I bet you never knew Jerry Garcia released a children's album. It must be hard to sell a children's album when your entire personality revolves around hard acid and heroin, tie that in with the fact that you look like a child molesting-Santa Claus and Jerry Garcia had a lot to contend with when he released this album; not for the people who really knew him. Captain Trips was less free-baser backstage than a hyper-intelligent-down home shaman of pure Americana. Vastly more proficient at banjo and acoustic guitar than anything he put out on stage electrically; he was a total enigma operating in realms in which the only traits that carried him through were a passionate lust for music and inhuman proficiency on every instrument he touched.
Because of this it was no surprise to me when this album was released, it was also of no surprise when after hearing it I fell in love instantly. Only someone as gifted as Jerry could make a 250lb hockey player take breaks from lifting, drinking and dipping to figure out the solos on a children's album. The wholehearted giddiness exuded reminds one of Blake's "Songs of Innocence and Experience" This song is "The Tyger" and "The Chimney Sweeper" it is what we lose when we grow pubes and get jobs.
Forgetting about the meanings and 18th century poetry implications for a moment: Listen to the clarinet weave in and out of the banjo and trombone as a child running through fields of lilies naked, hear Jerry's voice fragile, raspy with Marlboro Reds, the strange Uncle whom everyone adores and always has chocolate in his pocket, feel Grisman's mandolin skipping into the forefront during the solo over chalk murals on the sidewalk under a azure summer sky. In this frame of reference you can picture Jerry and Mr. Rogers jamming on his front porch with cardigans on, Big Bird bobbing his head up and down in the background.
It is a terribly cute song and for those who don't know Jerry it is an introduction to why so many people loved him like a father. Don't write me off as naive, but for most Deadheads it wasn't the drugs and the scene they loved about the man, it was the purity in his soul which held such attraction. Like everyman he had his faults, like all great men he kept them inside and smiled as much as humanly possible never letting the world know. For a few days those demons chasing Jerry took a break and let the man revert back to childhood dreams and pleasures, they were probably even swaying their heads back and forth, watching with smiles on their faces over his shoulder.
