"Box of Rain" | |
---|---|
Song by Grateful Dead | |
from the album American Beauty | |
Released | November 1, 1970 |
Recorded | August–September 1970 |
Studio | Wally Heider (San Francisco) |
Genre | Folk rock, Americana |
Length | 5:18 |
Label | Warner Bros. |
Songwriter(s) | Phil Lesh, Robert Hunter |
Producer(s) | Grateful Dead and Steve Barncard |
"Box of Rain" is a song by the Grateful Dead, from their 1970 album American Beauty . The song was composed by bassist Phil Lesh and lyricist Robert Hunter, and sung by Lesh. [1]
"Box of Rain" is a song that is drawn from American folk and country musical roots. This is true of many Grateful Dead tunes, and most of the songs on American Beauty and their other 1970 release Workingman's Dead . As the first song on American Beauty, it was also the first Grateful Dead song released on record to feature Phil Lesh as the lead vocalist. [2] [3]
The song also featured two musicians who are not in the band. Dave Torbert played bass, while Lesh played acoustic guitar. David Nelson (of New Riders of the Purple Sage) plays the lead guitar with a Fender Telecaster, while Jerry Garcia plays the piano. Bob Weir sings harmony with Lesh and Garcia.
According to lyricist Hunter, Lesh "wanted a song to sing to his dying father and had composed a piece complete with every vocal nuance but the words. If ever a lyric 'wrote itself,' this did – as fast as the pen would pull." [2] Lesh practiced the song driving to the nursing home where his father lay with terminal cancer.
According to an interview of Hunter by Steve Silberman, as asked by Silberman, "The song 'Box of Rain' began as a rough vocal outline from Phil Lesh. How does that process work?" Hunter replied, "Scat singing: Dum-dum dum, da-da-da-da, bump-dum-dum-dum-dum, dee-dee-dee. I'm able to translate people's scat. I hear English in it, almost as though I write down what I hear underneath that. I hear the intention. It's a talent like the Rubik's Cube, or something like that, and it comes easily to me. Which might be why I like language poetry. I can tell from the rhythms, or lack of rhythms, from the disjunctures and the end stoppages, what they're avoiding saying – the meaning that they would like to not be stating there, comes rushing through to me. I understand dogs. I can talk to babies." According to Hunter: "By 'box of rain,' I meant the world we live on, but 'ball' of rain didn't have the right ring to my ear, so box it became, and 'I don't know who put it there.'" [4]
"Box of Rain" debuted on September 17, 1970, at the Fillmore East in New York City during the acoustic portion of the show. That performance was its sole appearance for nearly two years. The Grateful Dead reintroduced it during the fall of 1972 and played it on and off for the remainder of the year and 1973 before dropping it again.
Between 1976 and 1985, Lesh seldom sang with the group (confining his contributions to harmony vocals on "Truckin'") due to vocal cord damage from improper singing. Over 750 concerts after its last performance, "Box of Rain" was revived on March 20, 1986 at the Coliseum in Hampton, Virginia. After that, the song was frequently played in response to chants from the audience. Before the death of Jerry Garcia, "Box of Rain" was the last song ever performed live at a Grateful Dead concert, during the final encore at Soldier Field in Chicago on July 9, 1995. It was the first song played at the first Fare Thee Well show at Soldier Field on July 3, 2015.
Hunter recorded the song on his Jack O'Roses album (1980).
Dead-inspired jam band Phish opened their October, 25th 2024 concert in Albany, New York with "Box of Rain" in a tribute to Lesh, who passed away earlier that day.
In 2021, Rolling Stone ranked the song at number 364 in their updated list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
American Beauty is the fifth studio album by American rock band the Grateful Dead. Released in November 1970, by Warner Bros. Records, the album continued the folk rock and country music style of their previous album Workingman's Dead, released earlier in the year.
Robert C. Christie Hunter was an American lyricist, singer-songwriter, translator and poet, best known for his work with the Grateful Dead. Born near San Luis Obispo, California, Hunter spent some time during his childhood in foster homes as a result of his father abandoning his family, and took refuge in reading and writing. He attended the University of Connecticut for a year before returning to Palo Alto, where he became friends with musician Jerry Garcia. Hunter and Garcia began a collaboration that lasted through the remainder of Garcia's life.
Workingman's Dead is the fourth studio album by American rock band Grateful Dead. It was recorded in February 1970 and originally released on June 14, 1970. The album and its studio follow-up, American Beauty, were recorded back-to-back using a similar style, eschewing the psychedelic experimentation of previous albums in favor of Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter's Americana-styled songcraft.
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