Grateful to the Dead

‘You’re not going to write about them, are you?’ said my wife contemptuously, when I announced that I was going to devote this month’s column to the Grateful Dead. ‘They’re one of the worst.’

As regular readers will know, my wife hates all pop music with a passion, but she especially dislikes the Dead because she has so often been woken by the sounds of their psychedelic classic ‘Dark Star’ playing at maximum volume at three o’clock in the morning.

But even people who love rock music hate the Grateful Dead. ‘What does a Deadhead say when he’s run out of dope?’ Keith Richards of the Stones once inquired. The answer to his little riddle was ‘God, this band is shit’.

Yet though I love the Stones, I love the Dead even more. I’ve been listening to their music for 35 years now, and, although I have at times gone through crises of faith, they remain the band that means the most to me.