I grabbed this book out of the el cheapo section of close-outs at Borders a few weeks ago. I think it was $3.99. Looked very interesting, what with the annotations and the complete set of lyrics of a band that I have, more or less, been quite fond of the last 25 years. It was worth that much for the song words alone.

It had better be! The annotations in this book are so vague that you have to wonder if the writer got stoned, got lost in the library and got bogged down with references that he thought, in his less-than-cogent state, were applicable to the various songs. One liners of throw away songs like "Pride of Cucamonga" get tied in, somehow, with poetry by Peterson and two long paragraphs explaining that Muskrat Flats is NOT a real location (necessary, of course, to shed light on the line "Running hard out of Muskrat Flats." "Truckin'" is explained over the course of 4 pages, peppered with flashing green light, keystone star power in William Burroghs, a partial list of other projects using the "Long Strange Trip" buzz phrase, lyrics from a 1932 song by Al Dubin & Harry Warren (I suppose "Shuffle Off To Buffalo" sounds enough like a snatch of this song that it must mean something and deserves to be in this book, right?). Is this the Grateful Dead's "Truckin'" we're talking about here? One and the same? All this time I was thinking it was just some song to listen to while driving down the highway stoned to the bone.

There are notes that follow each "annotation", usually about when the band first did the song and whether or not it remains in the repertoire. Sometimes a comment from a band member (or Hunter or Barlow) can be found in this section.

So the lyrics themselves and the (rather short-ish) notes are what help "The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics" (by David Dodd) worth spending 4 bucks on. It also makes for interesting toilet stool reading.

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