If some part of that music
is heard in deepest dream,
or on some breeze of Summer
a snatch of golden theme,
we'll know you live inside us
with love that never parts
our good old Jack O'Diamonds
become the King of Hearts

Hunter’s eulogistic poem to Jerry Garcia, August 1995

The fabric of my daily life is largely woven from the silken thread of the Grateful Dead. This is true despite the fact that I live a fairly mainstream life, with a professional career in a field that I love, and a happy marriage to a man who is not a Deadhead. I’ll always wearing a metaphorical psychedelic tie-dyed layer underneath my clothing.

Throughout the day, my head is filled with music and lyrics which speak to me like nothing else. My adventure started an unbelievable 40 years ago, and although Jerry’s been gone for 24 long years, our community shows no signs of faltering. The music has proven to be stronger than any one individual, because it’s in all of us now.

It all rolls into one.

Most of us could write a book about this rich tapestry, and at the center of it, along with Garcia, is indisputably, Robert Hunter, who passed on Monday evening, September 23, 2019.

Having just finished the audio version of Dennis McNally’s A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead, I was well aware of the intricacies of Hunter’s history and relationship with the band, and was filled with renewed respect for him—but I have to admit that my immediate reaction to learning about his death was initially less dramatic than many of my friends. I figured that the man was almost 80 years old, had lived a rich and wonderful life, and that his time had come. It took me nearly a week to be able to process the magnitude of our loss.

You Can’t Stare At The Sun

*BIll WALKER, ANTHEM OF THE SUN, REMASTERED, 2019: “I can’t separate the painting from the music; music was an integral part of the painting”*

Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia were at the center of the magnificent web of the Grateful Dead, and were surrounded by shimmering strands that connect all the iterations of the band: the Dead Family, the Pranksters and the Acid Tests, the psychedelic artists, the Bay Area musicians, and so on. And here we are today, all of us, fans and family alike, nodding our heads in collective appreciation and acknowledgement of Robert Hunter’s place in this mystery.

Robert Hunter was a bard, in the truest sense of the word—a near unparalleled lyricist, who more than anyone, penned the soundtrack of my life. There’s no better description of what the man meant to me, and clearly to so many of you.

It’s said that Hunter, who was born Robert Burns in Arroyo Grande, California, in 1941, and later adopted his stepfather’s surname, was the great-great grandson of the Scottish romantic poet/ lyricist Robert Burns. Burns was known as Scotland’s national bard and wrote Auld Lang Syne. It comes as no surprise that Hunter had the same gift of golden poetry coursing through his veins.

Bob Dylan, my second favorite genius poet and music-maker recognized Robert Hunter’s extraordinary gift, and enlisted him to collaborate on his song Silvio (subsequently covered by the Dead) along with Ugliest Girl In The World, and Dylan’s 2009 album, Together For Life, among others.

The Sacred, The Mystic, The Profane

Artist: Chris O’Leary, Fb group “Chris O’Leary’s Art Is Dead”

We need poetry to help us understand what it is to be alive. Hunter’s lyrics frequently reference the sacred unknowable-ness and celebrate the mysteries of life.

Hunter gifts us with lyrics to synthesize practically every occasion, dilemma, decision, emotion, and mood. He is masterful at calling forth recurring themes and symbolism: card games and gambling, roses, bones and ribbons. He is alternately playful and wise, cautioning us with a wink and a nod of potential peril or betrayal.

There are word-paintings that weave the elements of the natural world. There are love stories. There are hard-luck stories of rich characters making difficult choices. Many of these are rooted in fables, in medieval or ancient history and literature, and have been the object of ongoing scrutiny and fascinating analysis as evidenced in David Dodd’s compendium, The Annotated Grateful Dead.

One of my favorite examples is found within Lady With A Fan, a verse based on a poem hundreds of years old. In the beginning movement of the epic and symphonic Terrapin Station Suite, the storyteller spins the tale of the Lady of Carlisle, who entreats her two archetypal suitors to fetch the fan which she has thrown into the lions den, to win her love. There, we find The Sailor, an adventurous, passionate, and impulsive fellow, and The Soldier, dependent upon his intellect, strategy, and skill (and I like to think, tall dark and handsome). The sailor leaps into the lion’s den—risk be damned, and gets the girl. The soldier hesitates, being much too wise to risk his life on a girl who would ask this of him. Who do we root for?

In all of his songs, Hunter, the master storyteller insists that we form our own conclusions. (For all we know, the girl may tire of the impulsive and easy sailor, and run off with the more complex soldier). Hunter then reminds the listener that the end is never told, because the storyteller‘s “job is to shed light, and not to master”. In other words—your results may vary.

Psychedelics and The CIA: A Simple Twist of Fate

Hunter has deep roots in psychedelia. In about 1961, Hunter (and independently, Ken Kesey, among others) were paid $140 as volunteer test subjects for a covert CIA-sponsored research program MK-ULTRA at a Stanford University lab where participants were paid to take LSD, Psilocybin mushrooms, and Mescaline, while under observation, as well as self-report on their experiences. The CIA was interested in finding out if these psychoactive substances could be used as a weapon of war, particularly during interrogations. Eager to participate, after reading Aldous Huxley’s “Doors of Perception”, Hunter lied to the scientists about never hearing about psychedelics, and he was in.

Chris O’Leary’s ART IS DEAD facebook page

Hunter described one of these psychedelic experiences to Teri Gross in her excellent 1988 Fresh Air Radio interview.

All of a sudden, tears began running out of my eyes. And the psychologist said, well, what's happening here? And I said, well, it's kind of hard to describe, but I'm out in the fifth dimension somewhere. And I'm a great, jade green Buddha. And there's a pool growing out of my lap. And it's just - and the water of the pool is running out of my eyes. I'm not really crying.

Hunter’s portable typewriter further captured his Stanford experience while tripping:

“Sit back picture yourself swooping up a shell of purple with foam crests of crystal drops soft night they fall unto the sea of morning creep-very-softly mist ... and then sort of cascade tinkley-bell like (must I take you by the hand, every so slowly type) and then conglomerate suddenly into a peal of silver vibrant uncomprehendingly, blood singingly, joyously resounding bells... By my faith if this be insanity, then for the love of God permit me to remain insane.”

Clearly, the train had left the station, as this life altering experience served as the conduit between the “new” psychedelic consciousness and the creation of complex, psychedelic songs like Dark Star, St.Stephen, Mountains of the Moon, and China Cat Sunflower, among many others.

During a 2015 interview with Rolling Stone, Hunter said, “I thought there was a possible holy perspective to the Grateful Dead, that what we were doing was almost sacred…the spirit of the times. There was a time I felt this was the way the world would be going in a spiritual way, and we were an important part of that. I didn’t feel we were a pop music band. I wanted to write a whole different sort of music”.

Hunter was inducted into the Songwriting Hall of Fame in 2015, along with a posthumous award to Jerry Garcia, accepted on behalf of the Garcia family by his daughter Trixie. Hunter’s short acceptance speech below, brings chills to the spine, foretelling as it does, that his life’s song was to remind us to embrace the mystery.

“A song cannot emerge in any time but it’s own; the time it helps create. A tune contains its unique place in eternity, just as a specific time contains the tune, allowing the past to sketch the outlines of the future. It can take a lifetime to grasp that, or it can take an instant; whichever is longer”.

For more of my blog, TrippingDelightFantastic, celebrating my love for all things Grateful Dead~