Music by the Grateful Dead
Music by Tom Constanten
Though the Grateful Dead playfully misspell it, the word quodlibet is a combination of the Latin quod (meaning “what”) and libet (“it pleases”). Over time, quodlibet acquired a more specialized meaning. In medieval times, there would be certain days when professors of theology would open up the class and answer questions on any theological topic. In fact, people not even enrolled in the school scould come in off the street and pose questions. The professors would be required to answer any and all questions. The quodlibet was, thus, the opportunity for posing important, sometimes difficult questions to the masters of theology. Some theologians shunned quodlibets, while others loved them. Saint Thomas Aquinas was among this latter group. Still later, building on both earlier meanings of quodlibet, the word began to be applied to certain types of musical compositions. The Oxford Companion defines the word as “a collection of different tunes or fragments brought together as a joke.” The device was introduced by J. S. Bach in the Goldberg Variations. It is suggested that the word comes from the practice of allowing performers to “work into the web of the music any tune they liked.” The word came to be used for certain kinds of jazz improvisations, as well. Thus, Kurt Weill’s op. 9, composed in 1923, is titled Quodlibet.
Tenderfoot, used in the American West for a newly arrived immigrant. Some sources also say that cowboys first used the word to refer to cattle not yet used to the trail, then began to apply it to beginning cowhands or newcomers in general.
Interludes between sections of the suite “That’s It for the Other One.”
Studio recording: Anthem of the Sun (July 18, 1968).
Music by Bob Weir
Studio recording: Blues for Allah (September 1, 1975).
First performance: August 13, 1975, at the Great American Music Hall, San Francisco, California. This is the performance captured on One from the Vault.
Rock Scully:
Bobby wrote “Sage and Spirit” while my daughters, named Sage and Spirit, were jumping on his bed and generally trashing his hotel room. He was trying to play his guitar and came up with the rhythm for this from their jumping. The flute mimics their laughter. (Scully) 92
Music by Jerry Garcia, Keith Godchaux, Phil Lesh,
Bob Weir and Bill Kreutzmann
Studio recording: Blues for Allah (September 1, 1975)
First performance: June 20, 1974, at the Omni in Atlanta. The piece dropped in and out of regular rotation but was played fairly frequently from 1989 on.
“Slipknot!”
Beautiful lie
You can pray
Till you’re buried alive
Blackmailer blues
Everyone in the room
Owns a part of the noose
Slipknot gig
Slipknot gig
Slipknot gig
Did someone say
Help on the way
Well, I know
Yeah, I do
That there’s help on the way
Hunter, asked about these lyrics, which were sent to me as the missing lyrics to “Slipknot!,” replied:
David,
Most of the Blues for Allah material was written on the spot on the fly, while engineers stood by waiting to record the vocals. Those lyrics are my style and seem familiar—there were lots of throwaways and I doubt not those were among them. There’s always a taker for throw away pages, and I believe someone was collecting them, possibly Ramrod.
The lines are, of course, rejects from “Help on the Way.” “Slipknot Gig” would be in the space of: “I will stay / one more day,”
There’s no cutting it out. But it’s neither permanent nor serious.
rh 93
Woody Guthrie wrote a hard-hitting song called “Slip Knot,” about capital punishment, with the slipknot in question, of course, being a hangman’s knot.
Music by Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart, and Bill Kreutzmann
Hank Harrison’s The Dead Book reproduces a “handwriting sample” from Phil Lesh dating from 1962. It includes the words Stronger Than Dirt (in block capitals). The note in the book says this “was an allusion to an Ajax scouring-powder commercial of the day. Phil has mentioned that he often heard classical riffs in commercials and this is probably one of them.”
Studio recording: Blues for Allah (September 1, 1975)
Infrared Roses is a collection of tracks of drums/space/jams from 1989 and 1990, put together by Bob Bralove. His liner notes say that some tracks are put together from performances on several different nights. The tracks were whimsically titled by Robert Hunter.
Little Nemo in Slumberland was an early comic strip. Jerry Robinson’s The Comics: An Illustrated History of Comic Strip Art has the following to say about the strip:
A world of magic, dreams, and whimsy, enhanced by a superb craftmanship that some think has not been equaled in the comics since, appeared in 1905: Little Nemo in Slumberland by Winsor McCay. Each of Nemo’s weekly adventures was a story of the dream of a tousle-haired boy of about six that concluded with his waking up or falling out of bed (reminiscent of the back-to-reality ending of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland). His dreamworld was peopled by Flip, a green-faced clown in a plug hat and ermine-collared jacket; a cannibal; a certain Dr. Pill; and a vast array of giants, animals, space creatures, queens, princesses, and policemen. There were sky bombs, wild train and dirigible rides, exotic parades, bizarre circuses, and festivities of all kinds in Byzantine settings and rococo landscapes. (Robinson)
The U.S. Post Office included it in its set of comics stamps issued in 1995.
A line from a William Butler Yeats poem. See note in “Pride of Cucamonga” for more details.