Box of Rain

Nothing lasts forever and there's nothing you can hold on to for very long. I do think this is a comforting song.

Everyone has troubles but this song, to me, just says you've got a friend that will help you. As far as the songwriting goes, I was under the impression that this was how Jerry and Robert wrote a bunch of their songs. Jerry would have the music and melody and Robert would just add the words. It makes sense but it is amazing on how he can make a coherent song that way.

I'm not at all a trained musician and haven't picked up any real education in it via nontraditional curricula, but the track struck me then and has done ever since as, in addition to tuneful and magnetic, quite challenging to the listener in a way that stands in stark contrast with, for instance, "Ripple. As a listener, I always appreciate a composition that grabs my attention by not going for the obvious but which still manages to makes perfect sense and instead of pushing me away draws me in deeper in an effort to wrap my ears entirely around it.

It's more of a puzzle than a passive exercise in listening and absorption, and while it need not be that way in order to grab me, it's never unwelcome Frank Zappa and David Bowie earned my fandom for life by going much the same route.. And of course Bob's lyric is just genius. His invitation to walk into splintered sunlight, coupled with the musical accompaniment, evoked for me from the beginning and with the sharpest clarity the idea of a walk alone deep amidst a forest of redwoods and it's only since after '95 that I learned about the thematic origins of the tune, which only adds intrigue.

But anyway whatever --we all get out of it what we get out of it, each in one's own way. Such a great, great tune; on that much I think that we all might agree..

And thanks to DD for the essay and annotations. The dead are important, but the dying causes so much pain! We are all on a simmilar trip. Our mothers and fathers die, before us, if they are so lucky! I choose not to be a father, but life goes on, and i will die! My mother is in the hospital for the twelth time in seven years. Knowing she will die and her suffering will end, brings no peace to my soul! I have to go through the transitive light axis! I give a nodd to the dodd! Thankyou for this outlet.

Few understand, and fewer care, but so easily i go into despair. It must be the direction that was waiting there! The dead are the one constant in my life over the last 20 plus years! I never heard box of rain live. I am grateful they recorded most of it!

I got a tape labeled with abox of rain, and that was the date of my first birthday on this world with four corners! What was that old folk song pretty boxes every ones in boxes, i am not translating correctly, but the truth is there! When i drove my father home from the diagnosous of cancer i didnt hear the dead , but some country song i have forgotton!

I listened to the dead to comfort my soul as my father died in , 10 years and a several days after Jerry died. My dad was 76 and i was 33! He had a full life, and he often commented that he had seen and done all that he wanted to do and see! Open your window and look out the door! Any thing is possible, all you have to do is explore, and turn the knob to that sound device! The dead are still alive, as i listen to the tapers section, and the many hours i have purchased of commercial releases!

The dead commfort me! My misery will not last forever! Such a long, long time I listened to this song a LOT while I was splitting up from my ex-wife in the dark autumn of and its bittersweet, optimism from grief lyrics and chord structures were a refuge for me at the time. Still listen to the song 11 years later from the perspective of a totally new life but it always brings to my mind, anyway a feeling of shelter from an emotional storm. Well, I guess words are what you make of them, sentiments Mr Hunter would no doubt approve of. Greetings to all you Deadheads.

A little off topic, but in A little off topic, but in terms of songs to listen to after a hard breakup When I had a tough breakup in college long time ago , I listened to the Jerry version of Positively Fourth Street a lot. Still really love that song, and now married almost 25 years to someone else. Very Apropo Its weird how the universe works. We had to put our family dog down yesterday of 15 years. As much as it was her time, its never easy. I listened to this song on repeat over and over yesterday. Then today I jump on here and this song is the blog.

Everything happens a reason. I love this song. It blends acoustic and electric instruments to perfection. And as a previous poster noted, it has a wonderful logic - and the suspended ending; kinda leaves you off balance - in a good way. When the first notes of Friend of the Devil ring, it's back to terra firma.

Have always wondered why Jerry didn't play the break in it - though I think David Nelson's is great. Glad to hear these stories from everyone. And hey, I think from now on I will simply have to state that any and all facts included in my little essays are open to correction! First performances seem to be one thing I almost always get wrong This song has gotten a lot of us through a lot of hard times--just knowing that there's a commonality in our sorrow is helpful. A paragraph written this week by David Gans comes to mind: The songs on Blues For Allah, or some of them anyway, were written that way, with the music firmly in place prior to the lyrics.

I'll try to round up that info when I can find it. That was right around the time that NRPS started and they were all really close with the band and may have simply just been around. Also, Jerry played quite a bit of pedal steel guitar on American Beauty and probably spent a lot of time working out his parts. Guitar is one instrument but pedal steel I dont know if you have ever tried playing a pedal steel guitar but its not an easy instrument to play, not as easy as a regular guitar at least But Jerry learned how to play it really fast and really well, of course, and I think this shows how talented and "deadicated" Jerry really was, haha!

I believe Jerry was tickling the ivories on this one. Interestingly, upon my waking journey, a rather hip woman who realized the truth of the lyrics, " There's nothing you can hold for very long," came my way and gave me a book titled, "A Box of Rain. I combed through pages and found a poem titled, "Row Jimmy. An age upon being old enough to ask a teacher, "If I swallow an orange seed, will it grow out of me?

None the less, I was intrigued with the opening lyrics "Julie catch a rabbit by his hair. I must have been moving at a turtles pace to find the song years after it had been written, as many people had danced to the tune within many concerts. It was a enlightening moment, because I came to realize there wasn't a particular Julie in mind. Later, within the time frame, I decided to lay the book down with the CD on top of it.

Aside from not knowing a particular Julie during that time frame, I'll save the rest for another time, should there be a moment when the Greatest Stories Ever Told continues with the featured song "Row Jimmy. I like the song, especially the words, "Love will see you through. There have been many many times when I really didn't know what to do next, and this line has always given me great comfort that some energy -within me, or from some universal source - was waiting for me to just keep going and Grateful Dead music has always been "my religion" and lyrics like this just reinforce the cosmic connectedness that is always happening I have to think that you all have found the same magic in this music Played it for my dying dad too Right up there with Dylan's Mr.

Tambourine Man, this song more than any other set the Grateful Dead apart for me. I just can't say enough good things about the lyrics and I finally got to hear them play it live while standing in the rain at RFK during their final tour. After having followed them for over thirty years, I can't think of a better way to have said goodbye. I sure do miss those guys. Fist Song When I heard the first song on side one of American Beauty for the first time, it was like stepping into a beautiful new dimension, and seeing the world in a new way.

Family Values counterculture style The sorrowful yet beautiful back-story of this song Phil Lesh constantly driving back and forth from the Bay Area to Livermore to visit his dying father poignantly illustrates a pattern I've seen play out many a time over the past several decades. Phil Lesh, the acid-eating longhaired hippy freak rock musician, was faithfully spending long hours on the road daily, to visit and comfort his cancer-stricken father. When he the dad was unconscious through medication, etc.

Well please don't be surprised when you find me dreaming too". This was during the era when rest homes like Hill Haven Hell Haven were starting to boom because 'good,' 'upstanding' short-haired, establishment, conservative people didn't want to be bothered with aging relatives, and thought it a good idea to warehouse the unfortunate gomers instead.

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I've seen this happen numerous times. Which might be why I like Language poetry. I can tell from the rhythms, or lack of rhythms, from the disjunctures and the end stoppages, what they're avoiding saying-- the meaning that they would like to not be stating there, comes rushing through to me. I can talk to babies. Many of the lyrics to this song are reminiscent of the song "Ripple", which opens the second side of the album.

Images of water abound in both, as well as references to "broken" or "hand-me-down" thoughts. The line "moth before a flame" echoes several proverbs, such as "the fate of the moth in the flame"— Aeschylus , Fragments Fragment The line "long long time to be gone and a short time to be there" echoes the old-time classic "Little Birdie", which includes the line "I've a short while to be here, and a long time to be gone.

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In one of Carl Hiaasen 's novels, the main character is in a shelter for children stranded by a hurricane, and in a particularly tender moment, sings Box of Rain to the child. That performance was perhaps significantly given the song's emotional burden for Lesh its sole appearance for nearly two years. The Grateful Dead reintroduced it during the fall of and played it on and off for the remainder of the year and before dropping it again.

Between and , Lesh seldom sang with the group confining his contributions to harmony vocals on " Truckin' " due to vocal cord damage from improper singing. Over concerts after its last performance, "Box of Rain" was permanently revived on March 20, at the Coliseum in Hampton, Virginia. After that, the song was frequently played in response to chants from the audience. Symbolically, it was the first song played at the first Fare Thee Well show at Soldier Field on July 3, , bringing fans full circle.

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