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[–] Cheesebooger ago 

The CIA band

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[–] cynicaloldfart 0 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago 

First performed as an encore on September 15, 1982 at the Capital Centre in Landover, Maryland, it was finally released on "In the Dark" in 1987. The song got into the top 10 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart, peaking at number 9, and reached number 1 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, the only song by the band ever to do so on both charts. This was The Grateful Dead's first and only hit song. They never set out to be on the radio, enthralling fans with their mind-bending musical landscapes and confounding critics with their interminable jamming. Their large and loyal following ensured that their albums sold well and their concerts were full. For many of the Dead faithful, it was strange hearing the group on pop radio and seeing them on MTV, but the song fit well with their canon and was clearly not an attempt to chase the '80s trends. The song did change the dynamic of Dead discovery. Most fans were turned on to the band by listening to their classic albums or going to a concert with a seasoned follower, but now there was a new poseur class who came on board for "Touch Of Grey."

On July 10, 1986 Jerry Garcia falls into a coma. Even though Garcia’s drug use is legendary, the coma is caused not by drugs, but by the singer’s diabetes. He remains in the coma for five days. When Garcia emerges, he has to relearn how to play guitar (as well as how to do other minor activities, like eat and walk). After five months of recovery, Jerry Garcia finally returns to performing with the Grateful Dead, at a concert at the Oakland Coliseum Arena. The band’s opening number? “Touch of Grey”— an appropriate comeback song for Garcia, given its “I will get by/ I will survive” mantra. “Touch of Grey” was not written to commemorate Garcia’s triumphant return, nor was it even a new Grateful Dead song. In fact, by 1986, the song was over five years old: lyricist Robert Hunter began working on the song as far back as 1980. The Dead were known for varying their setlists so that every show was different, and they didn't change this tradition even when this song was on the charts. Instead of catering to newcomers by playing their hit single at every concert, they only played it when they felt like it.

Robert Hunter wrote the lyrics for many classic Grateful Dead songs, including “Truckin’”, “Friend of the Devil,” “Casey Jones,” “Uncle John’s Band” and “Sugar Magnolia” (to name only a few). A knack for poetry runs in his family: Hunter is the great-great-grandson of Scottish poet Robert Burns, whose works include “Auld Lang Syne,” “A Red, Red Rose,” and “To a Mouse” (which inspired the title of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men). The expression “Every cloud has a silver lining” (which seemingly inspired Hunter’s line “Every silver lining has a touch of grey”) has its origins in John Milton’s work Comus: “Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud?/ Turn forth her silver lining on the night"? According to David Dodd in The Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics, the line "Light a Candle, curse the glare" is a play on Adlai Stevenson's 1962 reference to Eleanor Roosevelt's death. He said, "She would rather light a candle than curse the darkness."

The music video for "Touch of Grey" gained major airplay on MTV and featured a live performance of the band, first shown to be life-size skeleton marionettes dressed as the band, then as themselves. The skeleton of bassist Phil Lesh catches a rose in its teeth, thrown by a female attendee; later, a dog steals the lower leg of percussionist Mickey Hart, and a stagehand hurries to retrieve and replace it. Near the end of the video, the camera pans up into the rafters to reveal that the living band members are themselves marionettes being operated by a pair of skeletal hands.