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Verso la fine degli anni 60, San Francisco e in generale la California erano popolati di hippies, gli acidi lisergici erano legali e quei famosi "happening" assumenvano proporzioni sempre piú grandi.
Fu in questo scenario che Jerry Garcia mise insieme i Grateful Dead; come lo stesso movimento hippie anche questa band si trovò a contare un numero di musicisti spropositato che ogni volta riempivano anche gli stage piú larghi, se solo pensiamo alla line-up... 4 chitarristi, due batteristi, voci, tastiere e quant'altro.
Live/Dead è proprio uno di quei live registrati in quegli happening, la band e in particolare Garcia suonavano sotto effetto, erano tutti sopra quel palco e tutti insieme, ogni canzone lascia andare gli artisti in improvvisazioni, ma contemporaneamente rimangono uniti come se fossero una squadriglia di aerei acrobatici che dipingono il cielo con i loro getti fumogeni e una volta usciti di scena il cielo assomiglia ad un dipinto.
Dark Star diventerà uno dei loro cavalli da battaglia che li accompagnerà durante le loro innumerevoli performance live, solo questa si spinge per oltre 20 minuti, inebriante, mistica e mai monotona o pesante.
Saint Stephen comincia con dei timidi rumori dalla chitarra di Garcia, sfocia in una melodia psichedelica e richiama scenari alla Easy Rider.
Ogni canzone di questo disco ha un suo sapore condito sempre con la stessa sostanza dei Grateful Dead. Questo disco, se assimilato con le giuste circostanze può far rivivere quelle stesse atmosfere che avvolgevano la band negli anni del loro massimo spendore... quegli anni in cui tutti insieme occupavano un palazzo a S. Francisco, vivevano felici, spensierati... lisergici.
Un consiglio: se avete la possibilità di assaggiare la versione in vinile... non fatevela scappare.
Elenco tracce testi samples e video
01 Dark Star (23:07)
Dark star, crashes
Pouring its light into ashes
Reason tatters, the forces tear loose from the axis
Searchlight casting, for faults in the clouds of delusion
Shall we go, you and I while we can
Through, the transitive nightfall of diamonds
Mirror shatters in formless reflections of matter
Glass hand dissolving to ice petal flowers revolving
Lady in velvet recedes in the nights of goodbye
Shall we go, you and I while we can
Through the transitive nightfall of diamonds
02 St. Stephen (06:32)
Saint Stephen with a rose, in and out of the garden he goes,
Country garland in the wind and the rain,
Wherever he goes the people all complain.
Stephen prospered in his time, well he may and he may decline.
Did it matter, does it now? Stephen would answer if he only knew how.
Wishing well with a golden bell, bucket hanging clear to hell,
Hell halfway twixt now and then,
Stephen fill it up and lower down and lower down again.
Lady finger, dipped in moonlight, writing "What for?" across the morning sky.
Sunlight splatters, dawn with answer, darkness shrugs and bids the day good-bye.
Speeding arrow, sharp and narrow,
What a lot of fleeting matters you have spurned.
Several seasons with their treasons,
Wrap the babe in scarlet colors, call it your own.
Did he doubt or did he try? Answers aplenty in the bye and bye,
Talk about your plenty, talk about your ills,
One man gathers what another man spills.
Saint Stephen will remain, all he's lost he shall regain,
Seashore washed by the suds and foam,
Been there so long, he's got to calling it home.
Fortune comes a crawlin', calliope woman,
Spinnin' that curious sense of your own.
Can you answer? Yes I can.
But what would be the answer to the answer man?
03 The Eleven (09:21)
High green chilly winds and windy vines
In loops around the twisted shafts of lavender,
They're crawling to the sun.
Underfoot the ground is patched
With arms of ivy wrapped around the manzanita,
Stark and shiny in the breeze.
Wonder who will water all the children of the garden
When they sigh about the barren lack of rain and
Droop so hungry neath the sky.
William Tell has stretched his bow till it won't stretch
No furthermore and/or it may require a change that hasn't come before.
No more time to tell how, this is the season of what,
Now is the time of returning with our thought
Jewels polished and gleaming.
Now is the time past believing the child has relinquished the rein,
Now is the test of the boomerang tossed in the night of redeeming.
Seven faced marble eyed transitory dream doll,
Six proud walkers on the jingle bell rainbow,
Five men writing with fingers of gold,
Four men tracking down the great white sperm whale,
Three girls waiting in a foreign dominion
Riding in the whalebelly, fade away in moonlight,
Sink beneath the waters to the coral sands below.
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