January 13, 2005

Grateful Dead vs Joni Mitchell Okay,not really...just file this under free music for all the deadhead/Joni fans... A different "Me and My Uncle" Deadheads know Me and My Uncle as the Grateful Dead's most-played song. It usually came in the first set, and was usually followed by Big River. It was written by John Phillips, first played by the Dead in 1966, and then played more than 600 times over the next thirty years. As you can see from the lyrics, it's your basic manly western song of gambling, drinking, and killing. What most people don't know it that it was sung a year earlier by Joni Mitchell. She was going by the name "Joan Anderson" at the time, and sang it on the CBC television show "Let's Sing Out" on October 4, 1965. The combo of the sweet voice and the macho lyrics is wonderful.
posted by The Engineer's Monkey 19 years ago
  • hmmm ... more incongruous than wonderful ... but it was interesting to hear, nonetheless ... i'm a little burned out on that song anyway, being a deadhead for 30 years ... it's just one of those things we have to put up with
  • *purrs at joni mitchell*
  • I've never been a Grateful Dead fan, but I could listen to Joni Mitchell all day long. I wouldn't count this among her best efforts, but it was good to hear something I hadn't before.
  • Wow. In comparison it makes Bob Weir suffer like the emotional/eccentric singer he is! Great post! I haven't head many Joni covers, period. She was pretty much confident with her own tunes as she should be. Great find, though. Jerry Garcia would've got behind that!
  • If Joni Mitchell was on the CBC, does that mean she's Canadian? Or just that the CBC is less parochial than I always think :)
  • I noticed that "left his dead ass there by the side of the road" is sung "left him lying there by the side of the road." I am disappointed. . .I was wondering what the other lyrical choice would sound like, so sweetened up like that. I saw the Dead over 20 times and never heard that song. One site (tried to link to it but I am not sure that mofi can do that .. it did not work the conventional html way at least) lists Playing in the Band, Not Fade Away, and The Other One ahead of this song. But a great link, anyway. Thanks.
  • Joni is from Fort Macleod, Alberta.
  • danf I saw the Dead over 20 times and never heard that song. Some would consider you lucky. :-) I saw about 15 shows and heard it a couple of times. Apparently Garcia got tired of Weir's country tunes, but he could pull off a blazing solo in them when he wanted to. BTW, danf, there is a Monkeyfilter html guide here.