Grateful Dead - Ripple

I was never a Dead fan. I never really got it at all. I think American Beauty is a fine album, but still never listened to it very much over the years.

Anyway, I was at a friend's funeral recently and his children played Ripple at the end of the service and asked everyone to join in singing. I'm not going to lie - it gave me goosebumps. The melody and lyrics of the song are truly exceptional.

I did some digging around online, and was surprised to find that they dropped Ripple from their live repertoire very early on and played it only sporadically over time:

quote:

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Following an initial period of not too frequent performances in 1970 and 1971, “Ripple” disappeared from shows until the shows in 1980 commencing at the Warfield on September 25, and continuing for a run of 25 shows, during which it was played every show at the conclusion of the first (acoustic) set. After that, it was only played twice more in performance by the Dead, with the final “Ripple” played at the Capital Centre in Landover, Maryland, on September 3, 1988. “Ripple” closed the show, and was played electric for the first time since 1971. An interesting performance history, no?

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Here's a youtube of that final performance - it now makes sense why the crowd is going so apeshit throughout...they've been starved for this electric performance for nearly 20 years!

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And for fun, here's a bunch of theorizing about the lyrics' meaning:

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