Box of Rain

So click on the link in another window and listen while you read, okay?

http://youtu.be/V4SqDx1vi4c

I find it easy to fall in love with a Grateful Dead tune.  And The Dead are one of the few bands that I can listen to endlessly and never get tired of hearing.  Can't say that about too many bands/artists.  (Others would be Van Morrison, Jackson Browne, The Avett Brothers and The Band.)

So today just seemed like a Grateful Dead kind of day.  And since it's sort of raw and drizzly outside, Box of Rain came to mind.  I read somewhere that when he was asked why he chose the lyric "box of rain," Robert Hunter said that he thought of the world as a ball of rain, but "ball" didn't sound right to his ear.  So it became "box of rain."  And, he quipped, "I don't know who put it there."

Far be it from me to try to crawl into Robert Hunter's head and interpret his lyrics.  And to dissect a Grateful Dead song line by line just seems wrong to me.  That would be akin to critiquing an Impressionist painting dot by dot.  One has to step back and take in the whole thing.  So Box of Rain creates a mood, calls up a dream, pokes at one's certainty, and disturbs one's perception.  Like stumbling through a Salvador Dali painting, I put one foot in front of the other and travel the length of the song.  It's all a dream we dreamed one afternoon long ago.

But the lines that hit me over the head this afternoon are these:  

Walk into splintered sunlight
Inch your way through dead dreams to another land
Maybe you're tired and broken
Your tongue is twisted with words half spoken 
and thoughts unclear

That's just kind of how I feel today.  Iceland was a dream.  My cat's diabetes, unfortunately, is not. Perhaps what I need is a box of rain, something cool and cleansing, something with a promise of renewal.  Spring begins tomorrow.  Maybe that will be my box of rain to wake me from this stupor.  Believe it if you need it.