Stumbling Into the Daylight

Read the story of one music fans conversion from growing up staunchly anti-Grateful Dead in San Francisco to ultimately relinquishing to the power of the Dead's music. It starts...

There comes a time in a music lover's life when one must ask oneself a most fateful question: the Grateful Dead… do I or don't I? My fellows promised me that one day it would all come down to this, that as an informed listener, I would inevitably find it necessary to fully explore the beast of a back catalog and wayfaring, wooly live archive of the Grateful Dead. "Erm... o... kay," I'd say skeptically, "and then what?" “Well,” they'd say, "you will then have to concede to the band's almighty power." I don't think so!

As a San Franciscan with more angry punk than twirly dance hippie in me, I figured it was not only my birthright, but also my moral obligation, to hate the Dead. For my entire natural life, resisting their supposed lure posed no problem for me, even though from the day I was born the very air I breathed was filled with their jams. I made damn sure that very little could penetrate the stony psychic wall I’d erected to protect myself from hearing them or from consorting with their kind, those dirty followers of theirs known as Deadheads.