I once liked this album quite a bit and considered it to be in the top 5 best Grateful Dead albums of all time.But I'm coming to the point where I just don't like much of it anymore. I've always hated "Dupree's Diamond Blues", so I don't fault it for losing it's charm before the other songs did).
The version of "St. Stephen" is not as good as any of the live mixes. That stands true with "China Cat Sunflower" as well.
"What's Become of the Baby" is what I always thought "acid rock" sounded like, when I was a kid and had never heard any. I even considered it my favorite song on the album, warped as I was. But now it just seems to drag on and on and on... At points it sounds like Jerry's in the final stages of processing a burrito through his intestinal system. My tolerance level had to have been really low to have considered "What's Become of the Baby" a great stoner song. It must be really high right now.
I was once enlightened, in the parking lot of a Dead show and by a reeking Dead Head, to the true backstory of "What's Become of the Baby".
It seems that Jerry and Grace Slick had conceived a daughter out of wedlock. One day Jerry took the little girl to the laundromat. There were not a few dirty clothes that seriously needed laundering. The last load of trendy duds had been placed into the dryer and JG's daughter is playing pinball when in comes these three hoodlums, all duded up in Harley-Davidson this and Harley Davidson that and a veritable walking advertisement for Harley Davidson.
From their cup holders to the huge tattoos on their scrotums, their allegiance, displayed with pride, was to Harley Davidson.
They walked up to Garcia and a conversation ensued in which these bikers apparently mentioned a topic that fascinated him, as a huge smile replaced the grim and apathetic masque he had worn for the last several days. As terms were offered and rendesvouz plans formulated, with a small, yet significant sum of money changing hands, they arose from their crouches and put to use the bars on the EXIT door.
They were gone for at least 15 minutes and when they returned Jerry had this hitch in his gait and a look on his face like he'd just come back from a mission to Mars. He stepped into that laundromat, thinking that the load in the dryer ought to be long since done.
Not too much later, gathering his things, Garcia made his way to the car. He bent over and pattied the bulge in his sock, just to make sure the bag of dope was still in there, had not fallen out. This was a ritual that began shortly after an incident, some years ago, in which $500 worth of China White heroin fell from his sock as he jumpstarted a Harley-Davidson...
For some odd reason I feel it necessary to point out that Jerry Garcia was never a biker. He liked to hang around with bikers, and I've no doubt that many bikers liked to hang around him. He dug their culture, their fraternal code, their uninhibited free spirits and their old ladies who wanted nothing more than to flash a tattoed tit to anyone with eyes that cared to see. And that wasn't all...biker parties are, hands down, the absolute best parties ever thrown in America, if not the world. He knew it from experience, but he never had the nerve to join their ranks.
But I digress. I waste time. The whole thing boiled down to this. Jerry "Captain Trips" Garcia went and left his own daughter playing on a pinball machine in a laundromat, forgot all about her. Who knows what could have happened to her in the hours forgotten by her own father. A father who, once it dawned on him that he'd left her behind, was way too deep into a heroin joyride to care. Instead he wails, seeking an answer to the song title's fantastical question, "What's Become of the Baby?".
I only spend so much time on it because I once thought it was so great. And now I can hardly endure two minutes...
"Doin' That Rag" was one of my favorites on the "Long Strange Trip" retrospective. I cannot, for the life of me, now understand what I could ever have liked about this annoying song.
"Mountains of the Moon" and "Rosemary" were the same way. I thought they were two of the best tracks here. I can hardly tolerate either one of them now. This original "Cosmic Charlie" doesn't quite seal the deal like the one on "Europe 72".
And finally, trivially perhaps, the album cover has some of the most kick ass cover art you're ever gonna see. The name is cryptic, the uttering of a junkie in flight. You see an album cover like this and you are expecting something out of this world, something that will transcend the boundaries of where music can take you. It's an album cover that invites you to contemplate the mysteries of the afterlife.
But the music inside? Nothing at all like that. And there you have it. The straw that broke the camel's back. Eight half-ass songs. A bitchin' album cover that doesn't deliver.
I am honestly shocked, though, at how much I dislike this album right now. I've always enjoyed it before (with the exception of "Dupree's Diamond Blues"). I can only hope that this trend doesn't extend into my appreciation for other Grateful Dead songs. I've always liked the Dead, even if I lost all respect for Jerry when he lost his daughter.
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