Every time I’m reminded that the Grateful Dead only played Comes A Time 66 times I’m surprised. It seems like it should have been many more. Perhaps that’s because 11 of those 66 have seen the light of day through official releases.
Although this appeared in the Dead’s live show as early as the Fall 1971 tour it didn’t make it onto a recording until 1976 on Jerry’s Reflections album. The song has a distinct intro line there that was not always played live. As I note below, one of the things that really grabbed me about this version was that Jerry played (at least part) of that intro lick.
In some ways this isn’t surprising because the Dead were actually mixing things up in 1985, much to their credit, and brought back some older material. For instance, the shows that summer saw the reappearance of Cryptical Envelopment as part of The Other One. Although the execution wasn’t always what folks would have liked, the band gets points for trying. I think that’s the point. In 1985 the Grateful Dead tried more, and if that meant tacking on the Comes A Time intro then so be it.
I’m not just making this up, right? They did drop the intro at one point, or in the very least it wasn’t consistently played. As always, feel free to correct me in the comments!
