Wake Of The Flood 50: Row Jimmy

Rich Mahan (0:05)

The Good Ol Grateful Deadcast, the official podcast of the Grateful Dead. I'm Rich Mahan with Jesse Jarnow, exploring the music and legacy of the Grateful Dead For The Committed And The Curious.

Ladies and gentlemen, fellow Deadheads, welcome to season eight of The Good Ol Grateful Deadcast. I'm your co-host, Rich Mahan. Thank you very much for tuning in. In this episode of The Good Ol Grateful Deadcast, we continue our exploration into the Grateful Dead's 1973 studio album, Wake Of The Flood. We're well into side one at this point as we dive into a staple of the Grateful Dead's catalog, Row Jimmy.

It's the 50th anniversary of the Grateful Dead's Wake Of The Flood, and to celebrate this, Rhino has a grand 50th anniversary release, which includes the original album Remastered, some really cool early demos of songs from the album, and six songs from a live show at McGaugh Memorial Hall at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois from November 1st, 1973 There will be special vinyl, as well as standard black vinyl, CDs and digital versions available. More info and pre-orders are happening right now over at dead.net. Head on over to dead.net/deadcast and check out all of our past episodes, including the complete seasons one through seven. You can link from there to your favorite podcasting platform so you can listen how you like to listen.

Please help this podcast by subscribing, hitting that like button, sharing an episode on your social media, and if the spirit moves you, leave us a review. Thank you very much.

We have transcripts for many of your favorite Deadcast episodes available for your reading pleasure. We recently uploaded season one, so head on over to dead.net/deadcastdashindex and check them out. Thanks to everyone who has left their stories at stories.dead.net. Do you have any stories about Wake Of The Flood or any of the songs on it? We're looking for them now. Got a tale about the first time you heard Eyes Of The World? Or a wild tour yarn about that version of Let It Grow that flipped your wig? No story too big or too small. Record them over at stories.dead.net and you may just hear yourself on the Deadcast. There's an option to write your story there, but if possible, please record yourself telling the story. It's much more compelling and we can actually use the audio in the Deadcast. If you need longer than the time allotted, leave a second one or a third recording. Thank you very much.

Row Jimmy is one of the songs from Wake Of The Flood that became a Grateful Dead staple, with the band playing the song 273 times throughout their career since its debut in February of 1973 Featuring some of Robert Hunter's best lyrical work, Row Jimmy has plenty of double twists in the music as well. We'll dive into both the lyrics and the trickier than it sounds music in this episode. Jesse Jarnow has his decoder ring, and it's set to stun.

Jesse Jarnow (3:52)

There's no question that Row Jimmy is a classic Grateful Dead song, beloved by many deadheads, played often by the band and the offshoots that have followed. Grateful Dead archivist and legacy manager, David Lemieux.

David Lemieux (4:03)

When it was perfect and all the pieces fell into place, nothing in a first set was better, really. Up there with Birdsong, for me, I loved that I got to hear Jerry play slide guitar on it. Jerry didn't play slide guitar very much at all, so to get to hear Jerry play some slide usually was really great.

Robert Hunter (4:22)

Great.

Jesse Jarnow (4:40)

That was a bit of the Winterland June 8th, 77 version. Probably familiar to many, now on the Winterland 1977 box.

And as much as Row Jimmy is a classic Grateful Dead song, it can also be a confusing song.

David Lemieux (4:53)

My first show, it was In Your Face, the Hartford 1987, and it opened with Midnight Hour into a massive cold rain and snow, CC Rider, and even when Push Comes To Shove, Brotheries.

But there was a Row Jimmy in there, and that was the moment, that was in 87 I'd always liked the song, but didn't quite, I won't even say, I'm not gonna say understand it, I understand, but I didn't know what to make of it. Like, what is this? And it was at that show where I just was so enveloped by the sound and being in there with 15,000 people at the Harvard Civic Center that it made sense to me. And I said, okay, this song. And then I started really seeking it out in our first set.

Jesse Jarnow (6:17)