The Story of "Truckin" by The Grateful Dead

Story about the song "Truckin' " by The Grateful Dead
interviews by Bob Weir, Robert Hunter and more....

[@traderjoe141]

Let us never forget Robert Hunter who wrote so many of the wonderful lyrics for The Dead over their entire career.🙏🇺🇸

[@calmclinomania]

joseph mendozza 😭😭😞😞

[@TechWithSean]

RIP

[@skuvet]

May his memory be a blessing!

[@justaname2422]

damn it's already been over 2 months. RIP you stellar son of a bitch.

[@zorroonmilkavitch1840]

That's not Robert Hunter that's the guy from The Carol Burnett Show that really bad comic what's his name

[@kernriver1967]

Been my life since vietnam.... just trucking from day to day... traveled much in this life time, haven't set any roots..... now I am old... no bagage, no regrets...

[@vicbonett7772]

Keep on trucking !!!

[@ChuckImania]

hell yeah brother!! I just got into grateful dead music in my 20s, and it's more than music... it's my religion now lol.

[@awickedtribe]

My GF and I have 258 shows combined under our belts.... my once and her 257

[@jennifersman7990]

In some ways I envy you but I’ve put down some roots and for the most part I’ve been happy. Going through a rough patch now but life’s never a smooth ride

[@devonkripaitis4490]

And what a looooooonnng strange trip it has been

[@davesthedude]

Rest in piece Jerry Garcia. And Robert Hunter

[@calmclinomania]

daves the dude yes I get very sad when I think about Jerry... So Young to die

[@George-wx9dj]

Dva Main I heard their starting a new band up north. 👍🏻🙏🏻😎

[@sandiesing8142]

In the late 60's, the Grateful Dead was scheduled to play at Modesto Jr. College. I was assigned to illustrate the Grateful Dead poster, and I did not know who they were. I was very articulate with my psychedelic lettering and made the poster with various hip curvy lettering styles. BUT...I made ONE gigantic error which none of my proof readers caught. I misspelled Grateful. I spelled "Greatful" When the gleaming black and white posters came out, I wanted to trash them. I told the director and he did not mind it. They plastered the posters all over Modesto, Oakdale and Turlock, I got my tickets and I was in the front row...next to the gong. I was so relieved that no one from the Dead even recognized the poster. Looking back, I wished I would have save the poster. La de dah, dah dah.

[@gsxerwhite]

Sandie Sing shit, imagine if you got them all to sign one and kept it!

[@PickledEarlobes]

Awesome story, thanks so much for sharing. What a great memory for you

[@richardspikman7116]

my god, anyone who was blessed to be a part of those times... what a gift

[@kukukev]

200+ shows over a 22 year period, never had such a good time in my life before...

[@dianareynolds8003]

See them over 100 times and cherish every show, hour, and minute of all of them. One sticks out in my mind, it was at Madison Square Garden, I think, and I was sitting on the wall, which came about up to my butt, ass, whatever, and I was dancing sitting down. I don't know how good of a idea that was cause I danced my way right off the wall, went down IDK how many feet and landed in some guys lap. He asked where I came from and all I could do or say was up there as I was pointing up. I guess the guy was higher than I was cause he thought I meant heaven and really kinda lost it. He threw me off his lap and was telling the people next to him I was from heaven. I tried to explain that no I came from a couple rows up. Idk if he finally got it but I went to look for my husband and dance in the hall ❤😂

[@Bignarfin]

@@kukukev damn im jealous id kill to ever be able to see a grateful dead concert in my life

[@davidscott1052]

Jerry Garcia said it all ...he knew that the deads music would have no commercial potential outside of the their community ...but that was ok because the music had meaning for the community they inhabited....words of a true artist I am a jazz musician and my music will only have a limited appeal to the small community of jazz followers ...but thats ok !!!!!

[@patricias5122]

You never know how many people are touched by your music.

[@darykinnaman2319]

I am 64 and my long strange trip is still going on. I miss the band and the better days.

[@michaelcannella2777]

Dary Kinnaman 22 years old here, only had the opportunity to see Dead and Company, but the music lives on :)

[@michaelcannella2777]

Dary Kinnaman 22 years old here, I’ve only had the opportunity to see Dead and Company. But the music lives on, and Jerry and the gang with it :)

[@markrigsby2425]

Good Memories

[@dirkevans3443]

We're the same age and apparently the same mindset but i keep sticking to the same Mantra I've had for all these years, "Keep on Rockin', you slowdown and th' bastards'll catch ya" so far it's served me well.

[@darykinnaman2319]

@@dirkevans3443 - It is nice to know some else has made it this far. We never thought we would make it past 30, we showed them huh? 😊

[@df5295]

I love that Pigpen was in the concert footage!

[@kevinjoseph517]

they practically kicked him out..made him play congas...he didnt like LSD.

[@OldWaysFollower]

This song is amazing: both as a GD self-story and as a piece of cheerful road music.... "Hang it up and see what tomorrow brings" - that's what most tired, overworked city people dream of... "Set up, like a bowlin' pin, knocked down, it gets wearin' thin, they just won't let you be" - exactly... Greetings from Poland from an old Dead fan!

[@jacksutherland846]

It always puts a smile on my face whenever I remember seeing those guys! What great times they were!

[@Sosu217]

Love to hear and see Jerry with a Strat - always sounds so sweet.

[@NolalanD]

Me too. His sound with the strat was just soul-rending. It cuts right through to the bone. Makes me want to get an albemic stratoblaster.

[@ChicoEscuela]

DSO just played with it last week, a show recreated from Paris 72

[@larkellencircle]

this is the song that got me into them in the first place, sitting in a beach chair in back of a VW bus after having a cookie in Humboldt. oh yeah....awesome

[@weekendgolfer6207]

Jerry Looked so HEALTHY AND HAPPY! That's why the early years were so GREAT !

[@Jiv_Ing57819]

Do you know that quirky tune that comes a little after this on the 1965 - beginnings part?

[@Jake8857]

Jerry Garcia seems like he would have been the most generous, and nice person in the world.

[@colinlarkin1861]

Excuse me. HE WAS!

[@alabastardmasterson]

Colin Larkin depending on what day you caught him

[@samirlal4381]

hahahaha i hope that's true, you might be one of jerry's lost ones

[@vicbonett7772]

and intelligent, like all the Dead .

[@blitzedpig1651]

To those who've had the chance of meeting him, he really was a great human.

[@halbie71]

1960s & 1970s-Great time to be a young man!!!!!!!!!! I miss the those days. I hate to be a young person growing up today, they will never know how great a time it was grow up during those days!!!

[@tomb613]

Im my opinion the 1960's was a true renaissance. I was born in 1967 so was too young but my own coming of age in the 1980s-90s was sweet as the world was still reverberating from that renaissance..... Keep On Truckin......

[@haileyshannon7548]

OK Boomer!

[@bcdigiart141]

This SONG got me into the GRATEFUL DEAD.... a friend lent me AMERICAN BEAUTY the album cover was cool.. it has simulated wood grain and a very cool ROSE on it... i listened to all the songs .. diggin .. Candyman.. brokedown.. operator.. . etc... when I listened to TRUCKIN.. i loved the lyrics.. i listened the song over and over.. writing down the lyrice.. GREAT STORY.. GREAT BAND.. FUN TIMES..

[@FunNotNuts]

My direct and personal memories of U.S. soldiers during the VietNam war was of them coming up here to Canada, all young and fresh faced, and we'd take them in and look after them. All we had to do was put ourselves in their place and it freaked us out. We were compelled to help them stay alive. I don't ever recall the public treating soldiers badly here but I did hear about it happening in the states. We wanted to end war of all kinds. But living in Canada it was easy for us.

[@RATTLEY67]

I was born in Melbourne Auztralia and the torch has been passed.I was born in '61.May love and peace be within you and around you always.And the stars of freedom shine forever in your mind.

[@scottbaer7698]

the Europe 72 album was my introduction to the Dead. the whole jam from the end of the lyrics of trucking till/into/thru morning dew blew my mind. I was 14 and couldn't wrap my head around the fact that it was improvised LIVE. then again blew my mind after I dropped acid and was told they did that nightly while tripping for years. was life changing. that was 1993, now 26 years later I've turned my wife on to them. she always thought they were a heavy metal band and had never heard their music. can't find acid anymore but got some good X and put trucking>morning dew Europe 72 on with headphones and let her loose. awesome reaction, a beautiful moment watching her get lost in the music. that's my trucking story.

[@nicot9305]

Nice!

[@jennifersman7990]

Oh how I wish I could’ve seen them just once in their prime

[@john1212333333333333]

What a long strange trip it's been

[@trapperdan]

The actual song was written in late March 1970 in the Fort Lauderdale area by Bobby (mostly) sitting by a swimming pool. The band was to have played Sunday and Monday, March 22-23, 1970 at Pirates World in Dania, FL (an amusement park 20 miles north of Miami) but the shows were rained out and finally a show was played on Tuesday the 24th (a soundboard exists). The band was then booked to play a gig between Friday-Sunday, March 27, 28 or 29, 1970 at the Winter's End Festival in Miami, FL. Bobby wrote Truckin' somewhere near Dania.

[@smartalek1]

This is brilliance. It's so great to be able to hear their voices as the people they are (were), and not "just" as musicmakers, icons, philosophers, etc, that we're accustomed to from the shows, the tapes, and the vids here & from the Vault. Thank you so much for posting this, and the others that you've shared here. I know you'll know I'm neither kidding nor exaggerating, acidinurmind, when I say you're doing a real public service here.

[@evandean3944]

Pigpen @ 2:53 is from about 1963 by the looks of him, with his setlist taped to his guitar, practicing in the morning light in his bathrobe. Wonderful footage! So many thanks to whoever shot it, probably his mom

[@buckodonnghaile4309]

Good call, Pig looks young there and I'd love to see the source footage of that clip.

[@mikewilkinson4588]

thanks to the band for the memories......I'll carry these gems into eternity......

[@rodneyphillips7619]

Couldn't have said that better my friend✌🤠

[@chasefukuoka61]

Great video, thanks for this..

[@KorgKapperi]

That strat sound so good

[@buckodonnghaile4309]

That's the one he called Alligator (its a 1957). It was apparently a gift from Graham Nash to Garcia for his contribution to Nash's album Songs for Begginers. Garcia heavily modifies it and there's a pretty good article on the Fender site talking about it.

[@lisica8458]

Love Bob Hunter's rich, baritone speaking voice.

[@kelnth]

Alligator - some of Jerry's best work.

[@michealcurrie8272]

Gerry....Thank you. Love&light.

[@FunNotNuts]

I was born in 1950 so in 1970 I was 20. During the 60's and 70's the world was full of such positive change. There was so much love for our fellow man. We totally believed in love and our music reflected that. The Dead were embraced and have been in our hearts ever since. Human rights became an issue and changed so much in everyday lives. Please, young people, carry the torch of love into the future. It's the only thing that will save us all.

[@icecoldhubbas]

this is one the finest versions of truckin I ever heard

[@budrollin7557]

"Arrows of neon and flashing marquis down on mainstreet......."

[@bigthunder2860]

It was a joy to live in the best time to grow up in America!!!🍄✌the🐸

[@kewlbreez77]

... what truly AMAZING journey ...!

[@richerlennon9429]

Great video

[@bikerhippy]

Outstanding Post

[@johnnyventure]

The one thing about going on tour with the dead, was the simple (and freightening) fact that there were no rules or guidelines. YOU had to make it happen. Either you enjoy the fact that it's an adventure that only you are in control of, or you go for the laid out plans of false security and get continually let down because of your expectations. To expect the unexpected and dig it! You don't need the Dead to live your life that way.

[@SQRAUMPF]

Some of us are! My family (not by blood) is constantly trying to spread love. I actually just today talked to my brother for a few hours over coffee about this very issue. The music may be different than it once was but the love is still alive!

[@dingoswamphead]

Poor Rawkus and Traphikk. Hope you can bliss out on the instrumental at the end of this clip as I just did. You can free your mind with the Instant Karma it gives. Once you get a taste of the Dead you can be blesed for life. I'm getting it as I'm winding up from a long day at work. Thanks for putting this one up, Acidinurmind.

[@kevinwaustin1221ka]

I wish they would have gone with the original plan of changing out the verses. That idea is genius.

[@lipby]

That was a common practice with folk music

[@GDguitarplayer]

I think this is also in' the complete annotated Grateful Dead' book. This is really cool & Thank you!

[@GodStarRevisited69]

word bob... we all have been truckin' thanks to you

[@musicain5]

thats awesome!!

[@brownlauren15]

"Sometimes the light is shining on me..."

[@williamdhierpetly9359]

Other times I can bearly see

[@jeanettewaverly2590]

@@williamdhierpetly9359 Lately it occurs to me

[@markbarden4120]

@@jeanettewaverly2590 WHAT A LONG STRANGE TRIP IT'S BEEN!!!

[@calmclinomania]

He will always be in our hearts 😔❤️

[@HippieNiki72]

I was lucky enough to be born in 1972 and I was really grateful to see Jerry before he died. I never seen Brent but my first dead show was Deer Creek the summer tour in 1993. Wow! It changed my life and I finally found what I was searching for and found where I belong. Finally found my family!!! I miss you Jerry!!!! Hippie Niki {~}:}

[@daligoddess2006]

Right on! Keep on Truckin' young folks!

[@jadenr.11]

for anyone wondering, this version is from the europe 72 album live in london

[@parttime9070]

I knew it my friends knew the people who turned me on to the dead knew it.. That we were part of something that not every one liked, and it's still going off into the future..

[@nh.3188]

Epic tune !

[@rickberger4797]

The entire reworking of Tangled Up in Blue on Dylan Real Live is magic. The chance to make Truckin' entirely new....

[@bodhichitananda]

From Wikipedia: "The making of Anthem of the Sun, Aoxomoxoa, Workingman's Dead, and American Beauty are described by former members and associates of the Grateful Dead in the 1997 Classic Albums documentary Anthem to Beauty."

[@Deadbuck73]

Great jam!

[@Gratefulman1965]

Jerry said, It’s not about me. It’s about “it” The musical journey the atmosphere of the Grateful Dead environment was what mattered and always truly will. It never was a money program, it was a movement for like minded individuals that gained momentum the farther forward the dead moved. A self propelled event….. and what an event it was.

[@ehg1962]

Masterpiece

[@DanSVT03]

My "Big Uncle Ed" aka "Eddie Hell" traveled with the Grateful Dead back in the 70's. He tells unfathomable stories at family get togethers about his days of heavy drinking, drug experementation, and unprotected sex with countless random women. He now dwells in the woods in his homemade tree-fort living off cat food and PBR.

[@MrGreatfullydead]

this dvd anthem to beauty rocks...

[@DrUmRbOy67]

Yes....he always reminds me of Bill also!!

[@lectricviolin1]

I saw them open with truckin with pigpen at the felt forum and I was on the beginning of an amazing trip to outer space. An absolutely great night of this unique psychedelic experience comfortably cradled by Jerry and phils bach-like fugue-ing, cutting like a switchblade knife of laser beams and musical fireworks, pigpens words of wisdom, and the bands synergetic jamming perfection in the depths of the effected brain truckin, smiling, hitch hiking and traveling through the universe, period

[@davidgardner7974]

Such simpler times, all the way up to the 90's. The internet ruined everything.

[@deanmartin6682]

songs like truckin would never be..if not for chuck berry's lyrical influence..he influenced everyone...he told stories...he was like a novelist...lyrically he was brilliant...so when i hear truckin...i hear the lyric..i think of chuck berry...

[@Steve-uv9kb]

music begets music - its all a continuum man

[@buckodonnghaile4309]

Dean Martin They covered Promised Land among other Chuck Berry classics For decades, they respected their influences

[@tomtheplummer7322]

Hmm. I have a tin ear, but my taste detects a different flavour?

[@alabastardmasterson]

Dean Martin Chuck Berry the most covered man in Country music

[@titusmcscott5889]

what rhymes with chuck ? f*ck chuck

[@johnfrank1774]

BOBBY, YOU'RE STILL LIVING!!!! It's good to see you. For a while I looked but could not find you. Perhaps that little Death Scare reminded you of your Work and it's Manifestation in the World. Best of luck, friend.

[@ibefullofme]

This was filmed when Jerry Garcia was still alive so I'm not sure it confirms much

[@delaneyhaley5180]

such a good film

[@robertgoracoff8654]

After 260+ GD & Jerry Shows I never really looked forward to hearing truckin'.. Having said that, whenever they played it or when it comes up on one of the 200+ soundboards that i listen to everyday in the car at work or at home, it always, and I really do mean always, puts a smile on my face and reminds of the early shows I that I was able to see. Thank you guys for all the smiles!

[@kukukev]

Nuthin left to do but...

[@jakethesnake576]

I was 2 years old when Jerry passed on, I wish I had the chance to have the memories of these guys they really were a band unlike any other

[@INDLIS]

I was 10

[@Love18wheelz]

Got my chips cashed in...I spent most of my life travelling with a pack and a dog ..now..I'm drivin truck..

[@lancebender4925]

Keep Trucking! Happy Birthday Jerry Garcia!

[@sergkaizen5342]

Miss u jerry 400+ shows werent enough

[@blitzedpig1651]

Niether were my 13.

[@nedsnark6479]

Fun Fact: Hunter wrote this poolside at a motel on A1A in Dania, FL a week after the NOLA bust.

[@nancytreiman587]

Lived up the st. from their Lawyer. (No words)

[@bodhichitananda]

this doc. cut is also from Anthem to Beauty.

[@clarkewi]

One of the best American exports.

[@annnavon9331]

well said

[@carldietz7349]

God bless the Grateful dead!!!

[@stephenhenion8304]

The Thang About Music..... its all in the NOW!!!

[@marilynmacri8083]

i remember seeing jerry garcia in the motel parking lot in seattle washington before you played at the eagles autorium i sold candy and apples there.

[@aliasdyln33]

Primo stuff this story tells. And to borrow from the great's Carroll O'Conner and Jean Stapleton . . . 'Those were the days'.

[@PinkFloydrulez]

fucking '72 dead is just the most primo shit

PinkFloydrulez Yes every time I hear it on XM radio and I hear them really jamming and sounding at their best I look to see if it’s from 1972 and it almost always is.

[@conormori]

@traphikk this is amazingly written, i liked it

[@nancychace8619]

Hint: Being on the road in America was not solely the providence of young men. 🙂

[@NT-fo3me]

Hint: Nowhere in the video did anybody say it was solely the providence of young men. He spoke about it as a rite of passage for young men of the time, not exclusively of young men. Being a young man himself at the time, it was the only perspective he could speak from personally.

[@catified2081]

NO glamour in their tunes.... just hard living life and making the most out of a bad situation which really what life is all about.

[@itsstillfriday]

@rawkus1167 ...Sorry you feel that way... there's part of me that feels that each generation looks to previous generation times...as better... and resent their current era.. as a teen in the '80's I think that was the big motivator in digging up so many of the relics of the 60's and 70's.. (and I think on thru the 90's and 00's we have done a good job at digging up the best parts.. however remember.. the 60s and 70's must have been HELL with all of the areas of contention..and social change..

[@richwhitelatch2753]

Good times

[@delaneyhaley5180]

You got it.

[@markoblazney6360]

sweet+

[@allanrpa32652]

great video from early 70's.WOW! did anyone catch Jerry on that strat?

[@clancykobane9102]

I never knew this was by the Great Full Dead!

[@Parkyurkarkas]

My parents lived through the Depression and WW II and they say that life then was so much simpler and easy compared to today. They were the last generation to earn and keep the American dream. And now, I (DOB 1960) say the same thing to my nieces who were born in the mid '80s, despite that I am nowhere near as economically stable as my parents. Young people today will probably have to live (or die) through some global cataclysm. It's anyone's guess what they'll be telling their kids.

[@shango02005]

What is this excerpt from?

[@trapperdan]

Most of Truckin' was written by a hotel swimming pool in the Fort Lauderdale area on/about March 23 1970 while the band was waiting out 2 days of rain that canceeled shows and forced a 3rd date for all tickets....see also here lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2015/04/march-24-1970-pirates-world-dania-fl.html

[@markrigsby2425]

Happy people

[@Fictius]

You had To Do it !!!

[@icecoldhubbas]

no doubt

[@SteamDougy]

is this whole show on video? What show was it? Thanks

[@bastardtubeuser]

I have the bass rolled right off on my amp to keep things quiet at night, but MrLesh's tone is still coming through strong. Im GUESSING that's the active alembic hes playing there.

[@StephenMatthewMusic]

because now you have to get out into whatever workplace (after overpaying eventually for college since the apprenticeship system doesn't really exist anymore) and position yourself and don't forget to "brand" yourself and fit yourself into a category so "they" will know what to do with you. Sad, but the weird world we live in now, and not simple at all.

[@michaelcannella2777]

Anyone got the date for this Truckin? Some shit hot licks from Jerry holy smokes

[@jimjones3125]

Was this just a one song interview? Or is there a whole documentary?

[@maxperez-stable6796]

Jim Jones its on amazon prime called "anthem to beauty"

[@darkwolfdv]

@rawkus1167 I'm in my 40s and the 2000s have been pretty good so far. Really enjoyed the 70s and 80s the most though.