[Jon S.]

Many of us have read Robert Hunter's brilliant response to Jurgen Fauth's essay, "The Fractals of Familiarity and Innovation: Robert Hunter and the Grateful Dead concert experience."

But fewer of us, I find, have read Fauth's essay itself.

As a Deadhead and lyricist, I strongly recommend reading both back to back. Both men express themselves beautifully and there's a lot to unpack and ponder in their mutually respectful exchange.

https://annotated.duffeyclan.com/Fracta ... essay.html

https://www.scribd.com/document/3256544 ... dead-songs

EDIT: this version of Hunter's response is ad free: https://www.icmag.com/threads/franklins ... gs.182708/

[Chocol8]

Fractal makes great modelers, but I prefer tubes or captures if I am going digital.


Just kidding, bookmarked for future reading!

[Jon S.]

Thanks for being the first of 323 viewers to respond to this thread!

I accept that most folks would rather discuss whether the distance from the middle of the middle humbucker to the nut should be 22.15" versus 22.25" than Robert Hunter's methods and the intricacies of his lyrics.

But if we truly want to understand, appreciate, and (for us songwriters) reproduce the magic that is the Grateful Dead, Hunter's lyricism is a wonderful entry point.

I myself have learned so much from Hunter that I try (with varying levels of success) to incorporate into my own writing.

I don't agree with every opinion Hunter's expressed.

For example, I strongly disagree that the highest value a message song has is to highlight the paucity of its writer's literary resources (as he expressed in his responsive essay that I linked to in my OP). That would relegate songs like Ohio (CSN&Y), Monster (Steppenwolf), More Trouble Every Day (Frank Zappa), and perhaps even the Weir/Barlow classic, Throwing Stones to be of secondary value, a position with which I nonconcur (though to be fair to Hunter, I believe what he criticized were "blatant" message songs - perhaps he had a hierarchy for them within which the examples I cited would rise to the top).

But truly, to paraphrase Hunter, when the semiotician suspects allusiveness without referentiality and mislabels that as "meaningless," it does all of us a disservice.

[Chocol8]

I haven't read either essay (yet) and in general, I have not read much of anything from Hunter other than his lyrics. It's funny but after all these years, I know much more about a number of the members of the crew than I do about either Hunter or Barlow. I should change that!