He woke up with no memory of writing the song, but fortunately, someone had run a cassette tape, and Judy Collins kept it, later recording the song. John Phillips, of The Mamas and the Papas, wrote it in a tequila-soaked haze after a Judy Collins concert, in roughly 1964, best as I can ascertain, in a hotel room with Stephen Stills, Neil Young, and some others. The origin story of this song is well documented. All the classic ingredients of a cowboy song, right? Its final performance was July 6, 1995, at the Riverport Amphitheatre in Maryland Heights, Missouri.Īnd, though the lyrics seem like second nature to me now, there was a time when I thought the line was “I’m as honest as a government man can be.” I still like that better than the “real” line! The first documented performance was on November 29, 1966, at the Matrix in San Francisco, although the notes in DeadBase cast some doubt as to whether all the songs noted were from that show. It’s among the very few cover songs we included in The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics. Needless to say, I heard the song countless times over the following couple of decades, and indeed, it is the most-frequently-performed Grateful Dead song, with 616 performances noted in DeadBase.
And since I had a little bit of a crush on her, I filed that away, and it has stuck with me lo these many years. She was enthusiastic, at that moment, about the fact that the band was playing this particular song, as if were a particular favorite, or something she hadn’t heard in awhile. She was about 15 years old at the time, and we were the much older college kids, but she definitely knew more about the Dead than I did. And yes, I still have them.)Īnd what I remember about “Me and My Uncle” coming into my consciousness was being at Winterland with my friend Mike and his sister Danielle, and having Danielle tell me the name of the song. At the same time as I was going to as many Grateful Dead concerts as I possibly could, I was starting to accumulate the albums. I think it took me awhile, after I started going to shows, before I was really able to differentiate all the songs. What comes up for me when I first start thinking about blogging about any particular song is the first time I remember being conscious of it as a separate song. Since I mentioned it last week, I thought this would be as good a time as any to tackle “Me and My Uncle.” I have to admit, I’ve been avoiding the song for the past year or so. (I’ll consider requests for particular songs-just private message me!)
A STORY ABOUT MY UNCLE STORY FREE
Therefore, the best part, I would hope, would not be anything in particular that I might have to say, but rather, the conversation that may happen via the comments over the course of time-and since all the posts will stay up, you can feel free to weigh in any time on any of the songs! With Grateful Dead lyrics, there’s always a new and different take on what they bring up for each listener, it seems. Here’s the plan-each week, I will blog about a different song, focusing, usually, on the lyrics, but also on some other aspects of the song, including its overall impact-a truly subjective thing.
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