2000 Brent Mydland and John Barlow interview by David Gans San Rafael, California, September 18, 1989 Transcribed by Mary Eisenhart Mydland: It's kind of dumb to have him asking questions that we already know. . . Barlow: Say, Brent, tell me, how exactly did you write "I Will Take You Home"? Mydland: (laughs) Well, it helps to have somebody to write it with. . . Barlow: Well, refresh my memory. . . Mydland: Well, listen, you were sitting at the stop sign down by my house in Martinez, and came up with the second and third verse. . . Barlow: You remember that better than I do. . . Mydland: Or did you start down there? Barlow: I started at the stop sign, it's true. I was on my way to your house. Mydland: About a quarter-mile from it. Barlow: And Gans isn't even here, I guess. Is Gans here? Is this Virtual Gans? Okay, well. . . Mydland: He don't look like it. . . Barlow: (laughs) It's just us. Oh, I see. He doesn't have a microphone. . . Q: That's right. I'm not supposed to be/...with a script for the DJs. Barlow: Did I ever tell you about the time that Weir and I got on the radio drunk? It was a call-in show and we didn't like the calls that we were getting, we didn't like the questions. So we decided to call people at random--it was about 1:00 in the morning--and ask them questions? Mydland: (laughs) Barlow: We actually did this. Live on the air. Q: Where? Barlow: Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Q: Where they really appreciate calls during. . . Barlow: They seemed willing to answer most of the questions we had. Q: You know, the really sick thing is that that's sort of the staple of the morning-drive radio DJs. Howard Stern and those guys used to get a lot of mileage out of calling celebrities at home. Barlow: Yeah, we were way ahead of our time. Q: How did you guys ... Barlow assisted a little bit on one of your things on the first album. . . Barlow: (laughs) Mydland: Yeah, we twisted that one around. . . Q: Was it a ( )? Barlow: No, that was a put-up job. Q: Yeah, but Clive. . . Mydland: I'm not sure if it was Clive's idea. Barlow: Yeah, it was. Yeah. I mean, he was concerned that your songs didn't sound like Grateful Dead songs, and. . . Mydland: So he put in some Grateful Dead-type lyrics. . . Barlow: Actually, I believe his line was, "They'd be okay if they had some more pyramids or something." Q: Pyramids? I thought it would have been a card game or a train or the ace of spades. . . Mydland: I'm sure that's what he meant. He doesn't know what the Grateful Dead's about, he just. . . Barlow: He didn't know. He had no idea. He just knew that that might not be one. Why I suMydlanditted to that I don't know. Why either of us did. Mydland: I begged you! Q: You begged him? Barlow: Well, I don't remember. It was really weird, 'cause it was a great song to start out with, and I didn't do a damn thing to make it any better. Mydland: It got better. Barlow: You think so? Mydland: Yeah, definitely. Barlow: I could never see that substituting a raven for a bluebird was, you know. . . Mydland: Well, it was changed a little more than that. Q: You put in thunder too. Barlow: No, it was. It's true. There was more than that, but it was a net zero gain. I wouldn't say there was a loss involved. But anyway, what happened? I guess what happened was a song that's not on this record, which was "Love Doesn't Have to Be Pretty." Mydland: Yeah. Barlow: Right. And I gave you the. . . Mydland: Oh, as far as us getting started. Yeah. You said, "This sounds just like you. (laughs) This is a song ( ) for you--"Love Doesn't Have to Be Pretty." Barlow: (laughs) Well, it did have kind of a crank to it. . .I mean. . . Q: You had something written that you handed to Brent? Barlow: Well, it's a funny. . .Where these things come from, I don't know. Mydland: It was at the Oakland Auditorium. Barlow: Yeah. But this thing had floated in over the transom, and I couldn't imagine anybody else doing it but Brent. Mydland: (laughs) I think you wrote it for me. Barlow: No, really, it arrived, but if I'd had the entire range of musicians that I know about, I don't think I could think of anybody I'd rather have done it. Mydland: I hope we can do that one the next album. Barlow: Well, I hope we can do it someplace, 'cause I think it's a swell song. It's nothing that Debby Boone is going to do, but it's a good song about real stuff. Mydland: I dunno. She could probably do it real sweet. . . (laughs) Q: So you put that one together, and then. . . Mydland: When we did that one, we got together at the piano, the two of us, and while we were working that one up we came up with some more. Barlow: Well, and also discovered how amazingly easy it is. Mydland: Yeah. Boy, I'd sit down and labor at lyrics and stuff, and John would--I'd come up with a verse, and a chorus, we'd come up with that, and John'll sit down, 20 minutes, and he'll have a couple verses. And a bridge. (laughs) Barlow: But that doesn't happen to me under any other circumstances. I mean, I don't want to press the hippie mysticism too hard here, but there is something amazing that happens to me, anyway, when I'm in your presence with a piano. Mydland: Yeah, same thing for me. It's just amazing. It goes amazingly smooth and quick. I get a lot of feedback. Barlow: Yeah. Yeah. It just seems to unravel itself. Q: So you guys were sort of partners waiting to happen? Barlow: Yeah, waiting for a long time, and I'm not quite sure why we were waiting so long. 'Cause I. .. Mydland: (laughs) No records coming out. Barlow: Yeah, but we've got way more stuff than can be recorded now, and we're still here together this afternoon to write some more. I mean, I just want to see us write songs. I want to see songs get written whether they get recorded, or played even. I think there's something good that comes into the world when you make a song, regardless of what becomes of it. More hippie mysticism, but I believe that too. (laughs) Mydland: Yeah. (laughs) Q: Well, I remember you stopped by my house on the way home from those things one day, and you were on Cloud 9. Barlow: I was stoked! Well, it really is electrifying. I always assumed that the creative process is out of my control anyway, and I've never been able to construct a context where it seemed to be a reliable occurrence. Mydland: If you think it's in your control, you can't come up with anything. Barlow: Exactly. Mydland: That's the way it works for me. If I think I got it, then I don't have it; if it just comes to mind out of the blue, that's what works the best. Barlow: But just mere proximity. The lullaby's a real good case in point. I had nothing on the way out there that day. I had a real strong sense that we were going to have something, but I had nothing on the way out there, and I got within half a mile of Brent's house, and suddenly there it was. The first verse and the chorus was there, and I gave that to him, and inside of half an hour it had music. And inside of half an hour after that it had a second verse. It was just instantaneous. Mydland: Yeah. Within an hour, an hour and a half, we had a tune. Barlow: It was all real. I feel like that song is an incredible gift. Q: (. ..song. . .amazing. . .) Barlow: (laughs) It's a little obvious... Mydland: I don't know how well that goes over. (laughs) Barlow: Oh, I think it goes over fine. Q: Yeah. Isn't that one of your daughters out with you on the bench during the tour one time, like at Shoreline? Mydland: Yeah. She came on a couple times. Q: I just thought, "Well, of course that's where it goes, right after all that weird stuff." Barlow: Right. Well, that's kind of where it goes for us, 2000 too. I can't speak for Brent, but I've got three little girls and there's been some weird stuff in my life. (laughs) You know, stuff that could scare them certainly scared me, and I think. . . Mydland: (Laughs) I know I've never been through that. Barlow: (laughs) In any case, it's nice to have our families. It's nice to have five little girls between us. Mydland: It comes after some pretty weird stuff on the album, too. Barlow: Yeah Q: (inaudible) Barlow: (laughs) Getting ready, boy. Mydland: You got three, I got two. Barlow: Gonna be Heathers. Q: Really. The Band of Heathers. Barlow: I'm terrified by that movie. Mydland: (laughs) Could be The Bad Seed. . . Barlow: But it seems like all these songs have been relatively. . . Q: (inaudible). . .the kids'll be cool. Barlow: . . .I mean, gosh--"We Can Run But We Can't Hide" came in an afternoon. Well, they all came in an afternoon, the only one that took any real time to develop seems to have been "Blow Away." Mydland: "Blow Away" kinda developed once we started playing it with the band, too. Barlow: Right. And I think all four of these songs have got--I don't think that they're going to be the same in five years. Mydland: I'm sure they won't. Barlow: I'm think they're going to be different. Q: "Blow Away" certainly stood up and pounded its chest... Barlow: No, that was Brent. It's a good song.(laughs) Mydland: It's fun to get up and rave a little bit. I've been wanting to do that for a while. Q: Does it feel good to just (inaudible) Mydland: Get it out of [sic] my chest, so to speak? Barlow: Well, you got exactly the right hit on the song, too. I mean, that's what it's about. It's not a matter of open defiance, but there is that kind of dynamic acceptance, you know. This is how it is, and by God, that's how it is. Mydland: Yeah. Barlow: By God that's how it is. Mydland: (laughs) Right or wrong, that's how it is. Right or wrong I mean it! Barlow: And it doesn't matter! Yeah. That song is working real well. Q: So how'd you guys--when you're working on a song like that, you guys obviously have some touchstones of experience you can refer to. How do you communicate when you're developing (inaudible) Barlow: Well . . . Mydland: I think it's more or less just kinda understanding what somebody else is saying. Barlow seems to write from the soul, and it's getting across that emotion, mainly. Barlow: Actually, it feels like some of these songs have been written from your soul. I mean, I feel like I got the words out of you someplace. Mydland: (laughs) Well, I can relate to 'em. . . Barlow: It's not like we're so dissimilar that those are alien emotions to me at all. But there's a real natural thing that goes on where I feel like I have some sense of what it is to be you. Mydland: Yeah, sometimes I think you're looking in my head. (laughs) Barlow: Yeah, well, that's what it feels like. Sometimes I feel like--oh, God, it's more hippie mysticism--I feel like there are things --again, it's like being down at the stop sign at the bottom of the hill, there's a proximity to your head that is real fertile for me. And I think part of it is just a reberverative effect, like laser effect, of those things that we have in common, but when we get the waves together, it amplifies itself into a song very quickly because we're both grappling with a lot of the same issues. Mydland: Yeah. I think a lot of times when you come up with something I can relate to it because it's like something I would like to have written if I had that in me. Barlow: Yeah. I have a lot of--I really love your music. Mydland: Oh, cut it out, John. . . Barlow: I do. I mean, it's really straightforward and uncomplicated; I mean, these songs are songs. They're songs, they're not sound sculptures, they're not symphonies, they're songs. Mydland: That's what they're supposed to be. Barlow: Well, I mean, I think there's plenty of room for diversity. I'm glad this band has got plenty of room for diversity. But it's nice to be able to write something straightforward and--. I think there's a wonderful thing that goes on--I have boundless admiration for Hunter, who is a real poet. And I think that there's a wonderful thing that goes on with the evocative quality of a lot of his songs with Jerry where the Deadheads are able to create that song for themselves, to have a meaning that arises and settles down, and then another meaning comes up, and these songs aren't that open to interpretation, but I think they make a nice counterpoint for that reason. Mydland: I think some of them are open to interpretation too. Depends on how deep you want to dwell. Barlow: Well, I've already found that there are things arising in "Blow Away" that I didn't put there (laughs) that are perfectly valid. I mean, it's starting to get that kind of depth. Q: But that's one of those things that earmarks a Grateful Dead song, that is has a (inaudible), it has a development -- the reason a song works and stays in the Grateful Dead repertoire is that it (inaudible) Barlow: It has a life of its own. Q: A lot of Bobby's songs nobody knows them when they start playing 'em, but after a year or two (inaudible) Mydland: Well, we don't know that one anymore. (laughs) Q: (inaudible) Saint of Circumstance even more so; listening to his songs develop onstage is one of the most fascinating things in the Grateful Dead-- listening to all you guys figuring out what to do with something (inaudible) Barlow: And listening to him figuring out what to do with it too. He develops a melody himself in his own mind over a prolonged period of time... Mydland: And it changes little by little. Barlow: And I think Brent has a real clear insight into how he likes melody to work. Q: Well, your songs tend to have more structure or substance to them; this set of songs is easily the strongest and easiest to bite into. You seemed more tentative about your songs before; this time you came in taking prisoners. Mydland: There's something to bite into with these songs because there's some lyrics. I feel like I have something to say. Q: You maybe were a little bit unsure of the lyrics on your earlier tunes, and maybe that affected how you brought 'em in? Mydland: That's hardly my highest point there, lyrics. Like I say, I'd struggle with lyrics for a week for a tune. Q: (laughs) I've got songs I'm still writing after ten years. Barlow: (laughs) Boy, not me. Mydland: (laughs) Long tune. Q: No, it's waiting for that one (inaudible) Barlow: I just started reading "Black-Throated Wind." Q: It's about fine.Well, Weir's been saying that one needs the lyrics. .. Barlow: Right. Well, I just finally started doing it. Q: That's cool. That song deserves to be [inaudible] Barlow: Well, we'll see. Q: But did you notice that? When you brought the tunes in, did it seem a lot easier to get them into the band this time? Mydland: Yeah. I was singing about something, rather than--when I've been writing, it's pretty shallow. Barlow: I don't know about that. Mydland: Well, in comparison it's Q: I don't know if "shallow"'s the word. Limited thematic range. . . Barlow: These songs are about things that you know about personally. You've never been in a runaway train. Mydland: No. Well, it's not necessarily about a train. A runaway life. (laughs) Barlow: But I think that song actually is about a runaway train. I used to think it was about a runaway life, but then "holy cow! it is about a runaway train, isn't it?"(laughs) Q: Who was it that said "sometimes a train is just a train"? Mydland: Sometimes a cigar is just a train. Q: Sometimes a train is just a cigar. So let's talk about each of the songs. (inaudible) Barlow: All right. 2000 Q: (inaudible) Just A Little Light. . .Little Girl Lost or I Will Take You Home. . . Barlow: Whatever. Mydland: Let's get this straight. It's "I Will Take You Home." Barlow: I thought it was "I Will Drive It Home." Q: Yeah, that's what he was saying when he was out humiliating a jellyfish on Muir Beach. . . Mydland: "I Will Bitch And Moan." (laughs) Barlow: And justly so. Q: Well, shall we take them in any particular order? Barlow: What was the order they were written in? I guess Blow Away was written first, and that was the second song that we wrote together since clear back in 1980. Mydland: Then Just A Little Light, I think, was third. Barlow: Yeah, that's right. But Just A Little Light and Mydland: Gentlemen Start Your Engines Barlow: Yeah, there's Gentlemen Start Your Engines, which is not on the record; that was the next one. But Just A Little Light and We Can Run But We Can't Hide were written--am I right in thinking they were both written on the day of the Super Bowl? They were. Mydland: Yeah, I think you're right. Barlow: Oh, no, it was the week after the Super Bowl. Mydland: Same day, though. Barlow: And we wrote A Little Light early in the afternoon, and then we went out for a bicycle ride and still felt like writing something and in the next hour wrote We Can Run. Q: (inaudible) Barlow: Yeah. Yeah. I was all excited. It's pretty exciting. Mydland: (laughs) It was exciting. Q: I was pretty amazed. Usually you work on a set of lyrics and go, well, okay, give it a couple of weeks. (inaudible) on that day, really. Mydland: (laughs) Didn't change anything. Barlow: It was astonishing. It was like--I don't know if you've ever worked in a darkroom, but I always felt like watching the photograph appear in the development bath, as many times as I did it, I always felt like, this is magic. This really is magic. I know what's going to be on that photograph, and it's not really going to be a surprise, but it's still great. And this was the first time I've ever felt that way about some completely different medium. Mydland: Yeah. It came in real clear. Barlow: Yeah. Right. And you could see it from the second it started to happen. You go, wow! This is going to just appear here in a minute... (laughs) It's certainly wonderful having this Grateful Dead here, that's a good thing in many ways, but if we were a couple of gas station attendants from Concord I'd still do this. Mydland: Yeah. Probably have more time. Barlow: (laughs) Yeah. Q: Fewer opportunities to work it up live, though. Without the feedback of actual performance (inaudible) Barlow: Well, that would depend on whether or not we worked in the same gas station. Mydland: Concord's pretty big. (laughs) Q: Isn't that what you look for playing live, too? That feeling that you don't have to work at it, it just comes? Almost like (inaudible) Mydland: Yeah, that's exactly the way it seems to be, playing live. The more you think about it the more you're not thinking about listening to other people and the more it doesn't come naturally and you're not into the emotions and you. . . Barlow: That's the Tao of that too. I can't think of a single exception to that rule. There's simply nothing you can do better by thinking about it. Q: Well, when you're in the moment, the best thing you can do is clear yourself out and be in the moment, right? Barlow: Yeah, like, yeah, uh, I agree totally, man. ..(laughs) Mydland: (laughs) Talk about mysticism. . . Barlow: See, it's contagious. We've got him in the moment now. . . Q: Well, I'm gearing up to play a gig tonight, so. . . Barlow: It's the Tao of Gans. Q: The harder. . . Barlow: The present moment is the only thing you've got. You have continual training in the contrary and illusory view from the time you're born, practically, in this culture. They're always telling you you're supposed to be thinking about what's coming, or thinking about what just went, you're not supposed to be thinking about the present, you're supposed to be plotting and controlling and scheming and making it happen, and this is completely wrong. Mydland: Learn from the past, and build a new future. Barlow: Right. Q: But songwriting is obviously every bit as (inaudible) piece by piece (inaudible) Barlow: Not for us, though. No, no, no. Q: But that's the paradox, though. Here you are talking about getting on this pure beam and having it just arrive, but songwriting is (inaudible) It takes a lot of craft. .. Barlow: I know the other way. I've experienced it. Mydland: That's kind of like when we were working on Easy to Love You. Now that's piece by piece; that wasn't a continual thing. That was fixing something already existing. That's not songwriting. Barlow: And there was damned little joy in it. I mean, it was craft, and I don't feel ashamed of what we did, but it was not a work of joy. Mydland: As opposed to building a house, we were patching an old one. Barlow: Yeah, exactly. Q: Building a house, you have to start throwing wood together. Mydland: If you know how to throw it together, go ahead! (laughs) Barlow: This is more like standing back and watching the house build itself. Q: (Inaudible) Barlow: Well, yeah. And I think that facility is reflected in the availability of the songs, and maybe over time it'll be possible for us to write songs that are as rapid, and yet not quite so available. Mydland: Say again? Barlow: Well, I think that there's almost a --and I'm not particularly swayed by what other people think--but there's almost an overavailability of some of this stuff, in the sense that people don't have to chew on it for a long time and they don't-- You don't really get a chance to participate in the creation--if you're in the audience, you don't get a chance to participate in the creation of a song like We Can Run yourself, because it's there. Mydland: Yeah. It's all said very. . . Barlow: It's said what it has to say. . . Mydland: And once you've heard it a few times. . . Barlow: If you understand the English language. . . Mydland: (laughs) You can understand that song. Barlow: You can understand that song. Which is fine. But I hope that we get to the point where there's more depth too. For that song that's precisely what that song needs. That's an anthem and that's supposed to be a direct statement. Mydland: I'm sure we are. I think we're going in that direction. Q: Blow Away was (inaudible) Barlow: It's got some levels. I will tell you that in my mind it's not just about breaking up with somebody. I don't regard it that way. Mydland: It's just about relationships, it's not necessarily a love song. Barlow: It's about a lot of kinds of relationships. I mean, it's not necessarily the most obvious. Q: (inaudible) Barlow: Like a practical joke played on us by our maker. Empty bottles that can't be filled. It comes down to I've come to figure all importance overestimated. Down later on is the echo of that, which is I've come to figure all importance overestimated. Q: (inaudible) Mydland: And a little fun. Q; (inaudible) Barlow: Yeah. Q: So what sort of concrete stuff did you guys talk about (inaudible) Barlow: We didn't. Q: (inaudible) Barlow: They were always whole. We don't talk about 'em. Mydland: We don't sit down and say "What's this song about?" Barlow: It's not necessary for us to talk about these songs. Ever. We just do them. Q: (inaudible) Barlow; That's right. Q: (inaudible). . .that's not quite right, give me an extra syllable at the end? Mydland: No, every once in a while he'd say that's not quite right and give me another word, just by way of singing it--that sounds too cramped, or something like that. Q: That' 2000 s what happens, because it's completely interactive. We do this 100% together, so it's happening in real time. Both of us can feel when it's not working, and we don't have to talk about it. It's there. Mydland: I might play something, and no, that's not quite right, and we'll play something else, and work out. Barlow: There's an awful lot of "how about da-di-da-di-da?" Mydland: (laughs) No words yet here. . ./ Barlow: But I also like the fact that we don't have to talk about what these things are about. I don't like the idea of creating anything artistic, I don't care whether it's a painting or a song or--I don't like the idea of setting out with the notion that it's going to be about something, and making it be about that thing, because that's not how art is made anyway. Mydland: As you put it with paintings, I mean, if you've got two people that are going to be working on a picture, I can't picture 'em sitting down and saying, "Well, exactly what do we want to get across here?" I don't know of two people working on a painting. ..(laughs) Barlow: Right. Even in the case of a song that is really, clearly, and obviously about something, like We Can Run, I don't think that we at any point said, "Well, what this world needs right now is a good strong rhetorical reminder that it's a small planet and we're screwing it up." (laughs) Mydland: Pretty much said that right in the lyrics! (laughs) Barlow: 'Cause there it was. When it started to appear, it appeared with all the necessary information and it didn't have to be discussed. Mydland: So one of you knew all of what a song was supposed to be about, you wouldn't need the other guy to write it anyway? Barlow: Well, except for the fact that the way we do it doesn't work like that. Because I don't have any idea what it's about until it starts to emerge in the presence of Brent and the music. I might have a few lines, but I don't. .. Mydland: Well, John's got a direction it's going in, and when I start playing the music I think maybe it kind of accents it one way or another and that'll him to go beyond that. Barlow: Yeah, I don't it's real until I hear some music. And there's been some cases where I had enough for him to pick up and run with, and then most of what started out there vanished as soon as the music was there. Most of the words that were there disappeared kind of like the wax in the mold. You've got the wax to make the mold with, and then you pour the metal in, and the wax is gone. That's something that happens sometimes. Q: So (inaudible) Barlow: Well, they're all--as I say, goods as delivered. Mydland: Yeah, the goods are right there to be examined. They don't have to be deeply examined, I don't think. Barlow: And I think that over time they'll start to gather some resonance. I would be surprised if I don't look at lines at some point in the future and think "That's what that really says." Mydland: I'm sure I'm going to hear about it real soon. "Brent, did you mean this?" (Laughs) Barlow: (laughs) Well, we say yes. . . Mydland: I've already got it at home. Barlow: I just say yes. It's all right. What's wrong with that? Mydland: (laughs) Q: Got a lot of damn gall thinking (inaudible) Mydland: My wife's already got her apology on this record. (laughs) Barlow: Actually, we wrote a great song--it has to make an appearance at some point or another--just a blanket apology to the ladies. Q: (inaudible) Barlow: No, you haven't seen this song. "You're Still There." Which is a real pretty song, I think. It would do us both a lot of good at home if you would get that down on wax somehow. .. Mydland: Yeah. Till I go out and screw up some more. (laughs) Q: Well, you bought yourself some time/ end of side 1 Q: So, now (inaudible)dominate this one Mydland: I've got four tunes. Dominating is not exactly the way to put it. Barlow: Yeah, that's a real funny word for it. Q: Well, dominating. . . Barlow: "The record was dominated by the colossus of Brent Mydland, standing astride Built To Last like a giant toad. . ." Brent cracks up. Q: I see the magazine ad here. . .But seriously. . . Barlow: What this record is is a real diverse musical ecosystem, which is neat. Mydland: It does go through some changes. Barlow: There's a lot of different stuff on this record. Q: Well, not only your songs' presence, but also your presence in the other things. I think one of the things that Weir--in fact Barlow(inaudible). . .and then on the album version Jerry's got a nice line that comes back answering that, and there's a whole level of stuff that came into it live when you found that line, and then on the record it works even better because Jerry answers. Barlow: It completely made that song for me. Mydland: Yeah, it bounces around real nice. Q: And compositionally, you're making your mark on the other guy's tune.(inaudible) Mydland: Yeah, it feels good being able to be accepted for playing something. "Hey yeah, keep that!" Barlow: It makes the song--the song is basically a good song, right down to the level of the lyrics, but it really--it wasn't jelling for me before that happened, before you guys worked out that point-counterpoint, and now I like that song a lot. It's got brightness. Mydland: I like the line "spray the Mona Lisa with a spray can/Call it art." (laughs) Barlow: Call it art. Right on. Somebody'll probably go try to do it now. Mydland: "This is for Jerry!" Q: (inaudible) Mydland: That'll go over really goon. . . Q: (inaudible) Barlow: (laughs) He bears absolutely no responsibility--you did a good thing there. You're present, and it's a good thing you are. Mydland: I got another line in there. Q: What do you mean? Musically, or. . . Barlow: Musically. Mydland: Yeah, musically. I'm playing on it. ..(laughs) No, Picasso Moon, especially when I first heard it, it sounded real rock 'n' roll, real Stones- ish to me. . . Barlow: Well, Keith Richardish. Mydland: And I like that. I think that's one thing the record really needed. Before I heard--I just heard the guitar part, and when he started singing it, it kind of just--whoop! just went off on the left real sharp. .. Barlow: I like that song a lot now, but it was the direct opposite--my sense of participation in that effort was kind of like Napoleon's retreat versus springtime in the Rockies. It was work, every second of it. Mydland: Well, that was also a tune that you had written with Bob, and I went and (laughs) wrote another song with the same lyrics. Barlow: No, that's not quite true. I gave some lyrics to Bobby, and . . . Mydland: He kept a couple. (laughs) Barlow: He ended up keeping a line out of those lyrics, which I kind of wish he hadn't, but--I mean, it wasn't anybody's fault, it was just kind of a curious turn of events. I didn't think that he was going to do anything with those lyrics when I gave them to you, because he had them for about a year. Mydland: Apparently. Because you had enough other lyrics to give me. Barlow: Oh yeah. And imagine my surprise when I found out that he had actually been working on them. Mydland: So we ended up with two tunes with the same lyrics. Barlow: Right, exactly. Q: So what happened? You had a conference committee and then. .. Barlow: Well, Bobby backed off immediately because he. ..First of all, I think he always wanted to have another element injected into that song that wasn't there in the lyrics he wrote the music for, at all. He wanted to get a favorite character of his in there, and she just was not present in the lyrics that I wrote. And she became present for him in the music that he wrote to those lyrics, so when he found out that Brent had actually gone ahead and written music for those words, I think he was ready enough to back 2000 out and try it another way. But then from that point forward it was like the Thirty Years' War for us, and I assumed that it was going to be an incredibly labored-sounding thing when it was done, and I don't think it is. It's interesting as hell, but it's not. . . Q: So it has some of your music (inaudible) Mydland: No, I wrote a song with the original lyrics to that song. Barlow: Which you have not heard. It's another of these many songs that we've written that you haven't heard. This one's called "It Doesn't Matter." Mydland: He had these lyrics that he wrote the song around, and he dropped the lyrics and put new lyrics in. There you go back to patching up a house, kinda. . . Barlow: Taking the old house apart and building a new house around the space that the old house contained. Q: So the role of your song was just kinda like an asteroid that flew by and (inaudible) some gravity on it and. . . Barlow: Well, no. We have a song. Q: So there is a whole song that if you played it at the same gig people wouldn't say "God, that's Picasso Moon all over again!"? Barlow: Not at all. It's a completely different take on the same word. Mydland: A whole different direction, yeah. Q: Arnold and Danny. Barlow: Yeah. Not identical twins. Fraternal twins, yes. By different fathers. Mydland: Ah, yer mutha. . . Barlow: It's really interesting. I mean, you'll be intrigued when you finally hear the song, because they won't-- Q: First of all, I can't understand why Deadheads go out (inaudible) sort of a whole campaign (inaudible) I have a hard time fathoming where anybody would get off telling the band what songs to do. Barlow: "Worst Grateful Dead song ever." Q: I know that even you guys gave Weir shit about that song the Victim or the Crime. . . Mydland: Victim or the Crime I remember giving him some shit, but (laughs) Barlow: And I did, I will readily confess, and I'll take a lot of it back... Q: To my mind those are the most interesting tunes to come along in quite a while just because of the musical haggling within them onstage. Barlow: Well, they developed a lot of character over the course of everybody's two bits. . . Q: They were way too fuckin' polite to each other. . . Barlow: $100,000 worth of two bits in there. .. Mydland: I keep getting on the lullaby--people coming up "That song's just entirely too easy flowing and easy listening. . ." What do you want for a lullaby? (laughs) You want it to have some teeth, scare the kids? Q: Well, leave it to the Grateful Dead to come up with a lullaby with a skull. . . Barlow: I would pay absolutely no attention to that kind of stuff. As a matter of fact-- Mydland: It hasn't made me change it. Barlow: You give me these people's names. They'll hear from me. Q: Well, there's people who haven't forgiven the Grateful Dead for getting past Pigpen. You've just got to live with some people. . . Barlow: Well, the world is continuously going to hell in a bucket. And here's proof. (nose-plugged voice "Hey Brent, telephone") Mydland: Oh, I thought maybe you had two for me. Q: Hey, Willy, you have to sit in for him now. Barlow: Right, this is your turn to be Brent. / Barlow: So what are you going to do with Weir? I mean, how's he going to do it, I mean, if you're not going to ask him questions and he's not going to have anybody to-- Mydland: He's going to have to ask his own questions! (laughs) Barlow: "I'm glad you asked me that, Bob!" Q: Do you want to ask a few questions of Weir right now? Barlow: Let's see. . . Q: You'll be safely out of town--I'll just play the tape back and.. . (to Brent) you could ask questions of Weir too! Barlow: Okay--how would history have been different if it had been a red dog? Let's see. . . Mydland: Bring a TV in. Barlow: Uh, gee. . . Q: We do have () Mydland: Can you write a shorter song? Barlow: I was thinking about a loan./ Mydland: I've got about eight minutes. Barlow: Yeah, but you don't get the full range this way. . .Eight minutes is not really a very long time. Mydland: No. Not for a symphony. Q: (inaudible)fast(inaudible) Barlow: It could be unfinished. . . Q: (Inaudible) Eight minutes. We're done! Mydland: That's what happened with "Feel Like a Stranger." Q: Really! That's how that happened? Time's up? Mydland: That's it! Barlow: Yeah, that was another long slog, that song, I'll tell you. Q: That song (inaudible) Barlow: It's exceptionally strange in a way, yes it did. It certainly is shaped exactly like something like that. Q: Okay, I'm driving home from the city last night, and (inaudible) about Victim or the Crime is that it's a very, very effective evocation of a very uncomfortable emotion. It's like swallowing worms, you know? Not something you'd ordinarily really want to do. You know what I mean, it makes you uncomfortable to think like that. I think it's real good, but it's not for me. (inaudible) Barlow: No, it's for people going cold turkey. I think. I guess. I think it's an interesting song. Mydland: Yeah, both of 'em are. Both of the tunes on this album of his are real interesting. I agree with you that it's probably not comfortable for a lot of people to listen to. But with Bobby's tunes it's work not just with the lyrics, it's work to listen to the music. Q: But that on Victim has that amazing () Barlow: Yeah, and right up your backbone. Q: Yeah, really! It's just () The way it works on the record is . . . Barlow: Yeah, I agree. I think it works--I really like this record in its totality. Just because there's an incredible range. I mean, if you go all the way from the lullaby to Victim or the Crime-- Mydland: How much farther are you going to go on either side? Barlow: That's about as broad a range as any rock 'n' roll band is ever going to have, and be itself and-- Q: . . .throwaways(inaudible) Barlow: No, no, that's what I mean. Those are full-on, genuine, straight- from-the-heart Grateful Dead songs, both of 'em, and everything in between. And I think that's an incredible testimony to the versatility of this outfit. Q: I like what you guys--the structural things () Mydland: Uh, sort of. Q: It's a different kind of tempo and a different kind of () Barlow: There's an incredible amount of room in that song. In time, Just a Little Light is going to be a jumping-off point for some really expansive space. Mydland: It does have a lot of room in it to add other stuff and change it. Bobby's playing in that is wonderful. I didn't hear that until we were mixing. Barlow: Right. Mydland: That's how it was with a lot of songs--I didn't hear a lot of these parts until we were mixing, and then wow! In fact, that tune I wasn't even around for the mix, I didn't hear it until it was mixed. Barlow: It would have been nice if these songs could've grown on the road for another six months, but. . . Q: (inaudible) Mydland: I'd say March. Barlow: Yeah. Q: So you only played 'em in two gigs. Mydland: Just a Little Light we probably did under half a dozen times. Barlow: Oh yeah, definitely less than that. Q: () Barlow: Course, I don't know how much remained of the basics by the time all the overdubs had been done. Mydland: Well, I'm not sure what a basic is on a lot of these songs, the way we did it. Barlow: Yeah. That's another case of lost wax. Q: Last time I thought the ideal was to do those ()as possible() Mydland: I wasn't at that band meeting, I guess. (laughs) Barlow: Hey, I would bet that that was not a plan. Q: () Barlow: No. Shit happens. Q: Shit happens. Mydland: Whatever works. Let's try this. . . Barlow; The usual suspects. Nobody. Everybody. Q: In the Sunday funnies there's a () "Who 2000 took the last cookie?" "I don't know. . ." "Not me. . ." And the last panel was these little ghosts named "Ida Know" and -- "hey, you've been getting around a lot lately, babe!" Barlow: Well, I'm excited about all the other stuff that Brent and I have got that an unsuspecting world hasn't heard yet. Mydland: Yeah. Well, and some of the stuff that they have, I mean, like Gentlemen Start Your Engines. I'm really looking forward to putting that down. Barlow: Which is a song that could actually develop some real cojones at some point. Mydland: That's one we get weird in. Barlow: That's a nasty mother. Q: So will the Grateful Dead be working up some of those tunes again? You did that a few times. . . Mydland: Yeah, it just went to the wayside for other songs. But I'm sure in the future we'll get it back together and do it. And there's some others that are good that nobody else has heard, that are strong. Barlow: Yeah. And we're hardly done yet. As a matter of fact-- Mydland: That's what we're doing here now. Barlow: --if you'll get out of our hair we'll probably come up with another one today! Q:()a couple more things/ Q: A couple more things. Mydland: Hey, John's supposed to be asking the questions. Barlow: No, I'm supposed to be making up the answers. Try a question. Q: Is this record going to be more successful than the last one? Barlow: What do you mean by successful? Define your terms. Mydland: You mean sell a bunch? Q: Yeah, is it going to be more commercially successful? Mydland: Hell if I know. I hope so. Barlow: I would say that I think this record will go platinum, but it'll take it a lot longer to do it. And that has less to do with the record than it has to do with the fact that in the other instance we hadn't done a record for five years, during which time there had been a pretty significant build in on-the-road popularity-- Mydland: Jerry got sick. Barlow: Jerry'd been sick, and there were a whole lot of elements that went into those sales. And I think that this record is going to have a slower build on it, because it doesn't have those elements behind it. And that's fine. Personally, I've never been a great fan of explosive growth on any front. Q: Well, that's always been a () changes already () Mydland: I don't think that has anything to do with the record. I think that has more to do with people coming by that don't necessarily go to concerts, they want to come by for the happening in the parking lot and stuff like that. We've talked about it a little bit before; maybe if we just playing worse at the gigs then fewer people will show up. Q: Not worse. Weirder. Barlow: Much weirder. Much weirder. Till only the strange remain! Q: Now there's a song. What ever happened to Only the Strange Remain? Barlow: It's always there. Mydland: It's available. Barlow: Only the Strange Remain is always there. Mydland: Work it up! / Barlow: In sales. For reasons that--I think Brent's right, it's not--the problems have a lot to do with people that are not there for the music, that are there for the illusion that it's a completely open scene, people that haven't figured out the responsibility of self-regulation. Mydland: They don't care about the band, they're not there for the music or anything. They just want to go party. Barlow: Right. Not only are they not there for the music, they aren't there for the culture that goes along with the music. Mydland: Yep. Barlow: But I think that it's possible that some of that happened because of the visibility of the last record. This one won't be quite as visible to the same people that hadn't heard about the Grateful Dead before. And that's okay. I always think of these things as family projects anyway. From the point where the song is getting written to the point where it's being assimilated into that community. Then you get into the kind of Top 40 country, and that's not a family project at all, that's business. Simple. We might as well be Pepsi. Q: It's product. Well, that's the world you're living in. () Mydland: Well, you could say that about music, if you're playing music. But I don't think the Grateful Dead quite fits into that mold very well. Barlow: It's nice that it's possible to do this and get paid for it. It's really nice. But-- Q: I don't believe the Grateful Dead owes the audience (). In fact it pisses me off when people say stuff like () Barlow: Well, nobody likes living in a boom town. It's just tough on community. I mean, if all you want to do is get rich quick, reap a rapid harvest and get the hell out and move to Key Biscayne or something, then (laughs) Jerry Garcia meets Bebe Rebozo! Q: Well, there's bound to be some people who respond to () Barlow: Well, sure. Money twists everything. Money is the most toxic thing there is. Q: So how does that() Mydland: (laughs)Stick to my Chevy, man. . . Barlow: I think you ought to replace that Blazer, if you want my opinion. At least get some tires on it. Mydland: Oh, I got tires on it. Barlow: Did you? Oh good, I feel better. Mydland: I'm trying to figure out what it needs. It still needs something(laughs). Barlow: It needs less of what it's got. It needs less pig-like bulk. Mydland: Make fun of my car. . . Barlow: Actually, you know, if you'd asked me that question ten months ago I would have had a completely different answer than I do now. Mydland: He put out a pamphlet for everybody. Q: Oh, I read it. Barlow: I was feeling pretty--Then you know how I felt. I felt like things had taken a terrible turn for the materialist, and it was messing with people's heads all over the map. But I think that people--maybe I was wrong then, it's always a possibility, but if I wasn't wrong then I think people have done a pretty good job of recovering. Q: So you don't think it's () Mydland: I don't think it has been. Barlow: No, I think people--everybody I know in this scene is focused on what's important. The music. Making songs. Making music. Creating new ones and making the old ones stay alive. Mydland: Keeping our families together. Keeping ourselves together. Barlow: Yeah. Staying alive ourselves too. Q: Now () the playing has been really, really (). Since you guys started recording new music it's informed and lightened up all the old music, too. Mydland: I think it's been more comfortable having more stuff to play, and we're feeling a lot more comfortable with that part of it. I know I'm feeling a lot better about having some more stuff to play myself. Q: ()computers() Mydland: Bralove hasn't heard things that did. Barlow: Songs are like new lifeforms. Any time you've got increasing species diversity in an ecosystem, everything in the ecosystem profits. Q: Well, there's something great about hearing Bobby play saxophone and Jerry playing an elongated cornet or something--you should've seen the mutated instruments coming off the stage. Bobby has some really neat sample-sounding ()--it's like a different instrument. Mydland: Every once in a while I'll turn around and wonder--"Is that me? I'm not playing that!" Q: Does Bob Bralove () on you? Mydland: No. He does that--I thin Mickey's the only one who likes to be surprised. (laughs) Barlow: The audience loves to be surprised. It's great being out in the audience when Jerry suddenly launches into Sketches From Spain as Miles Davis, right? Mydland: He plays a great trumpet. Cornet. Barlow: He really plays a good trumpet--cornet, I guess. Got a real sense for it, and doesn't even get his lips sore. Q: () Barlow: This scene is amazing to me. I go on being amazed by it year after year, the ability of the community and the people in it to hang together and absorb all the amazing things that happen. Mydla 7c9 nd: Support each other. Barlow: And be with each other. Mydland: It's a real treat. Q: I was writing this essay for Herbie Greene's book of photos, and I () Barlow: Well, Jesus, there's plenty of job security at General Electric, and--no, it's not the same kind. Q: Job security () Mydland: It's not job security, it's life security. Barlow: Exactly. This is a case of people making the institution and protecting the institution all the way along the line. It's not a matter of the institution being some kind of great enveloping thing. You know, you go behind the corporate veil and, you know, nothing ever happens to you after that. Q: Well, lord knows there's no such thing as a Grateful Dead company line. Barlow: No, and I shouldn't really expect we'll see one soon. Mydland: Next band meeting--wait a minute! Q: That's one of the things about it, everybody who works there defines it in his own way. Barlow: Right. And feels perfectly qualified to state it. Q: So depending on who you bump into the Grateful Dead is like. . .the full range. Mydland: I guess I'm out toward the sweeter side. Barlow: It's like the blind man and the elephant--if the elephant could talk about itself and was blind at the same time, or something. Q: More like the elephant the little blind men around it. . . Barlow: Right. Q: () Barlow: That's not an Indian guy, that's a pin. It's a phenomenon. Anyway, you got those songs, and they're all good, so America, buy 'em! Mydland: Or else we won't write no more! Barlow: That's right. If you don't buy these songs, I'd have to say we'd lose heart. I don't know that I could go on if we were rejected in the marketplace. Mydland: I don't know--unique. Barlow: I mean, I'm not saying that the money is important, but you know, people do vote with their MasterCards, you know? So this Christmas season, vote! . 0