Were they perhaps referring to the garden as a ‘she’? Or was there a woman in this garden? The ‘she’ could have been an object or a creature in the garden, or the garden could have been a metaphor for something else entirely. The she/her referred to in the lyrics could be a description of almost anything. Perhaps when writing, Robert Hunter didn’t fully know the true meaning of this story either. It’s a magical space in my mind that I happily re-visit with every listen of ‘St Stephen.’Ī favourite of mine from the album is the mysterious ‘Rosemary.’ I love this song because there almost feels like there is no real answer to the story. I picture a beautiful woman dancing at sunset, twirling and skipping along the grass as the darkness follows her, taking over the sky as she travels further along the scene until darkness takes over completely and night hits. This lyric in my head is a transition from day to night, which may seem incredibly simple, but not everyone will hear it that way. Now this has been visualised hundreds of ways, anyone who ever lay on their floor staring at the ceiling listening to ‘St Stephen’ on their record player visualising every word in an attempt to put the story together correctly like I do will have their own version. Writing, ‘What for?’, across the morning skyĭarkness shrugs and bids the day goodbye” For example, in the first track of the album ‘St Stephen’ Jerry sings: Imagery is a main characteristic of the Dead’s lyrics.
That is something Deadheads love to do, to analyse and imagine. How you choose to visualise the lyrics are up to you as the listener, leaving the context behind the lyrics completely open to interpretation. Like the lyrics of the music, the imagery of the album cover is open to interpretation in multiple ways.Įach of the 8 tracks on the Aoxomoxoa album is a story that wants to be unravelled.
The sun on the image almost appears to be frying the brain of the person behind this skull, but I also like to link this to life and see it as the sun sending energy into the crown chakra, which often represents spirituality. Parts of the imagery can also be interpreted as sexual organs, that relate to the fertilisation of the egg. And the sun above is also an image of an egg being fertilised, which of course symbolises birth.
It is said that the bottom of the image represents death, with a skull and crossbones, and leaves falling off trees, and roots that symbolise rebirth of plants after death. The album cover is a classic picture even 50 years later, and portrays a theme of life and death and rebirth. It could be stated that every album the band produced was an experiment but this one stands out to me, and that is partially because of the image it creates of that particular wonderful time period. It’s an example of the pure gold that can come from expanding and creating music that is like nothing ever done before. I’m so grateful to have this album in my life, and it’s one of the reasons every band should experiment with their music. It was released on June 20th as the summer began, and fans recognise this time for the Dead as a very experimental period.
#China cat sunflower new years eve series#
The sound of Grateful Dead represents to me everything I imagine the joys of 1969 to be, and for this series celebrating the events of the summer, it couldn’t be done right without a celebration of Grateful Dead, and their third album Aoxomoxoa.Īoxomoxoa was the band’s addition to the acid trip that was the summer of ’69. In a time of darkness, this particular summer represented a fight for freedom and a celebration of people and love in the world. These are words that come to mind when we think of the summer of 1969. Psychedelics, music, love, nature and freedom.
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