So Many Roads

Grateful Dead

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

The Dead

Tampa, FL - July 30, The Dead, 2003
Irvine, CA - June 24, 2004, The Dead, 2004

Ratdog

Hartford CT: October 22, 2003, Ratdog, 2003
Des Moines IA: November 13, 2003, Ratdog, 2003
Columbia MO: November 17, 2003, Ratdog, 2003
Spokane WA, March 9, 2004, Ratdog, 2004
Jim Thorpe PA, March 27, 2004, Ratdog, 2004
Sayreville NJ, April 12, 2005, Ratdog, 2005
Toronto, Canada, October 31, 2005, Ratdog, 2005
Lowell MA, November 10, 2006, Ratdog, 2006
Baltimore MD, March 19, 2007, Ratdog, 2007

Others

The Grass Is Dead, Crazy Fingers, 2000
The 1000th Show, Dark Star Orchestra, 2005

Notes

Garcia spoke about So Many Roads in an interview with Dave DiMartino in 1992;

It's Hunter writing me from my point of view, you know what I mean? We've been working together for so long that he knows what I know. The song is full of references to things that have to do with me....

....Hunter is the only guy that could do that. He can write my point of view better than I can think it, you know what I mean? So that's the kind of relationship we have. And he frequently writes tunes from my point of view that are autobiographical. There actually biographical I guess. He's the one writing them, but even so they express my point of view - and more than that they express the emotional content of my soul in a certain way that only a long-term and intimate relationship with a guy as brilliant as Hunter coughs up ... I can sing that song, feel totally comfortable with it.

One afternoon, Jerry was playing some unstructured changes on the piano. Figuring they might be forgotten otherwise, I clicked on my tape recorder. Ten years later I found the tape and listened to it, liked it, and set these words to it. Listening to the pitifully recorded and time-degraded tape, Jerry protested that, although he liked the words, his changes were not very good and unfinished besides. This didn't seem to be the base and I requested that he at least give it a run through. The result was one of the better received new GD songs and one that almost got away.