Like it or hate it?

[SpaceHippie721]

Personally i really really like it! I've been trying to learn this song on and off for years and it still escapes me. I just joined this forum today (wish I would've sooner) and saw some new ways to play these chords so i'm excited to try it again. From what i've read i don't think Jerry was offended. This song is dark but it does point to the heart of any addiction. Same thing in Throwing Stones. Look at the world around you, look at the people who's lives are ruined and lost to drugs. Those people are your friends, your neighbors and your family, maybe even yourself. Get to the heart of the issue and you can finally start to embark on fixing it, as a whole.

[Rusty the Scoob]

Welcome!

I like it, but don't love it.

[jdsmodulus]

Welcome, Love it! Victim may have pointed at Jerry at times but I dont think it was written about him. I have read in some of the newer books that "patience runs out on a junkie" was a line Jerry had wished Weir would change, maybe not because of him but the scene as a whole. Just my thoughts anyways.

[Chuckles]

http://artsites.ucsc.edu/GDead/AGDL/votc.html

[jdsmodulus]

That would be what I read! Thanks for posting.

[tigerstrat]

Probably the best Weir tune of the final 12 or so years of the band.

[strumminsix]

Love it!

I recall an interview with Garcia when he said something to the effect of not really knowing the lyrics and really liking the song!

[Rusty the Scoob]

Good read, thanks Chuckles!

I like the tune a little more now. Also I agree with TS... can't think of a better original Weir tune from 85 or so onward.

[bodiddley]

Love it...wished they woulda morphed into some more spacy weirdness on the outro. Love the Scarlet>Victim>Fire they did with Hornsby.

http://www.archive.org/details/gd1991-0 ... eok.flac48

[tigerstrat]

Alpine, WI http://www.archive.org/details/gd89-07-19.sbd.437.sbeok.shnf

Hamilton, ON http://www.archive.org/details/gd90-03-21.sbd.heath.5307.sbeok.shnf

Richfield, OHhttp://www.archive.org/details/gd1991-09-06.sbd.miller.95314.sbeok.flac16

[mttourpro]

I remember seeing that Victim in Hamilton and thinking that they "made it explode".
Truly epic.

[mttourpro]

Good read, thanks Chuckles!

I like the tune a little more now. Also I agree with TS... can't think of a better original Weir tune from 85 or so onward.

Wasn't it actually a Kingfish tune?

[DRDS93]

This one has grown on me over the years. Just heard an old interview with Garcia on XM this morning and he seemed to really like the song from a musical standpoint. I don't think he cared about the lyrics Bob sang all that much.

[tcsned]

It's funny, I was listening to the GD channel on XM and they had an on interview with Jerry about that tune - he really liked it musically and never said anything negative about the lyrics from the snippet I heard. I always liked the song - musically it's among the most interesting things Wier composed. It trippy, twisted, and cool. I remember all the uproar over it on tour when it first came out and I never really got the furor. Sure the lyrics are dark but wtf? What's wrong with that? Songs about bunnies and flowers and shit usually really suck. I think it was a lot of projecting people did on Jerry or Brent or whoever and the song, as it's author has said, has nothing to do with any of them. Most songs like most poems aren't about what people think. I don't try to look too deeply at them other than as cool imagery and a cool turn of phrase. I did a couple of semesters as an English major back when I was an undergrad and thought that most literary analysis was bullshit and these "critics" had no idea what the author was thinking but spent a lot of time pontificating about what the author was thinking. Even asking the author doesn't always yield a truthful response - though Gerrit Graham's article seems pretty plausible to me. It's funny that a lyric like that came from the same guy who wrote some of the dialogue for "The Little Mermaid"

It's funny that people were trying to protect Jerry from hearing the word "junkie" - Jerry didn't strike me as the sensitive type who would crumble in a teary pile from a word. From the interview on XM he seemed baffled by all the opposition to the tune and didn't give a fuck he liked playing guitar to it.

[waldo041]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3X6LNOjvYRs

this one kinda gets away from them!

peace,
waldo