Uncle John's Band

Listen while you read:  https://youtu.be/TSIajKGHZRk

Well, the first days are the hardest days, don't you worry anymore
When life looks like Easy Street, there is danger at your door
Think this through with me
Let me know your mind
Whoa-oh, what I want to know is are you kind?

~ Hunter / Garcia  (The Grateful Dead)

Well, I wish I could believe that these first days were the hardest days, but I'm afraid the hard days are just beginning.  Oh.  Wait.  I said I wasn't going to go there, didn't I?

"Uncle John's Band" was released in 1970 on Workingman's Dead, and my memory tells me that it was my first favorite Grateful Dead song.  Of course I was already aware of The Dead, but there was so much good music coming out of the late 60s, I was probably in a CSN or CCR coma at the time.  But I can still see myself in the bed in the room that I was in when I first heard this song.  And I remember my reaction to it.  Goddam, well I declare, have you heard the like?  As hard as it is to pick a favorite Grateful Dead song, I can say with certainty that this was my first favorite!

You can learn a lot about the song just by googling it.  There are masses of Deadheads out there who spend a lot of time annotating and discussing Grateful Dead songs.  I'll let you find out on your own who Uncle John was, what a buck dancer's choice is, and where the riverside is.  One of the things I love about the lyrics is that it is easy to isolate several of the lines and just insert them into one's everyday lexicon.  Are you kind?  Ain't no time to hate.  Where does the time go?

And then there's this: Their walls are built of cannonballs; their motto is 'Don't tread on me.'   Well . . . Nope, not going there.

For many Dead fans, Uncle John's Band, despite its own origins, is just another name for The Grateful Dead.  And what a sweet dream . . . to imagine dancing on a riverbank to the tunes of Jerry and Company!  I love the riparian setting and can't help but think of the old pre-Civil War spiritual "Down By the Riverside" with its decisive refrain:  I ain't gonna study war no more.

Oh, if only there were no more wars to study.