4:03
Shakedown Street, 1978W
Written by Mickey Hart, Bob Weir, and Robert Hunter
To commemorate, even if obliquely, Bastille Day, today we have this overlooked gem from the Dead. Built around a steel drum line and handclaps and sung by Donna Jean Godchaux and Bob Weir, this is one of the few Grateful Dead songs the band never performed live. Fans have long regarded it as a low point, and apparently so did the band. According to Robert Hunter, it started out as a Latin jam, but was changed and abbreviated for the album. Mickey Hart later wrote of this song, "We were trying to sell out." I get the objections, but I don't care for all this gatekeeping of the jam vibe, man. It might be poppy, for a certain 1970s definition of "pop," but I dig it, myself.
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