I was just trying to bond over Grateful Dead songs I like
I partially misunderstood you, chaos at work, late late lunch post. If you can stomach the pillocks who host this (I cant,
@william_kent reviewed and decimated one of their books somewhere) you’re away
China Doll? Bit mournful without the emotional heft of a few picks. I know, it’s meant to be delicate, just not as delicate as multiple renditions of Two Souls/Communion from Europe 72, or Birdsong 72 at the Oregon creamery benefit, or Ship of Fools 6/23/74. Listen for the key licks in the latter and try and imagine it through the Wall of Sound rig too (a version from Germany 81 dials up the juice but distractions)
giblets in the background trigger warning
or you could lean in/back to Peggy O from New Haven 5/5/77 after the pers/boomer canon thread, but with your more attuned audio setups not laptop speakers or you miss Mr Philip Lesh
a JGBand rendition of Gomorrah from summer 78 which is prescient given it’s an election year, a certain taste for a neck-loosening range of compounds just like a St Louis river boat chasing dragons - you can tell R Tutt isn’t on drums immediately fwiw and the lead vocal is coked out and reedy but DJG‘s backing vocals add a forlorn gospel lilt, the lp version is bunk and more of a demo to then be explored and honed through live performance
the larger array of actual songs to choose from are earlier, shows from summer 69 to autumn 71. Or, more precisely, those with an acoustic set opener, the type rebirthed for Reckoning in 81. Shows in 70//71 where New Speedway Boogie‘s are sludgy, slow, two chord drone outs and a woody bass tone they never quite went back to, can’t find the one needed on YT but it’s in the folder posted in a reply to Kid C in the GD fred. Any more and there’ll be mutterings among the ranks about overcooking COTD with ‘hippy bollocks’