Days Between

Grateful Dead

So Many Roads (1965-1995), Grateful Dead, 1999

The Dead

Morrison, CO - July 6, The Dead, 2003
Ft Lauderdale, FL - July 29, The Dead, 2003
Darien Center, NY - August 8, The Dead, 2003
Mountain View, CA - September 19, The Dead, 2003
Morrison, CO - June 15, 2004, The Dead, 2004
Detroit, MI - July 27, 2004, The Dead, 2004
Holmdel, NJ - August 10, 2004, The Dead, 2004

Ratdog

Albany, NY, November 3, 2007, Ratdog, 2007
Orlando FL, November 16, 2007, Ratdog, 2007

Others

20° Of Solitude, Grass Is Dead, 2004

Notes

Days Between was the last song written together by Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia.

The song looks back to the days and attitudes of the formative period (1960/61) in Hunter's and Garcia's lives that eventually gave rise to the Grateful Dead;

There were days
There were days
And there were days I know
When all we ever wanted
Was to learn and love and grow

I wrote a verse while Jerry was working out something on piano. I gave it to him, he said he liked the rhyme scheme and idea, and began working out the melody. As he was doing that I wrote the rest of the verses. An hour's work.

"... I feel like I can discuss anything with Hunter, any idea, without any difficulty at all. And we are both very comfortable with each other on the level of changing stuff. Sometimes I insist that he do something over and over." .... "One of the songs we wrote recently was The Days Between. I had an idea there - it had to do with the length of the phrases and how I wanted the phrases to work. I had a hard time communicating it. But with Hunter it's a matter of finding the key. I'll sort of scat sing the way I want it to work."

"The phantom thing was funny, because the first line went, When ships with phantom sails set to sea on phantom tides. I said that I wanted it to be 'When something ships with phantom sails set to sea on phantom tides. I want another two syllables.' So Hunter came up with a bunch of things, but then he said, 'What about phantom, use phantom again.' Yeah, right, When phantom ships with phantom sails set to sea on phantom tides. It worked perfectly. It has this ghostly, hollow quality - it's skeletal. So singing that song is like, ooh, it works for me. I get chills. It's that happy marriage of setting and sense. Hunter - he's so good at that. We're really hitting some nice spaces lately."