The Grateful Dead-Workingman's Dead Song by Song

Awesome live version.

 

I'm talking about It Won't Be Long

 

The Good Ol' Grateful Dead podcast on this song, based on a Hunter interview, concluded it was written after he and Jerry watched the Hound of the Baskervilles on TV. The podcasters researched when that movie had been shown on TV and concluded, IIRC, that it was written shortly before the Zodiac Killer was reported in the papers. It certainly was on the right wavelength for people's fear around that time, though.

 

Love the contrast of the jaunty "ray of sunshine" music with the dark lyrics. The music renders them far more humorous than they read. A delightful piece.

 

Dire Wolf is perhaps the perfect example of a song written in the 20th Century that seems to take place in the 19th, yet applies to the weirdness of modern urban living as much as it does the Old West.

Love it.

 

Dire Wolf- This may be my favorite song on the album. Aren't there some early live versions with Weir singing and Jerry on pedal steel or am i thinking of another tune?

 

Yes, one of them is a bonus track on the Golden Road box version of Workingman's Dead. Too difficult to sing and play pedal steel at the same time.

 

thank you. i thought it was that. i liked that version. i almost thought it was "high time" for some reason but since it wasn't mentioned for that song i assumed it was "dire wolf"

 

I hear the stirrings of "Friend of the Devil" in "Dire Wolf."

 

Dire Wolf is another song they never improved on in concert.

 

Some recent dire wolf research:

The legendary dire wolf may not have been a wolf at all

 

That was really interesting. Thanks!

 

Dire Wolf
A great little cowboy song. Love that pedal steel colouring by Jerry and a great vocal from him as usual.

 

Jerry can really make it purr, but wow what Sneaky Pete did on "Guilded" is other-worldly. He made it sound like Jimi, amazing.

 

Another classic. The Dire Wolf collects his due. A song of comeuppance perhaps? A history of the real dire wolf-
Dire wolf - Wikipedia

 

Love Dire Wolf in all its iterations. I think its the one from 1/3/70 (or is it 1/2/70? Regardless it's DaP 30) has this Reggae-ish organ vibe to it that is really cool. I love the vivid imagery of the lyrics and the tune is, indeed, 'jaunty' and fun.

 

New Speedway Boogie (Garcia, Hunter)

Opens with an E boogie riff from what sounds like a Telecaster from Jerry and it has what I call a “waxy” sound. The ultra laid back country like John Lee Hooker groove stays with the E chord for 14 bars. At :28 Jerry punches a 7th chord to add an edgy sound. At :37 a softened turnaround enters to give the song momentum. Lots of great bluesy hooks in Jerry’s vocal and guitar. Bobby keeps the rhythm going in the left channel. A short transition at the minute mark and the second verse follows with the same chords and turnarounds. Another short transition at 2:00 and the verse swings back in. Lots of great blues riffs from Jerry again that are off the cuff. At 3:00 the songs chorus/refrain enters, and it immediately sticks in your head. Lots of cool panning throughout the song if you listen on headphones.

A fine boogie tune. Some great blues melody and the lyrics are fantastic with lots of references from current events mixed with old time stuff. R and B type hooks as well. A refrain/chorus that is one of my Dead mental musical references.

It is a 24 Bar blues variant with a softened turnaround using fourths. Go ahead… I give you permission to kick my butt.

 

New Speedway Boogie is of my favorite studio recordings of theirs, and even though the live versions were not as good as the studio, I was really excited when they revived it in the 90s.

On the Good Ol' Grateful Dead podcast episode about this song, they played a very different mix/possibly different take from the sessions with some high harmony vocals. Lemiuex said (or they quoted Lemiuex saying) that he'd wanted to include it as a bonus track on the Golden Road version of Workingman's, but Robert Hunter nixed it because he didn't want to subject the world to Weir experimenting with falsetto. However, Lemiuex then said they were able to release it elsewhere later. Anyone know where? I've been racking my brain and coming up empty.

Another thing I learned from that podcast: at one point you can hear the ghost of some of harmonies on the chorus (the same harmonies from December '69 live versions) on the album version. They were mixed out, but there was just enough microphone bleed that they're still buried in there if you listen closely at least for a moment or two.

 

Even though they weren’t able to pull it off in concert, I dig those Bob and Phil falsetto vocals.

I also like how they would bust into the Smokestack Lightning riff during many live versions.

 

You can never have too much of the Smokestack Lighting riff.

 

"New Speedway Boogie" is absolutely one of my favorite Dead tracks. Music, vocals, lyrics—all lock perfectly into place. Relentless, breathless, desperate; they nail it.

 

Big fan of Speedway as well, play it in my bands as part of the "Big E" jams (He's Gone, Truckin', Other One, Birdsong, etc). Wished it had stuck around longer to fit in with those jams from the real thing.

 

The Grateful Dead-Workingman’s Dead Song by Song

1. Uncle John’s Band

2. High Time

3. Dire Wolf

 

That is a good point about Truckin. The riff sounds similar at times in both songs. I forgot to mention that.

 

I think it is probably one of my favorites as well. When ever I think of The Dead, that "one way or another" line pops into my head fairly quick.