Truckin'
| "Truckin'" | |
|---|---|
| Song | |
| B-side | "Ripple" |
"Truckin'" is a song by the Grateful Dead, which first appeared on their 1970 album American Beauty. It was recognized by the United States Library of Congress in 1997 as a national treasure.[1]
Written by band members Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, and lyricist Robert Hunter, "Truckin'" molds classic Grateful Dead rhythms and instrumentation[2] with lyrics that use the band's misfortunes on the road as a metaphor for getting through the constant changes in life. Its climactic refrain, "What a long, strange trip it's been," has achieved widespread cultural use in the years since the song's release.[1]
Music
- Key: E
- Time signature: 4/4
- Chords used: E, A, B, Bsus4, G, D, F#, Amaj7
"Truckin'" is associated with the blues and other early 20th century forms of folk music.[3]
"Truckin'" was considered a "catchy shuffle" by the band members.[4] Garcia himself commented that "the early stuff we wrote that we tried to set to music was stiff because it wasn't really meant to be sung ... the result of [lyricist Robert Hunter getting into our touring world], the better he could write ... and the better we could create music around it."[1] The communal, shared-group-experience feel of the song is brought home by the participation of all four of the group's chief songwriters (Garcia, Weir, Lesh, and Hunter), since, in Phil Lesh's words, "we took our experiences on the road and made it poetry," lyrically and musically. He goes on to say that "the last chorus defines the band itself."[5]
Lyrics
 | This article possibly contains original research. (September 2007) |
The song revolves around the vicissitudes of life on the road for a "counterculture" band in the late 1960s/early 1970s era. Misadventures are described from Buffalo to Dallas, culminating in a (real life) drug bust in New Orleans. The mood is one of outrage reduced to exasperated resignation:
- Sittin' and starin' out of the hotel window.
- Got a tip they're gonna kick the door in again ...
- I'd like to get some sleep before I travel,
- But if you got a warrant, I guess you're gonna come in.
- Busted, down on Bourbon Street;
- Set up, like a bowling pin.
- Knocked down, it gets to wearin' thin.
- They just wont let you be, oh no.
Gradually the narration and music builds to a climax, setting up Robert Hunter's most famous verse:
- Sometimes the light's all shinin' on me;
- Other times, I can barely see.
- Lately it occurs to me ...
- What a long, strange trip it's been.
This last line has become the most popular of any phrase to come from a Grateful Dead song, and has been used in countless other contexts.It is also the name of a popular headshop on Haight Street[1][6]
Another famous lyric, "Truckin', like the Doohdah Man", makes cultural allusion to the long-striding, ever on the move icon of the "Keep on Truckin'" comic by countercultre artist and illustrator Robert Crumb, a fixture of pop culture in the late 1960's and early 1970s introduced in 1968 and widely spread before the song's composition in early to mid 1970.
Single and album history
The song was taken from the American Beauty album and edited down in length from five to three minutes for release as a single, with it reaching number 64 on January 27, 1971 on the U.S. Pop Singles chart and staying there for eight weeks. "Truckin'" was the highest-charting pop single the group would have until the surprise top-ten performance of "Touch of Grey" 17 years later.
"Truckin'" had a greater impact than its chart performance indicates. While it did not penetrate pure Top 40 stations, it did receive airplay on stations with slightly more relaxed formats, and the unedited track received heavy airplay on progressive rock radio stations.
The song was released two more times as a single, first as the B-side of the single "Johnny B. Goode" in 1972, and then as an A-side again, with "Sugar Magnolia" backing, in 1974; neither release charted. The edited version of the song also appeared on the compilation album What a Long Strange Trip It's Been in 1977 and The Golden Road (1965-1973) box set in 2001.
The full version appeared on American Beauty and the compilation Skeletons from the Closet: The Best of Grateful Dead in 1974. Live versions of the song appeared on:
- Europe '72
- Dick's Picks series, Volumes 1, 7, 12, 14, 15, 16, 18, 23, 28, 30, 31, 34, 35, and 36.
- Hundred Year Hall
- Ladies and Gentlemen ... The Grateful Dead
- Steppin' Out with the Grateful Dead: England '72
- Rocking the Cradle: Egypt 1978
- View from the Vault series III
- Rockin' The Rhein
- The Grateful Dead Movie soundtrack
- Grateful Dead Download Series Volumes 3, 8, and 10
Chart history
| Date first charted | Position | Duration |
|---|---|---|
| January 27, 1971 | 64 | 8 weeks |
Performance history
"Truckin'" debuted as the first song on the first set on August 18, 1970 at The Fillmore in San Francisco, the same performance where many of American Beauty's songs premiered.
A longer rendition that turns into a jam was included on the popular 1972 live album Europe '72 segueing into "Epilogue" followed by "Prelude".
Over the band's long concert career, "Truckin'" was performed 520 times, making it the eighth-most performed Dead song. [7]
References
- ^ a b c d Grateful Dead: The Illustrated Trip . Jake Woodward, et al. Dorling Kindersley Limited, 2003, pg. 112. Cite error: The named reference "multiple" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- ^ Emblematic of the Grateful Dead sound that gained them four albums in the Rolling Stone 500 greatest albums list within the 1968-1970 period, a list they did not appear on again.
- ^ Jazz Dance: The Story of American Vernacular Dance by Marshall Stearns and Jean Stearns, De Capo Press, 1994 ISBN 0-306-80553-7.
- ^ Garcia: An American Life by Blair Jackson, Penguin Books, 1999, pg. 197.
- ^ Phil Lesh: Searching for the Sound by Phil Lesh, Little, Brown and Company, 2005, pg. 191.
- ^ ""what a long strange trip it's been" search at Google.com". As of July 2006, produces over 125,000 hits.
- ^ Deadbase X: The Complete Guide to Grateful Dead Song Lists by John W. Scott, Mike Dolgushkin, Stu Nixon, Deadbase, 1997.
