20th Anniversary Rag

Lyrics: Robert Hunter
Music: None

Written by Robert Hunter and printed on the back of flyers passed out to the audience at the Greek Theatre, University of California, Berkeley, CA on 14/15/16 June 1985. It references/draws on a number of lyrics Hunter wrote for the Grateful Dead. The front was a poster by Rick Griffin.

Just like Grandma Moses (note 1)
Just like Auld Lang Syne
Play the change, however strange
And get it right this time!

It’s been a hard haul (note 2)
20 as the crow flies,
When your back’s to the wall
Got to play it as it lies

Let there be music, dance and the beating of drum (note 3)
Drop whatever you’re doing and come on the run
Twenty years later the groove is just starting to click
It’s all variations on some impossible lick

Come hear Uncle John’s Band
Playing to the years
Come along or go alone
Like an avalanche or rolling stone

Wave that flag!
Wave it while you can
Long as you keep coming
You got a band

Thanks for 20 years of being
an audience which is the envy
of every other rock and roll band alive.
Fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke!

Write if you get work.

Spare change?
Don’t touch that plug!
Notes
(1) referencing Ramble On Rose
(2) I think referencing Bertha
(3) I'm probably being dumb, but I don't recognise what this verse references. It has echoes of The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion), but those lyrics weren't written by Hunter

 


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