Monday, June 6, 2011

The Grateful Dead



From what I have found, The Grateful Dead (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grateful_Dead) have at least two songs with mentions of the Nights: "What's Become of the Baby?" and "Blues for Allah." Both songs interestingly, well perhaps not that interestingly, conflate the Nights with a Romanticized notion of Islam.

Here are the relevant song lyrics with links to a cool UC Santa Cruz academic website about the Dead and their songs:

"What's Become of the Baby?"

From the album: AOXOMOXOA (1969). Song: http://artsites.ucsc.edu/GDead/agdl/baby.html

"Sheherazade gathering stories to tell
from primal gold fantasy petals that fall
But where is the child
who played with the sun chimes
and chased the cloud sheep
to the regions of rhyme?"

Here's a mix of the song (can you smell the patchouli?!):



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"Blues for Allah"

From the Album: Blues for Allah (1975)

http://artsites.ucsc.edu/GDead/agdl/allah.html

"The thousand stories have
come round to one again
Arabian Night
our gods pursue their fight
What fatal flowers of
darkness spring from
seeds of light"

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