{"id":23420,"date":"2020-04-10T09:05:06","date_gmt":"2020-04-10T13:05:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/?p=23420"},"modified":"2020-04-10T09:05:11","modified_gmt":"2020-04-10T13:05:11","slug":"heart-of-dark-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/heart-of-dark-star\/","title":{"rendered":"Heart of Dark Star"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Grateful Dead - Dark Star (Single Version)\" width=\"695\" height=\"521\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/oUcMyVi9xJk?feature=oembed&amp;wmode=opaque\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>My wife and I went out for a quick pickup the other day. We took her car. Bluetooth picked up a random <strong>Grateful Dead<\/strong> mix from her phone. One of my favorite 11 Dead songs, from a <em>Dead Dozen<\/em> mix that I curated and shared with friends on Facebook a couple of months ago, played. Then some others I didn&#8217;t know so well. I&#8217;ve come a long way through the years in appreciating the Grateful Dead. Even when we left off with Rock Town Hall in 2016, I would have been hard pressed to compile a mix of 11 Dead songs I actually liked &#8211; and not for strictly humorous purposes. A couple of weeks ago, I got some deeply upsetting, if expected, personal news, and I immediately turned to my <em>Dead Dozen<\/em> mix for comfort, letting myself shed some tears during &#8220;Ripple.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Anyhow, while we made our quick run to the liquor store, something called &#8220;Dark Star (single version)&#8221; popped up on my wife&#8217;s random list. I had no idea there was such a thing. &#8220;Dark Star&#8221; is a song I can&#8217;t identify to save my life. The one time I saw the Dead they played it live, and the 19,997 Deadheads around me and my other 2 Dead-hater friends went wild. I furiously sucked on a bowl for the next half hour, but I didn&#8217;t get it then. I try to listen to recordings of that song every couple of years, to see if anything sticks. Nothing ever does. It&#8217;s like that kid back in your early school days: &#8220;I remember the name, but I can&#8217;t see his face!&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I thought this single version of &#8220;Dark Star&#8221; might help me see the heart of &#8220;Dark Star.&#8221; You know what I concluded?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--nextpage-->\n\n\n\n<p>There is no heart of &#8220;Dark Star.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Or is there? For people who get that song, is there a segment in the full version that might be seen as the song&#8217;s core, its hook? If you were tasked with chopping this down to a bite-size &#8220;single version,&#8221; where would you start and end?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Grateful Dead - Dark Star } El Paso  Veneta 8\/27\/72 Video\" width=\"695\" height=\"391\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6JukZBGgv8I?feature=oembed&amp;wmode=opaque\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n<nav class=\"page-links\"><strong>Pages:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/heart-of-dark-star\/\" class=\"post-page-numbers\"><span class=\"page-num\">1<\/span><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/heart-of-dark-star\/2\/\" class=\"post-page-numbers\"><span class=\"page-num\">2<\/span><\/a><\/nav>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My wife and I went out for a quick pickup the other day. We took her car. Bluetooth picked up a random Grateful Dead mix from her phone. One of my favorite 11 Dead songs, from a Dead Dozen mix that I curated and shared with friends on Facebook a couple of months ago, played. <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/heart-of-dark-star\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[41],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23420"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23420\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}