One man gathers what another man spills, or so goes the story of St. Stephen.
Song pairings are an interesting thing with the Dead. For a while St. Stephen was paired with The Eleven, but as the band moved away from the somewhat cumbersome arrangements of this period The Eleven faded into the ether. Eventually St. Stephen did as well. I always found this a bit surprising because it doesn’t seem to have the same degree of complexity that a lot of other tunes from the era had, but there’s no changing history.
I saw a list somewhere recently that claimed to house the top 10 Grateful Dead songs, and St. Stephen was #1 (if I’m remembering correctly. It was certainly top 3). I was found this surprising as well considering how infrequently the song was played after 1977, which was really the song’s victory lap for all intents and purposes.
But in 1969 Stephen was a staple and the band could do some serious damage with the song. Take a listen and leave any feedback in the comments.
A few electric lines after the second verse and quickly back into the bridge. There’s some Phil singing! Jerry delivers the bridge section vocally. The instrumentation is both precise and delicate. Whoever coined the phrase baroque Dead certainly had this type of playing in mind. There’s some sort of unusual instrument being played here – not sure what that is, but it adds an eerie vibe.
Back to the regularly schedule program and after commenting on the usefulness of spilled goods the boys are off to the races. Phil offers some counterpoint and it sounds like all the melody instruments are mirroring each other. Or so it seems until…. Ah, the William Tell bridge! Always a pleasant surprise. This section was something that was sorely missed from later versions, in my opinion. Phil drops some deep bass during this section. Ok, NOW they start to really let loose. Phil is just all over the place, and Jerry unleashes a flurry of notes. The rhythm changes and it’s clear that they’re headed for The Eleven territory, but that’s for another day.
Lunchbox,
I agree with your take on wondering why ST S was taken off the rotation for so long. It is a great song that really had the early dead feeling, but mature at the same time. I find it interesting that both Bob and Phil,in whatever incarnations they are with at the time, tend to play it often.
Hope the link below works, but this was an interesting Dead article linked on Archive last night. Thought you might like, if you hadn’t seen it yet.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2014/04/grateful-for-bob-weir.html
That’s a good point about Phil and Bob playing the song, but they’ve also shown a willingness to put in the time and practice to get the more tricky parts down. From what I understand the band didn’t put in the same about of rehearsal time in later years. C’est la vie.
Thanks for the link. I had saved it, but not had a chance to read it yet.
Jerry just didn’t like the song, at least not later in the Dead’s career. I pulled down Goin’ Down the Road a Traveling Companion by Blair Jackson and it has a 1988 interview with Jerry where he talks a little about St. Stephen. “(It) has some real goofy shit in it,” is one of the first things he says. He feels the bridge doesn’t fit in and feels the song is inflexible. It’s not really far out, that’s just an illusion, according to Garcia. “It’s been made tricky…unnecessarily difficult…it’s just written complicated…” He’d rather play something that is “authentically open.”
Obviously it’s a song that pretty much all the fans liked. I thought it was great in both the Live Dead era and the post hiatus era.
Thanks for the link, Joe, great stuff there!
At the bottom of the article I noticed a mention of Alec Wilkinson. He’s written a couple good pieces on Bobby in (I think) the New Yorker. They’re worth checking out.
Thanks Mike, I knew it was something along those lines, i.e. the song being complicated for the sake of being complicated. I think as the band matured as songwriters, especially after the Workingman’s/Beauty period it’s pretty easy to see why this type of songcraft fell by the wayside.
At the start, this sounds just shy of the perfect intro to the Live/Dead version. In fact, the first verses are not far off, either. Some extra funny little vocals drift into the mix just before the “Ladyfinger” breakdown, and the segment itself is every bit as intense as ever. Overall, this take is but an alternate to the first official live one, painted with colors just barely off-hue. Still within this CD track, the jam segues into the “High green chilly winds” introductory part (and a really super-hot version as well) to that crazy experiment in time-signature known as “The Eleven”.