interpretations and metaphors used, but for me, this song is about finally making a change and finding your way, your home. Thank you, and I love each and everyone of you!
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this song is an all time great on its own, but it picked up special meaning for me in 2004. I saw the Dead with Warren Haynes, and they played this song. I bought the CD and was playing it in the car quite a bit that month (actually the show was way better in my memory of the moment than it actually was, according to the recording, but that is for another post).In early 2004, my then 17 yr old, then-troubled son, ran away from home. Details are not important except for 3 things: he stole my hundreds of CDs to sell to fund his travel; we fought an awful lot for years before he ran away; but we always had a good connection via music, especially GD and WSP. He was gone for months, and we rarely heard from him because he knew I would try to come get take him home if I knew where he was. Well, we eventually did convince him to return. I went out west to pick up him. When we got back home and in the car at the airport, BY SHEER COINCIDENCE, the Dead were singing "Momma, momma, many worlds I've known since I've left home" at the very moment when we started the car. The very first words we heard. He thought I planted it that way at first...no way. This may be way too literal interpretation of this lyric, but, it was SO appropriate for me. I have bittersweet memories of that spring and summer when I hear this song now. 12 years later...it is all good between son and me, and has been for a while.
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thanks for telling it!
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*
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I didn't think people actually read many of these posts...I wrote that for myself. I appreciate the comment and feedback. also, how do i delete posts I accidentally post multiple times? I do this occasisonally
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You might be surprised the number of eyes browsing the site...
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i know there are many visitors...just "assumed" most people followed their own interests or posts, or current thread, like the FTW50 thread for several months last year. thanks for commenting
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There are favorite threads, which have essentially become 'catch-all' threads. I am an advocate for diversity and encourage folks to explore and post in other forums besides the 'thread du jour'. I like to go back and look at all the discussions, comments, and insights folks contribute in various topic specific threads. -edit- marye, there is no delete button, only 'edit' and 'reply'. He is asking you to zap his incidental multi-posts (2 and 3 posts immediately prior to mine). 'delete' might be a useful addition...
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16 years 10 months
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that depends on whether you see a delete link. If you do, click it and do what it says. If you don't and you'd really like something you posted gone, send me a PM and I'll deal with it.
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16 years 8 months
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Thanks. No "delete". I was just going to get rid of the duplicates as courtesy to others
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16 years 10 months
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just let me know if there's something you want removed.
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7 years 7 months
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I'm from Argentina, I'm a deadhead since a long time now, and I just want to thank you for making this website. I'd never been in a Dead show, and I think I'll never be in at least a Dead & Co or Bobby solo show. That's why these kind of stories are so good to my soul. Maybe some day all the gods will get together and decide that Bobby will come to Buenos Aires to perform, but for now, I only have my records and these kind of stories. Thank you again.
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16 years 9 months
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I am not sure if this is true or not. I was told that this song was written when Jerry's mom was dying. His mom, Ruth Garcia died on September 28, 1970, and the song was introduced in August of 1970. The dates seem to be on the mark. True or not, this song hits a nerve in my soul and I find it oh so comforting.
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6 years 10 months
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Does anyone happen to know what show Kesey attended after Jed had passed? I would love to hear that BDP sometime, till then, I'll keep digging. (~);}
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6 years 5 months
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My oldest friend Laura recently died of pancreatic cancer. She didn't want a wake and funeral. She wanted a party. So we had a sort of reception where many of us talked about her. I talked about a picture I took about 35 years ago of her dancing next to a river. She had no idea I was there with my camera. When I think about the line "Listen to the river sing sweet songs, to rock my soul." I think of Laura, dancing alone, next to a river, to music only she was hearing. Laura, "Fare you well, fare you well, I love you more than words can tell..." David
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16 years 8 months
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special friend, perfect memories. great song to connect them. I'm smiling for you right now. I am sorry for your loss at the same time.
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4 years 9 months
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A lovely sad song that sounds like it always existed, how many songs are there about going down to the river to die? It has Delta Blues themes with perfectly worded Scottish folk Incredible String Bandesque words. Deeply cathartic, beautiful.

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1 year 9 months
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This song, to me, does serve as a song of departure and loss , but it resolves the trauma by acknowledgement , rest, loyalty, security , listening. loving. returning, singing lullabies, etc. a timeless masterpiece for sure