Dead Songs in Depth

    
Estimated Prophet
w: Barlow m: Weir
AGDL: http://arts.ucsc.edu/gdead/agdlestimate.html
LASF: http://www.whitegum.com/songfile/ESTIMATE.HTM
  

    
Estimated Prophet 
Lyrics: John Barlow
Music: Bob Weir

Copyright Ice Nine Publishing; used by permission.

My time coming any day, don't worry 'bout me, no
Been so long I felt this way, I'm in no hurry no
Rainbows end down that highway where ocean breezes blow
My time coming, voices saying, they tell me where to go
Don't you worry 'bout me--oh no no, don't worry 'bout me, no
And I'm in no hurry--oh no no no, I know where to go

California, preaching on the burning shore
California, I'll be knocking on the golden door
Like an angel, standing in a shaft of light
Rising up to paradise, I know I'm gonna shine

My time coming any day, don't worry 'bout me, no
It's gonna be just like they say, them voices tell me so
Seems so long I felt this way and time sure passing slow
Still I know I lead the way, they tell me where I go

Don't you worry 'bout me--oh, no, no, don't worry 'bout me, no
And I'm in no hurry--oh, no, no, no, I know where to go

California, a prophet on the burning shore
California, I'll be knocking on the golden door
Like an angel, standing in a shaft of light
Rising up to paradise, I know I'm gonna shine

You've all been asleep, you would not believe me
Them voices telling me, you will soon receive me
We're standing on the beach, the sea will part before me
Fire wheel burning in the air
You will follow me and we will ride to glory
Way up in the middle of the air
And I'll call down thunder and speak the same
And my words fills the sky with flame
And might and glory gonna be my name
And men gonna light my way

My time coming any day, don't worry 'bout me, no
It's gonna be just like they say, them voices tell me so
Seems so long I felt this way and time sure passing slow
My time coming any day, don't worry 'bout me, no
Don't you worry 'bout me--oh, no, no, don't worry 'bout me, no
And I'm in no hurry--oh, no, no, don't worry 'bout me, no
And I'm in no hurry--oh, no, no, no, I know where to go
[etc]
  

    

Bob Weir tells of the creation of "Estimated Prophet" int he Poughkeepsie
Journal:


http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/entertainment/li102403s1.shtml


Performed live, "Estimated Prophet" captured all of Weir's onstage ego but
also gave Garcia a set of chord progressions against which he could deliver
the goods as the signature soloist he was.  The genesis of this song can be
traced back to one of the thousands of anonymous hotels where the Dead have
stayed while on the road over decades.

"When we were traveling, we'd go through the Bible," Weir recalled.  "You
would pull out the Gideon Bible.  During dull moments - you break out the
Bible and read that."

One night after the show and post-show parties had ended, after everyone had
gone to bed, Weir got a phone call in his hotel room.

"It's Jerry," Weir said, laughing.  "He said, 'Hey man, read this.  Tell me
what you think of this.' "

Garcia had stumbled across the books of Daniel and Ezekiel in the Old Testa-
ment and was apparently so jazzed by what he had read that he felt compelled
to share them with Weir.

Both were dazzled by the passages, narratives that Weir believed were relay-
ing, in part, the journeys of alien beings to Earth during Biblical times.

"You get into some pretty hairy stuff ... four floating heads, wings, sur-
rounded by a wing of fire," Weir said of the Bible.

Inspired, Weir shared the passages with his lyricist, John Perry Barlow, and
the result became a staple of live performances for nearly two decades, in
addition to the opening track on the Dead's 1977 album, "Terrapin Station."

"Standing on the beach/The sea will part before me, (Fire wheel burnin' in
the air)," go the lyrics.  "You will follow me/And we will ride to glory,
(Way up, in the middle of the air.) And I'll call down thunder and speak the
same/As my words fill the sky with flame./Might and Glory's gonna be my
name./They gonna light my way."
  

    
Or, as one of my college friends insisted, "Martin Corey gonna be my
name."
  

    
Bob singing about standing in a shaft of light while standing in a
shaft of light is about as funny as it gets. 
  

    
Yes! I always enjoyed that.
  

    
Just so he doesn't start levitating in mid-chorus...
  

    
Embraceable contradiction and pointed ambiguity resonate in the title,
"Estimated Prophet". Estimate has a variety of meanings, including
repute, esteem, without actual measurement and gauge.

Accordingly, the prophet may be of doubtful authenticity or the real
thing, may be crowned and hailed or still awaiting judgement.

Indeed, a post-modern prophet.

Happy Trails
  

    
When and where was the first Estimated played?
  

    
looks like 2-26-77 Swing Auditorium, San Bernadino
(quick search at setlist.com)
  

    
In Java, a fake shaman is known as a "dukun palsu". I have always
associated the term with Estimated Prophet.
  

    
Ah, you use setlists.com. I've been using deadlists.com but the song
search thing is down. Thanks.
  

    
A fake shaman? Hmmm...That would put a different spin on the song for
me. Even though its "Estimated" Prophet, that song has always had a
semi-serious meanign for me. But I know Bobby's big on not taking it
too serious. Perhaps I'll post the paragraphs I've been working on for
this beautiful song. What the hell, I'll do it.
  

    <hidden>
  

    
Very telling quotes assembled in the opening:

Garcia: I don’t know why it works. I just know that it does. It works
because we think it will, probably.

Garcia: Everything like that works because the people involved in it
believe that it will work. The Belief system gives form, and the energy
has some channel through which to work, and somehow it works…. In a
way, what we’re trying to do might be the most efficient way to do
things, considering the reality of the way some things really are.

These are the perspectives of a Shaman, a Trickster who believes that,
while the corporeal universe may be entirely consistent with the "laws
of nature" it is not entirely governed by them. Further, whose acts
are informed by that belief with a view to some fine tuning.
  

    
Maybe the Grateful Dead IS the Estiamted Prophet, in the way that
"Yes, we're going somewhere...It seems quite glorious when we've had
glimpses of it here and there...but we have no idea where it is, what
it'll really be like, what is really IS like, or what part we play in
actually getting there. Hell, it might be just leading us on...having
fun with us as we have fun with it. It might lead nowhere at all, but
it sure has personality!"
  

    
Quite literally, as I've heard the story, there was a dude, likely a
legion of them before him, that came to offer at the Temple of The
Befuddled and Befuddling. Such was the origin of that particular ditty.
"What do we make of this individual who senses meaning where we cast
confusion with delight?"

The Story Teller will not tell… whoops, another song, perhaps? I
recall a looping gate in some tune, and a story that never resolves,
where something is rising or settling into the embers of a fire that
has always burned in Human imagination.

Dang, how I love how boss weird EP got at its best. What a trip well
outside the music and into my heart and mind. Those guys! Jeez!!! I got
to be inside a Grateful Dead concert, maybe a few times or more. I am
a lucky boy.
  

    
My take is that the key may be in the repeated phrase "My time coming
any day". For millenia, every prophet who has bet on that has lost.
Further clues that the artists (whether composers, band or singer or,
better, all three) do not identify with the narrator they portray, the
Estimated Prophet, lie in the exposure of a range of other
manifestations of hubris.

You've all been asleep, you would not believe me
Them voices telling me, you will soon receive me

You will follow me and we will ride to glory

For millenia these utterances have been markers of false prophets, of
Dukun Palsu. 

Now it might be argued that the voice in the last verse is different
to the original narrator - that it is, in fact, the voice of God, or of
some other cipher for the organising principle of the universe. But it
seems to me that is not the case, that the narrator is the Estimated
Prophet throughout.
  

    
"But you and I we've been through that/and this is not our fate/So let
us not talk falsely now/the hour is getting late."

Can it be that every Dead tune is a laughing contradiction of this? I
don't think so. (Just to mix it up a bit.)
  

    
That last might post have been out-of-kind. I guess I'm searching for
something real, and I keep reading Gans "Conversations" and the members
of the Dead keeping saying not to take it all so seriously. But dang
gone it! It's the Dead I want to take seriously, not work, not
religion, not politics,not this crazy stupid world, but the Dead. And
then they say, "Hey, we're just here to play music, man. We're no
Savior to be sure!" Ah, well. The ins and outs of life. Gotta love when
ya can!
  

    
Indeed. Love when you can. It is the only logical solution. By my dim
lights, it surely ain't religion nor politics, but that just my take.
  

    
I don't see any problem taking Grateful Dead seriously, but I bear in
mind that they were Trickster Musicians. That doesn't restrict them to
practical jokes by any means.
  

    
Yeah, I was reading that interview in Gans with Parish, Jerry, and
Phil, and it seemed like a very tight group that sometimes had to
protect themselves from poeple that wanted in for less than lovely
reasons. Seems they sometimes had to create a hard exterior shell, to
protect the soft inner heart from unknowing wolves of sorts. But on
that soft inside, they sure seemed to have fun playing each other and
buddying up like like. I guess a hall of mirrors isn't so bad when all
you see around you are friends. You don't really feel like you find the
way out. You can just plop down on the floor and laugh.
  

    
There were plenty of hard hearts and damaged souls inside the perimeter, too.
Some of that hard exterior shell was nothing more complicated than insecure
people protecting their turf.
  

    
>That doesn't restrict them to practical jokes by any means<

Those folks were not restricticted to practical jokes, any more than
they were restricted musically. They worked, at times, as hard on the
serious as the absurd. They covered a lot of territory, by my
reckoning. In this, they did sometimes master a sort of form of
practical joke (in a treble-meaning sense of the term) on a broad stage
in many dimensions. The "joke" was useful, informative, and friggin'
hilarious, imho.

If you are in this space, I know you have smiled that goofy smile when
you got that joke or another one just like the other one. That is my
best guess, anyhow.
  

    
(tnf), I'm really enjoying "Conversations" and am getting quite the
education. Thanks for taking the time to collect all that.

(ssol), I think I've caught myself with that smile here and there. It
feels devious, secretive, and outlandishly absurd all at the same time.
I smile even bigger when I notice I'm smiling in that way!