Terrapin Station

This unforgettable suite is on the short list of Core Dead: signature pieces that exemplify the creative talent of Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia and define the band itself. The haunting melody is easily recognizable by even casual Deadheads and ingrained in the psyche of more serious heads, while its lyrics produce more vivid images than just about any the Dead ever wrote. An example of musical extremes, from its great moments of climax to sections of emotion-laden quietude, "Lady with a Fan" and "Terrapin Station" were two of the most powerful songs to come from the Hunter/Garcia juggernaut. Though it could be a tad repetitive and lyric-heavy when compared with the other Dead gems, this suite is nonetheless a welcome addition to any show in which it was played.

There were two overlapping phases in the life of "Terrapin Station" that characterize where it was placed during a particular show: The first from the suite’s fourth performance on 3/19/77 until 12/31/81, and the second from 4/29/80 to the suite’s final performance on 7/8/95. In the first phase, the band played the suite during the pre-Drumz section of the show, frequently using it to lead into "Playin’ in the Band" or some other familiar tune in the Weir staple, before moving on to Drumz. The Dead followed up "Terrapin Station" with Playin’ in the Band" 55 times after the 106 performances in the first phase, or 52 percent of the time. The second phase of the suite’s touring life is much the same as the first, except that the band dropped the post-"Terrapin" Weir interlude, and segued directly into Drumz. The Dead performed "Drumz" or "Space" after 179 of the 226 versions included in this period, or 79 percent of the time.

Throughout both cases, the suite provided a spooky vehicle from which the Dead could meander into Drumz and Space. The structure of the two-segment suite lent itself to extended, if structured, improvisation, and was often more than 15 minutes long. It was such a reliable bridge between the pre-drumz section of the show and Drumz itself, that the Dead never let the suite drop out of the rotation for more than 12 shows. Save for a handful of shows when the Dead used the suite to open the second set, after 1978 the suite almost never left the pre-Drumz slot. But there was one show in particular that makes the "almost" the crucial word of the sentence: the show given on the cold, clammy night of 3/28/91 at the Nassau Coliseum.

"My recollection of that show was that [up until the encore] it was incredibly average, uninteresting and short," said Jim Roberts, an editor of regional news for The New York Times and Deadhead since 1973. He said when the band got to the final song of the second set, "Good Lovin’," Roberts said he remembered thinking, "I can’t believe this is it."

Rather than perform a song out of the standard fare of the era, which probably would have been a soothing ballad like "The Weight," "Brokedown Palace," "It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue," or "Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door," the band threw the audience a real curve ball that night, playing "Terrapin Station" just when it was least expected. The "Terrapin" encore that night made up for the bands mediocre playing, turning a forgettable show into one for the history books; it was the first performance of "Terrapin Station" as an encore in the 907 performances since the classic show of 7/8/78 at Red Rocks Amphitheatre.

But it was a set of extraordinary circumstances that lead to the creation of such a successful suite. The scene in which the lyrics and music to this suite were written is fantastic: Robert Hunter, sitting alone in an unfurnished room, looking out through a picture window of San Francisco Bay, at an intense lightning storm. The Inspiration Hunter twice refers to in the lyric has a distinctly visual element. But even more unbelievable is that at the very same time, Garcia was struck by a similar burst of creativity, and incredibly, what the independently inspired words and music fit perfectly together. Whether it was the weather, or some unseen force beyond human control, Hunter and Garcia came up with the most mystical song of their career. "Terrapin’s" otherworldly lyrics provide an appropriate match to the eerie melody.

The lyrics to "Lady with a Fan," presented in eleven[FOOTNOTE 1] stanzas of four lines, tell a fable of a foolish sailor and a prudent soldier who are respectively seduced by some kind of angelic siren and able to avoid seduction. The song starts out with Hunter writing a stanza to his Muse. "Let my inspiration flow / in token lines suggesting rhythm / that will not forsake me / till my tale is told and done." The music to the song hadn’t yet been written (or if it had, Hunter wasn’t aware of it), so he was stating in the song itself what he hoped would come of the words he was then writing. He also notes that he hopes the words will be carried through to completion of a text. Hunter then introduces us to the setting: A story being told by a fire. Ominously, he writes, "While the firelight’s aglow / strange shadows in the flames will grow / till things we’ve never seen / will seem familiar." It is out of these shadows that the form of a sailor develops, and in fact whole of the narrative emerges. Anyway, you know how the rest of the song turns out and what happens between the three main characters. In the end the old storyteller quietly closes his book, I imagine, and vanishes. But the story’s end is never told.

The next segment of the suite, "Terrapin Station" proper, again opens with Hunter asking the creative Powers that Be for some help: "Inspiration, move me brightly, / light the song with sense and color, / hold away despair." My favorite line comes in the beginning of the second verse, "Counting stars by candlelight / all are dim but one is bright." It may sound contrived, but for me, a person turned on to the Dead in the 1990s, the stars in this line symbolized the incredible group of rock and jam bands that came out in late ’60s. By the 1990s, all the bands of import had long since stopped performing or creating music of any kind on a regular basis — all but one, that is. There is a line that more aptly illuminates that fact, from "Built to Last": "All the stars are gone but one."

There is an ingenious line woven in the second half of the second verse: "Crickets and cicadas sing / a rare and different tune." Deadheads chose to apply that last line to the song itself, and in fact many of the Dead’s songs. But the line creates a great image. Hearing crickets and cicadas singing anything but the usual would spark intense religious fright or scientific wonder. This line leads up to the end of the song, but not before Hunter’s lyrical genius shows through once more. The lines "Some rise, some fall, / some climb . . ." seem to me at least to want to end with "some crawl." But that would be the natural, easy progression. Hunter avoids the commonplace, instead ending the second line with ". . . to get to Terrapin." The crescendo and climax in the latter half of this song is overwhelming.

The earliest versions of the suite, those performed in the spring and summer of 1977, were introduced by a pronounced, four-note riff played by Bobby. This riff, never performed more prominently than when it appears on the studio version, is present as well in versions performed a decade or more later, but it is never used to open the suite; when heard at all, Bobby starts playing it after Jerry has introduced the suite with his own signature "Lady with a Fan" lick. It appears that in the early versions, the band would actually plan to play "Terrapin" ahead of time, and so that way Bobby’s riff could be played simultaneous with or before Jerry’s. In the later versions, Jerry would unilaterally decide that the band would play "Terrapin," and would begin playing his riff. After that, the other members would get the hint and follow.

But though easily recognizable, there is a good deal of confusion about what to call the sections of the suite, and about when the various parts of the suite begin and end. Like "That’s It For The Other One," "Weather Report Suite," "Blues for Allah," and "King Solomon’s Marbles," "Terrapin Station is listed on a Dead studio album as having component subsections that are sometimes considered separate songs, sometimes not. All the suites pose labeling problems for Deadheads, but none of them are labeled as many different ways as "Terrapin Station."

"Terrapin Station Part One," the suite, appears on "Terrapin Station" the studio album, with seven subsections including "Terrapin Station" and "Terrapin." Two of those subsections, "Lady with a Fan" and "Terrapin Station," appear on "Terrapin Station" the limited-edition live album (recorded in Maryland, home of the University of Maryland Terrapins), but are listed together only as "Terrapin Station," even though they are listed separately on "Dozin’ at the Knick" and "Ticket to New Year’s." Besides all this, Robert Hunter’s book A Box of Rain lists nine sub-sections to the "Terrapin Station" suite.[Footnote 2] Of the seven sub-sections on the studio album and the nine subsections in A Box of Rain, a mere three, the only three of the recorded seven that have lyrics, are listed in both places: "Lady with a Fan," "Terrapin Station," and "At a Siding." Hunter in his footnotes refers to these three sections as "Part One." The other six must be "Part Two." Another "Terrapin"-related subsection, "L’Alhambra," is listed by Hunter separately, outside his "Terrapin Station" suite pages[Footnote 3]. DeadBase lists this section (without the L’) as having been played on a single occasion: 3/18/77, Winterland Arena. Finally, a review of that show in Dead to the Core[Footnote 4] incorrectly states that "At a Siding" is the same musical piece as "L’Alhambra." (Hunter wrote that "L’Alhambra" "evolved into a wordless melodic segment of Terrapin Station" — implying that it is a separate section from "At a Siding," which has its own words listed elsewhere in his book.)

Of these 14 "Terrapin"-related sub-sections, only two, "Lady with a Fan" and "Terrapin Station," were performed regularly. DeadBase lists both under the heading "Terrapin," but applies the same label to instances when either one of the sections was performed without the other. The only deviations from the standard "Lady with a Fan" > "Terrapin Station" pairing that I have heard occurred on 5/22/77, Pembroke Pines, Florida (digitally preserved by "Dick’s Picks Vol. 3"), when the Dead performed a stand-alone "Terrapin Station" out of "Wharf Rat"; the 4/13/86 show at Irvine, California, when the Dead performed only "Lady with a Fan"; and the "So Far" video, in which "Terrapin Station," if it was played, is edited out. It seems likely that there were other instances where one of the two sections were omitted.

Of all the live versions of "Terrapin Station," the most interesting is the third performance, the famous and unique 3/18/77. The version from that night is singularly important because it was the most complete version of the suite ever performed live. Rea Simpson and John Corley, in their review of the show that appears in DeadBase, write that this version "Gives us a taste of what the album might have sounded like without all the orchestration that was added." [Footnote 5]. But how does that night compare with the studio version? Actually, it sticks to the basics blueprint of the suite quite well. Here’s a breakdown of the studio version: