Dead Songs in Depth

    
I never doubted there was a real Sweet Jane who lost her sparkle. I
hope she is still around, there are too many gone too early. "Drugs was
our Vietnam".
  

    

Anybody notice that for the first several weeks of this song's existence,
Bobby sang "Garlands of neon"?  There were several other awkward things that
were worked out in the early days.  The first few times, he sang "Detroit and
Chicago" instead of vice versa.  Much less clumsy to sing "Chicago, New
York..."
  

    
Interesting - and would be interesting to know what Hunter originally
wrote, given Bobby's tendency to want to amend Hunter's lyrics. If
"Garlands of neon" was the original lyric, Hunter nonetheless seems to
have adopted "Arrows" as the 'official' version.
  

    
So I saw.

I haven't had much luck getting info out of Hunter over the last few years,
so I won't annoy him by asking.
  

    
No, not worth it. "Garlands" is fun, though!
  

    
Yeah.  A VERY hard word to sing in that spot, and "arrows" works perfectly.
  

    
I heard arrows as eros for way longer than I'd care to admit.
  

    

Yesterday on SiriusXM's "Tales from the Golden Road," we talked about the
line "Dallas got a soft machine," wondering what it might refer to.

Today I got this email:

> I'll be God damned. Until this weekend I thought Dallas had a soft blue
> sheen.  Just goes to show.
  

    
Ha! Maybe Dallas DOES have a soft blue sheen...

Any other good speculations?
  

    
I've always assumed that it was a reference to the Burroughs novel,
but what it means I don't have the slightest.
  

    
I recall reference to a club in Dallas by that name back in the day.
  

    
So was the Doo Dah man the guy in the R. Crumb comic?
  

    
there is another theory that it refers to the political machine in
that city being less corrupt (bribe-demanding) and harsh to a
passing-through band of druggies or trucker-with-freight
  

    
From an email I received recently:

Hi David...my wife  was watching this movie on TCM the other day,
entitled "For Me and My Gal"....with Judy Garland and Gene
Kelly....some female in the movie at some point exclaims (probably
Judy) "Chicago, New York, Detroit....they're all the same..."  
 
 
Mary, my wife, was thinking that maybe Hunter might have this tidbit
deeply embedded somewhere in his brain, when a very similar lyrical
reference obviously shows up in Truckin...what do you think?
 
thanks
Marc and Mary Jacoby
  

    
cool!
  

    
Love it!
  

    
Plagiarism!!!

(I'm just kidding)
  

    
According to IMDb the quote is:

"Chicago, Boston, Detroit, they're all the same, except New York ...
that's a city!"
  

    
Got the ways and means...
  

    
Bobby talking about the creation of the song in the Wall Street
Journal:
<https://www.wsj.com/article_email/how-cops-pills-and-parties-inspired-the-grat
eful-deads-truckin-1505922824-lMyQjAxMTE3ODI4MDkyNzA2Wj/>
  

    
Great piece
  

    
Yah, Mon, that is what I thought, too
  

    
Very fun--thanks for posting! Does Bob not know about the additional
lyrics Hunter wrote at one point? 
  

    

Good question!
  

    
don't remember much as he ustah