5 STORIES
1970 · 70S
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, USA
The Grateful Dead's most notorious singalong is not a celebration of cocaine but a horror story about it — a warning dressed in a bouncy tun…
1970 · 70S
It sounds like a cheerful bluegrass romp, but it's the confession of a man being hunted by the law, by two women, and by a devil who is less…
1970 · 70S
"Ripple" sounds like an ancient hymn, but it is a song about refusing to be a preacher: lyricist Robert Hunter builds a benediction that qui…
1970 · 70S
NEW ORLEANS, USA
It sounds like a carefree hippie road anthem, but "Truckin'" is really a tired, funny, faintly bruised diary of life on tour — built around …
1987 · 80S
SAN RAFAEL, CALIFORNIA, USA
The Grateful Dead's only Top 10 hit is not a sunny anthem at all — it is a battered, exhausted list of everything going wrong, and its famou…