Dead bird song

Bird Song song meanings. Add your thoughts 9 Comments. General Comment Jerry Garcia does a wonderful job singing this song, although he didn't write it, you can tell he has an emotional attactment to the song when he sings it. No Replies Log in to reply. There was an error. General Comment This song was written as a sort of trbute to Janis Joplin a short time after her death.

General Comment If you hear that same sweet song again, will you know why? Anyone who sings a tune so sweet is passin' by, I love this two lines. It's something I think many of us can relate to very strongly: General Comment This is easily one of my all-time Dead faves. So simple yet it provokes such feelings of joy and sorrow. People come and go, but what they shared was so profound. General Comment In the film festival express,a documentary of a bucnh cof musicians riding a train across Canad and putting on concerts at various stops ,a sort of rolling music fest In one scene Garcia tells Janis he's always been in love with her.

General Comment A very sweet and fitting tribute to a troubled soul General Comment I love the sentiment of the song. Its similar to an early medieval view of life: General Comment Originally a tribute to Janis Joplin. Log in now to add this track to your mixtape!

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We do not have any tags for Bird Song lyrics. More guest contributions on early songs, shows, or Dead history are always welcome, of course. It's nice to see these available again. Also, thanks for the editorial notes on my Bird Song essay. They are helpful and to the point. Oddly, this comment got swallowed up by the spam folder You're welcome to add to or revise the essay, if you'd like!

To my ear, it sounds like he's trying to nudge the others into joining him for a Bird Song out of Dark Star. But of course they didn't really pull songs out of left field like that in Europe '72, so I suppose he was just quoting the Bird Song riff and that's all there was to it. Nonetheless, I'll always wonder. A Europe '72 Bird Song would've been a helluva treat! March 24, Bird Song Guest Post. In electric shows it was a high point to many first sets, and it was a mainstay of the band's acoustic performances in the early 's, offering a sweet, mournful lyric and frequently inspired jamming.

Finally, with the publication of Robert Hunter's Box of Rain lyric book in , the Grateful Dead community at large learned the Bird Song was "for Janis", and a new dimension was added to Jerry's crooning and the band's increasingly wild performances. On October 4, , Janis Joplin died. Her loss rocked the music world, and, in particular, the San Francisco music scene. She had first appeared on the Bay Area radar screen as an acoustic blues singer, working the same coffeehouse circuit as the young Jerry Garcia and Jorma Kaukonen with whom she played from time to time.

She became a driving force of the electric unfolding of San Francisco when Chet Helms lured her back from Texas, and hooked her up with Big Brother and the Holding Company. In addition to her inspired performances, she was a much loved member of the community, contributing money and her talents to helping keep the fragile bubble of the Haight afloat, as well as providing a much needed reality check with the bubble floated too far afield.

Her ridicule of the idea of a bunch of hippies running the Carousel Ballroom was scathing and to the point. She was a good friend of the Grateful Dead.

She was particularly close to Pig Pen who was always proud to claim that he taught her to drink Southern Comfort, a memory with painful ironies given the circumstances of both their deaths. It must have been a traumatic night for all involved. Marty Balin did not show up to perform with the Airplane, starting his break with the band.

After the show, in the finest tradition of attack journalism, reporters demanded reactions from the musicians coping with the loss of one of their own. Jerry Garcia was one of those quoted. His comments, which were to the effect that everyone has to die and that Janis would want us to be happy because that was the kind of person she was, have been criticized by many, including Myra Friedman one of Janis' biographers as insensitive. I find the lyrics to Bird Song work best when read as relatively straightforward song of loss, mourning and consolation.

Hunter's acknowledgment that the song was for Janis aids in this interpretation, and represents one instance where a word of explanation from the songwriter helps in the appreciation of the song. The opening two lines of exposition set out the basic tragedy of the song: All he knows is that she sang and then flew on. At this point the song shifts to the second person, where it stays for the remainder of the song.

This permits the singer to directly engage the listener in sorting through the loss of the songbird. Using the second person in a song to directly address the listener is a risky approach. By abandoning the expository approach, and not using dialogue between characters to tell the story of the song, Hunter is abandoning conventional distancing techniques that make songs less personal, both from the perspective of the singer and the listener.

Hunter uses this technique to great effect here and in songs such as Ripple and Foolish Heart. The danger of this technique is that it can sound preachy. I don't believe Day Job would have generated the hostility it did, had it not been directly addressed to the audience. In Bird Song, the singer's conversation with the listener opens with some fairly bleak images: In essence, whatever the listener can offer about the life and passing of the songbird comes down to "snow and rain".

This is a wonderfully chosen image, since snow and rain are two of the perils of a bird's existence, evoking concisely the perils of mortal life. In addition, I hear echoes of the traditional folk image of "wind and rain" in this line. The Black Mountain Boys, among many others, sang to us of the cruel wind and rain. The central image of Bob Dylan's lovely Percy's Song is the cruel rain and wind. The next verse opens with a poignant, unanswerable question for the listener: This takes the very specific tragedy of the loss of Janis Joplin and connects it to the broader tragedy that the creators of art, which can be eternal, are themselves evanescent mortals.

More specifically, it ties the passing of Janis to the heartbreaking tradition of beautiful singers and musicians who have died much too young. From here, the song becomes more open to interpretation. The singer appears to still be addressing the listener, however the imagery is the imagery of a bird: What works best for me is to imagine the listeners as birds, and the singer as offering us consolation and encouragement to continue with our lives despite our losing a beautiful voice from our flock. Read this way, the remainder of the song works wonderfully.

This reminds us that to grieve is not to abandon oneself entirely to loss. Yes, we may cry in the dark, but there is still room to laugh, sing, to continue with life as one flies through the night. Finally, in the bridge, the singer advises the listener that grieving too must come to an end: However, it is not enough to simply stop crying. One sign that the listener has resolved grief is when the listener can achieve a state of inner peace.

This is how I read "Sleep in the stars". Besides being a simply beautiful image, it evokes a sense of tranquility and ability to accept the mortality that is the fate for all of us. Finally flying offers the listener the opportunity to "dry your eyes on the wind. Hunter and Garcia worked swiftly to create their elegy to Janis. The song may have received its first public performance at one of these gigs. If it did, no tape circulates. It is unlikely that the Dead performed Bird Song in public prior to its presumed debut on February 19, It is possible that they performed it at one of the shows around the New Year that does not circulate.

All the other songs on the rehearsal tape were debuted by the band at Port Chester, so it is reasonable to assume that this marked the debut of Bird Song. The first performance of Bird Song is, unsurprisingly, a bit primitive. The Dead are notorious for arranging their songs onstage, and Bird Song is fine example of this. For the song's concert debut, only Jerry and Billy have a clue as to how to play the song, despite the band's efforts to rehearse. Phil almost capsizes the intro when he tries to invent his part on the fly. Bobby is almost absent. Billy's playing strongly echoes his part on the Garcia solo album, suggesting that he had already been working on the song in the studio with Jerry prior to its public debut.

In its debut arrangement, Jerry sings the song twice. Since the song reprises the first verse after the bridge, this results in Jerry singing this verse four times in its first performance an arrangement repeated the next night, then dropped. This arrangement includes three brief instrumental breaks each launched by a guitar statement. The second performance of the song the next night shows Jerry starting to develop some ideas.

Jerry does not extend this line far from the Bird Song theme, but it is the song's first indication of its ability to open. Similarly, in the third performance of the song on February 21, Jerry is looking for extensions in his leads, but he is getting little to no help from the band. After a night off, Phil finally learned his part on February The growth in his playing in two days in stunning. One must suspect he did some homework. He underpins the song structure and adds significant depth to the jam. Given someone to play with, Jerry starts pushing the jam a bit toward the outside.

The playing is still nothing special, but you can hear that the band is starting to get some ideas. Following the Port Chester run, our next version of the song is from the legendary Princeton show on April 17th. For the finest of the early Bird Songs, I commend your attention to its next appearance in Providence on April 21st.

Like all Bird Songs, it is relatively brief under 8 minutes , however this is the first version that I feel truly soars. As with so many Grateful Dead jams, the key to making this version special is Phil. He is dominant in the mix and drives the song through the verses. His strong lead launches the jam at the first break. Jerry joins in for a thoughtful and inventive though too brief dialogue. This Bird Song is a fine example of this communication.

The brief second jam in this version contains Phil's quick quote from Dark Star. The third break is dominated by a more conventional Bird Song theme from Jerry, but Phil offers strong support to drive the jam. This is the first Bird Song connected to another song. This does not occur again until It is also the only time it was connected to Dark Star, a frequent source of jamming material for Bird Song. This is not an exceptional version of the song. It kicks off with a bang out of Dark Star, and the arrangement is delivered confidently.

However, when Jerry tries to seriously weird out the jam at the end, the band doesn't really pick up the thread and the jam sort of peters out. After the band had dropped Bird Song as a performance piece, Jerry finally got around to releasing it on his first solo album, Garcia, in early Yes, we have yet another chapter in the band's complete obliviousness to its commercial product in making up its set lists.

The album version is nice, with a bouncy tempo, but not particularly inspiring. Instrumentally, it is dominated by Jerry's electric guitar and straightforward organ riffs. It doesn't include any significant instrumental play until the end, where a brief jam slows the tempo just prior to the fade. There is one mystery on the album version. Early on, there is, very briefly, a women's voice wailing, buried deeply in the mix. It comes right after Jerry sings the opening line. This is uncredited, leaving plenty of room for speculation as to the vocalist. My pet theory is that Donna overdubbed it, since she was in the Dead's orbit prior to the release of the album.

Other speculation is that it is Mountain Girl or a sample of a Janis recording. Upon its revival, it became a mainstay of their sets, appearing in almost every show from July through December After December , it became an occasional treat, livening up first sets until it was dropped after September 15, Clearly, the band, especially Jerry, gave some thought to how to bring back the song.

The new arrangement introduced a formal structure to the jam at the first instrumental break. In all and versions of Bird Song, this jam opened with an improvised section which would close with a statement of the Bird Song theme. The jam would then move to a brief solo statement from Billy, followed by the full band offering a forceful, yet spacy, statement of one of Bird Song instrumental themes originally developed by Jerry in the early versions of the song.

To my ears, this theme appears to be closely related to the chord pattern the band uses to introduce the bridge of the song. In , the band also developed a closing jam after the reprise of the lyrics. While this tended to be a relatively brief jam, it often was quite dynamic, and frequently provided a contrast to the generally more contemplative opening jams. Once this arrangement fully evolved in August , the Dead found themselves with three distinct jamming statements in Bird Song: Another major development in the Bird Songs was the growth of Bob Weir.

In versions of the song, he was generally not a significant factor. For the new arrangement of the song, he developed a distinctive jazzy pattern of chording that was key to the framework both of the song and much of the jamming. This chordal pattern freed Jerry to explore wide ranging lead lines, and offered a sensitive framework for the band to react to.

Bobby and Jerry also worked out unison lead lines for the verses, similar in concept to their playing on China Cat Sunflower, which gave more authority to the presentation of the lyrics. While the basic structure of the new arrangement was worked out in advance, the band, as was its wont, spent the first several tries of a new arrangement working out the kinks.

The debut of the new arrangement occurred at Roosevelt Stadium on July 18, , the second show after Pig Pen's departure. This version is more than a little bit rocky. Jerry totally dominates the opening jam, which stays fairly static. After the drums, the band restates the basic Bird Song theme rather then hitting the theme used in all other and versions.

The post-drums jam quickly falls apart. Another, I believe, unique, element of this version is that the closing jam comes after the reprise of the first verse. In all other and versions, the closing jam comes at the very end of the song. Phil kicks off the closing jam, eventually joined by Jerry.

This jam does not cohere particularly well, and lacks the drive that is central to most of the closing jams in this era. The post-drums jam and the closing jam are much better organized, although neither soars. By August, the band is making substantial progress with the new arrangement. The band asserts itself much more strongly in the opening jam, pushing the energy and creating some interesting tension with Jerry's very drawn out lead lines.

The post-drums jam quickly abandons its signature theme for a yearning theme more characteristic of the opening jam.

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It's nice, but doesn't take advantage of the opportunity for thematic variation that this arrangement of Bird Song presents. The reprise jam, on the other hand, shows significant evolution. Jerry kicks off with a spacy start to the jam framed by Bobby's inventive chordwork. Jerry moves to a more driving, Other One related line, then moves back to a yearning theme supported by Phil.

Then, as a harbinger of things to come, Phil moves out front. He's just building up a head of steam as the jam ends, leaving us wanting much more. This is by far the finest reprise jam to date. In both versions, Phil is dominant from the intro onwards.

These versions also show how the whole band's communication is improving. Neither of these versions is flawless, the band still hasn't figured out what to make of the post-drums jam, but the overall playing is showing substantially greater depth. I do not subscribe to the school that maintains this show to be a monumentally unique Grateful Dead experience. However, I do think this was a very special show, and that the band responded by pushing their playing to a higher level than in the earlier post-Europe shows. Their performance of Bird Song illustrates this point. This is the first version of the new arrangement that completely works.

It is substantially longer than any previous version, running close to 12 minutes, and the band makes great use of the extra time. The singers show their growing confidence with the song. Even the harmonies start to gel, as Bobby finds a way to fit in. Jerry kicks off the jam with his standard yearning themes. He then pushes the tempo, and the band responds fluently as the jam swells, recedes and swells again.

Jerry's leads extend the opening jam much further than the earlier versions, and the band is with him every step of the way. The band seamlessly flows into the restatement of the Bird Song theme leading to the drums. The post-drums jam finally works as distinct statement, as the band picks up on the signature theme and, for the first time, develops variations on the theme.

Phil's leads underpin the singing in the reprise. Bob's chords kick off the reprise jam, and Jerry plays off of them beautifully to develop a supple and exploratory jam that flows perfectly into the close. Following Veneta, the Grateful Dead started one of the finest periods of their career. Almost every performance is memorable, and every jamming song they performed reached great heights. Bird Song was no exception. Every Bird Song from this era is worth serious attention, as the band's jamming reached almost telepathic levels of interplay.

Phil ornaments the verses with intricate melodic lines, giving the first hint at the depth of this performance. Phil and Bob launch the jam, with Phil's lead lines dancing through Bob's chord patterns. Jerry's yearning lead completes the picture, and the three guitar players develop an extended and exploratory conversation, in a relaxed mood.

The jam smoothly flows into the restatement of the Bird Song theme, Billy's drums and a brief post-drums jam. The reprise jam resumes the guitar players' intricate three-way conversation. These are not a powerhouse jams with dynamic surges. But these jams have an intricate beauty that is worth a close listen. One footnote to this performance: Had the connection been made, it would have been the only or Bird Song to segue into another song.

Here, after a confident reading of the song, Jerry hangs back to let Bobby build a chordal structure to open the jam. Jerry then blasts down this structure with piercing lines. This is as high energy as Bird Song opening jams got in Jerry drives this jam with authority, poaching some rock and roll lines from a Truckin' jam.

Bobby's support keeps the song anchored as he explores variations on the Bird Song theme. The closing jam is also noteworthy in that here Jerry explores the yearning themes ignored in the opening jam.

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The earliest Bird Song released by the Dead and one of only four also fits in the powerhouse category. This is the version Phil proclaims to be dynamite at the close. My favorite parts of this one are the Dark Star elements Jerry introduces near the opening jam, and the driving closing jam. Bobby opens and closes this jam with patterns derived from the post-drums theme. Jerry uses Bobby's framework to launch his high energy lead, and to bring it back to earth as the jam winds to its close. One surprise in Bird Songs is the reticence of Keith. I find this puzzling, because Keith plays a key role in much of the year's jamming.

Fortunately, there are a couple of noteworthy exceptions. In this version, Jerry launches the jam with his typical yearning themes. After wandering up his fretboard, though, Jerry drops out, and Keith takes charge. Robert Goetz speculates in Volume 1 that Keith took over when Jerry broke a string. My guess is that it was planned. After some initial patterns with Bobby, Keith moves over to electric piano and favors us with some subtle and quite nice wah wah phrasing. This is the first use of electric piano I am aware of in Bird Song, and Keith's first use of the wah wah effect that I know of anywhere.

I think Jerry stepped aside to let Keith try out his new toy. Eventually, Jerry strolls back in for a nice conversation with Phil, leading to the drum break. He isn't out front, but he makes several strong contributions in the verses and the closing jam. For Phil fans, I would recommend two of my very favorite Bird Songs: Their communion deepens as they develop an intricate dual lead jam.

This is a flaw I can live with.

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We get to again hear Phil beautifully ornamenting Jerry's introduction to the opening jam. Phil then pushes the tempo and energy of the jam up a notch, bringing Jerry along for the ride. The jam slows to an elegant, melodic theme, with some Dark Star hints from Phil before the drums. This version is also notable for the return of Keith's wah wah electric piano. Here it accents the post-drums jam, the vocal reprise and the start of the closing jam. However, all are worth a listen.

The early Bird Songs do not impress me as much as their brethren from the late summer and fall of This may be, in part, because the early shows don't thrill me as much as the end of Another factor is the decline of Bobby's role in the arrangement. His chord work was a key element of the song's structure in This was not entirely a bad thing. Bobby backing off opened space in the arrangement that gave Keith and especially Phil more room to play.

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But nothing in the arrangements really took the place of Bob's chord work, leaving a looser and somewhat more disjointed arrangement of the song. The highlight of the early Bird Songs are two versions where Phil makes his presence felt. For the first time, Keith played the whole song on Fender something he continued in most of the later versions , a delightful change of pace.

This change, however, doesn't disrupt the arrangement. To the contrary, every piece of this version falls into place, from Jerry's leads down to Billy's swinging cymbal accents. Weir gives us a taste of his chord work in the first verse, although he essentially disappears from the arrangement afterwards. Phil makes his presence felt in the first chorus, then Keith steps out for the second verse and the bridge. Phil, Keith and Jerry open the jam in a gentle, contemplative space, exploring variations on the Bird Song theme.

Gradually they pick up the pace, while retaining the spacy melodic feel. Weir finally resurfaces in the mix just as Jerry explores more variations of the Bird Song theme before the drums. The post-drums jam is a further extended conversation between Phil, Jerry and Keith, with Keith reintroducing his wah wah. The closing jam continues the conversation as it builds to an understated, but well-structured climax. The last four Bird Songs are all very different except in one critical respect: Keith is again a star on Fender.

Billy also makes his presence felt in the opening jam pushing the energy upwards. Keith and Jerry respond to this, building to a mountainous climax. The only flaws in this version is some quirkiness in the mix of the reprise, and a high energy but too brief closing jam. The final three Bird Songs only circulate on less than splendid audience tapes.

Each is worth the patience it takes to experience the Dead's jamming at its finest. Jerry and Phil's dialogue in the opening jam is particularly noteworthy as is the fully developed postdrums space jam. This jam eventually peters out, and Jerry brings up more conventional yearning themes, but with a strange, off-kilter edge. Jerry and Phil push the jam further towards weirdness until a climbing pattern develops to build energy towards the return of the Bird Song theme. Keith is the initial star of the postdrums jam with rippling Fender lines. Jerry and Phil then take over for a delicate and strange space.

The closing jam is a nice mix of power and weirdness. It doesn't develop so much as mutate, introducing increasingly odd facets to a basically static framework. If and when the band shows the good sense to make the William and Mary run a Dick's Pick, I hope they do not neglect this gem from the underappreciated second night. Before letting go of this song, Jerry has a few things to say. He then moves into yearning themes, with a tense, angry edge. Jerry similarly drives the postdrums jam and the closing jam. The closing jam hits strongly on Other One themes, opening with drive before spacing out gently for the close.

It is hard to figure why the band dropped Bird Song just as they moved into another of their finest jamming periods in late and Possibly it got squeezed out by the band's interest in bringing forward material from Wake of the Flood and, in , Mars Hotel. It is reasonable to speculate that Here Comes Sunshine, Weather Report Suite and, in , Scarlet Begonias offered the band new opportunities for exploring jamming opportunities within a song framework. Another possibility is that, by , Bird Song was firmly entrenched as a first set song.

Late , despite its legendary jams, does show the band cutting back on its first set jamming. Regardless of the explanation, I will always regret that the band dropped one of my favorite songs just as they entered one of my favorite eras. Seven years later almost to the day after its departure, Bird Song returned in its first acoustic incarnation. The acoustic Bird Song was spawned during the period of intense creativity and work that generated the acoustic material for the extended residencies at the Warfield in San Francisco and Radio City Music Hall in New York. Outside of these runs, the Grateful Dead played Bird Song acoustically only a few times.

However, the acoustic arrangement lived on in acoustic performances of Jerry Garcia and John Kahn. I had the good fortune to see five acoustic Bird Songs: Each version was memorable. The acoustic arrangement of Bird Song abandons many of the structural elements of the and versions. The drum break at the center of the main jam disappears in , as does the distinctive figure, adapted from the bridge, that followed the drums.

Also, the closing jam disappears in , never to return. In addition, the order of verses is substantially reshuffled in , then reshuffled again whether intentionally or not almost every night they played the song. For the debut, Jerry sings the entire song, including repeating the first verse, before the jam. As with the earlier arrangements, it takes the band a few tries at the song to wipe the cornstarch off its mukluks and get settled. I believe this is the only time Bird Song has opened a set.

This version finds Jerry and Phil engaged, but finds the rest of the band well and truly lost. The drummers, in particular, lock into a totally inappropriate nervous pulse. The brief jam introduces Jerry's stabbing acoustic guitar lines, a prominent feature in many acoustic Bird Songs. The drummers are much too busy, and working at far too speedy a tempo. One begins to understand Bobby's complaints about the drummers overplaying on ballads.

The jam here shows Jerry starting to stretch out as he explores new angles. The drummers are back in their cage, and the band in general seems more confident. The high point of this version is Phil stepping out for some lead lines in the still too brief jam. The next two versions are also strong versions for Phil, and are my two favorite Warfield versions. Phil does a delicate, melodic dance through the verses. Jerry kicks off the jam with rapid fire lines, then backs off the tempo only to push hard again.

Phil tracks the ebb and flow from Jerry, ornamenting every step. His lyrical leads dominate the verses, and he enters into an extended exploratory conversation with Jerry in the jam. Some of my very favorite Bird Song vocals are from the later Warfield shows. This version features high speed rippling lines from Jerry, with Phil bouncing imperturbably around him. This version also has Jerry singing "If you hear that same sweet song again" rather than "When you hear". This is noteworthy because Hunter wrote the line as "If you hear". Until this version, I don't believe Garcia had ever sung the line as written.

He drives the entire jam, as he explores a wide range of variations on the Bird Song theme. This version reminds me Jerry's approach to the song in his duets with John Kahn. Generally, I prefer the later Warfield performances to those from the Radio City run. A big reason for this is that Jerry's voice is in much worse shape at Radio City. The other reason is Phil. With one noteworthy exception, I just don't hear him stepping up to the plate for this run. This may be due, in part, to the fidelity of the audience tapes. But I think he simply wasn't giving it his all.

He offers one of his better readings of the lyrics, then sails out strongly in the jam with piercing notes. He forces a tightly focussed and intense jam that bristles with energy. Jerry launches the jam, lyrically ascending and descending his fretboard. Phil is much more of a presence than earlier in the run, as he underpins and ornaments Jerry's flights. One wonders if Phil is showing off for the cameras. Jerry extends his rippling lead lines away from the Bird Song themes, with Phil pushing him every step of the way.

Brent starts the return to the main theme, but Jerry resists, setting up some tension that gives more strength to the jam, and a nice sense of release when the reprise falls into place. Following the Radio City run, the band gave us two more acoustic Bird Songs in This show offers a wonderful performance, but a frustrating tape. On the tape we can hear Phil clearly enough to tell that he is active and fully engaged, but not clearly enough to really hear what he is doing.

An upgrade is called for. Jerry's playing makes the performance. He launches the jam with some fast pitched stabbing notes, like a Martian telegraph. He builds the jam with rippling lines that have a bit of a hard, dissonant edge. This is about as stormy as the acoustic Bird Songs get.

The fact I was at the concert might color my judgment a bit, but it is definitely worth a listen. Phil and Jerry launch this jam together. Jerry is out front with rippling lines. Jerry shifts direction away from standard Bird Song themes, bringing in a dissonant edge not unlike the Mill Valley version, but also with a blues feel. The band does a very nice job of building the energy of the jam in support of Jerry's lead. Then, with a nice sense of dynamics, the band quiets and Jerry flies almost alone before returning to the Bird Song theme.

It is a winner. The jam here is relaxed at the start, with Jerry strolling out accompanied by Phil and Brent. Jerry and Phil then push the tempo and energy. A very strong full band jam builds, bristling with ideas. Both Jerry and Phil essay some sweet lead lines, and the band moves into and out of Other One related themes a couple of times. The electric set from this show justly gets most of the attention, but this highlight to the acoustic set is arguably the most serious jamming of the night.

After the Grateful Dead abandoned the acoustic arrangement of Bird Song, it lived on in two forms: I have only heard a few of the Bird Songs from this era. There are two versions, though, that I can strongly recommend. This gives Garcia and Kahn a good grounding for the jam, and lets Kahn contribute without interfering with Jerry's flights of fancy. Here the jam kicks off with a playful melodic dance from Jerry. Jerry shifts to chording patterns that introduce darker themes that he carries into his lead lines.

Meanwhile, Kahn keeps up the bright melodic themes. This sets up a tension that resolves in a well executed climax to the jam. The acoustic Bird Song only resurfaced in five shows by subsets of the Grateful Dead. This version of Bird Song is not terribly distinguished, but it does kick off a novel suite of material, going into Ripple then Drums then Oh Boy.

This is not a monumental version. Jerry and Bobby do take the jam out for a bit of a spin, but never wander too far from home. Still, it is nice to hear the boys trying something new. The brevity of this version is generally attributed to Jerry cutting off the jam when Joan Baez appeared on the stage, apparently intending to join in. This is the show where the band left the drummers at home, and played their last acoustic concert.

This is an uneven show, with the near collapse of the group's attempt at Dupree's Diamond Blues, and serious sound problems in the early part of the show. Still I love the band's willingness to experiment and fail. At this show, at least, they offer us something new. The Bird Song from this show is one place where the band's sense of adventure pays off. This version is more than a bit ragged in the verses. The band misses the drummers here. The jam, however, is heavenly. Jerry launches with a reflective and spacy lead line.

After being inaudible much of the night, Phil is a delight underpinning Jerry's lead.