Referential Analysis

In this section I will analyze multiple aspects of the referential meaning of the song. Textual and Musical Representation, Virtual Feeling, and the Onto-Historical World of the composers. I will the Open Listening its own section.


Textual Representation
Although there are other verses to the song, we will only look at the first because this is the only one sung in this performance.

Dark Star Crashes, pouring it’s light in the ashes
Reason tatters, the forces tear loose from the axis
Searchlight casting for faults in the clouds of delusion.
Shall we go, you and I while we can
Through the transitive nightfall of diamonds?

Let us look at the first two lines together. The Dark Star crashing seems to represent some kind of cataclysmic event. Perhaps the occurrence has some deviant, negative connotations due to the face that the star is “dark”. It must be monumental because its impact forces “reason [to] tatter”.

After this “dark star” crashes, it begins its “search”. It seems as though the writer (Hunter) is running from it. He asks, “Shall we go…while we can?” There is a sense of urgency in the words. There is limited time. Perhaps we must go while the star is here, because when it leaves our chance will be gone. But where will we go once we get past “the transitive nightfall of diamonds”? Perhaps the music will tell us…


Musical Representation and Virtual Feeling
The music seems to be very closely related to the text. The text depicts a very mystical, dream-like scene and the music follows right behind. Although this opinion may be swayed by the song title, the music seems very space-like to me. Melodies weaving in and out of each other in a rhythmic vacuum. Just as there are questions posed by the ambiguity of the text, the music is constantly introducing new ideas and “questions”. Jerry’s lines pose a question, and Phil’s bass answers them. Kreutzman lays down a rhythm and Hart answers and compliments it. This constant musical exchange echoes the line, “Shall we go, you and I while we can?

I am put in a very calm place when listening to this song. It makes the outside world disappear, as Garcia’s lines soar back and forth, high and low. The fact that I don’t know exactly where it will go upon an open listening gives me great excitement as well. I feel uncertain, but comfortable in the uncertainty. The song makes me embrace chance happening, just like the Dead do when they play this song.

Onto-historical
This particular performance was on New Years Eve, 1978 at the Winterland Ballroom. The concert was dubbed, "The Closing of Winterland" as it was the last performance the Hall would ever see.

When the Grateful Dead were writing and performing this song in the 60’s and 70’s, live music was undergoing many changes. Electric instruments had taken the world by storm and loud rock n’ roll was being born. The Dead borrowed the performance styles of the contemporary jazz musicians (most notable John Coltrane) and electrified it with colossal sound systems and effected instruments.

Their music was deeply rooted in the Psychedelic movement of the 1960’s. The style of playing you hear during songs like Dark Star was developed at The Acid Tests in California, a multi-media jam session during which audience and performer would take LSD together. From there they developed a very conversational style of playing that was happening in bands around them as well, in bands such as Cream and Pink Floyd. It was in settings like these that musicians began to communicate with each other simultaneously, a scenario that lays the foundation for extended improvisations.