I've been listening to alot of Grateful Dead lately - I blogged about the massive live Dead at Archive.org. Dead concerts are perfect for listening to while working - they went on for hours and some individual songs went for close to an hour. And then there are the infamous Dead solos.I've never been a huge Dead fan, but I did see them live in Philadelphia when I was in high school - this concert as a matter of fact. I don't remember much of the music though, just sort of wandering around the concert hall with Rob Denhardt (RIP - he died suddenly of a congenital heart problem in the 1990s. We were never more than friends, but he dated two good friends of mine.)
I've become a sort of connoisseur of "Turn on Your Love Light" - I first heard it on the recordings of the two shows that Janis Joplin did with the Dead, but the Dead performed it many more times, and most of those are available on Archive.org. It eventually became their big show-ending song, and most versions are at least twenty minutes long. Their Woodstock version clocks in at 38:23.
It was Pigpen's song, and after he died they didn't do it nearly as much. I've been sticking with the Pigpen versions because you can tell he loves it so much.
Most versions of Lovelight start out with the standard lyrics:
Without a warning you broke my heart, takin' it baby, tore it apart
And you left me standin' in the dark, said your love for me was dyin'.
Come on baby, baby please come on baby, cause I'm on my knees.
Turn on your lights let it shine on me shine on your love light
Let it shine on me let shine, let it shine, let it shine.
When I get lonely in the middle of the night
And I need you darlin' to make things alright
So come on baby, baby please and I'm beggin' you baby cause I'm on my knees,
Turn on your lights let it shine on me
Turn on your love light let it shine on me
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
Without a warning you broke my heart, takin' it baby, tore it apart
And you left me standin' in the dark, shine your love for me was dark.
Come on baby, baby please come on baby, cause I'm on my knees.
Turn on your lights let it shine on me shine on your love light
Let it shine on me let shine, let it shine, let it shine.
Sometimes Pigpen talks to the crowd - often exhorting the young men to take their hands out of their pockets - even telling them to "stop playing that pocket pool" and speak to the young lady next to them. On a few occasions he picks out members of the audience and tries to match-make.
Mostly though, in addition to the usual lyrics he does several bluesy-phrases:
"I don't want it all, I jusa want a little bit"
"Now wait a minute - I wanna tell you something - about my baby - how she make me feel. I wanta tell you just a little bit, I'm not gonna tell you all"
"Sometimes, early in the morning, just before the day is dawning, I just git, a little bit lonesome. I reach over my left shoulder, gotta make her feel pretty good. And if I get lonesome anytime, I got my baby by my side."
He sometimes refers to his baby as his "rider." And in fact in many Dead song performances the term rider is synonymous with lover. They do another song called "I Know You Rider" (it is often paired with China Cat Sunflower.) Here's a live performance from Youtube. Pigpen is in the back, on keyboards, and you can barely see him.
The Grateful Dead was hugely influential in the 1960s and much of that culture lives on, but the term "rider" for sex partner is never used these days, as far as I'm aware.
I really do enjoy Pigpen's take on the song - it's sort of down and dirty blues - and he's pretty hot. He seems to have gone through a fat biker period in his early 20s, but by his mid-20s he slimmed down considerably for a wiry cowboy look (as in the picture above) and has a real "dirty-sexy" appeal as my friend Amanda calls it.
The term rider - or "easy rider" was referenced as a Mae West innuendo in her song "I Wonder Where My Easy Rider's Gone?" No doubt like most good stuff in American culture it comes originally from American Black culture.