Have you ever wondered if characters in Dead songs carried over from one tune to another? Jack Straw always makes me think of Me & My Uncle, and not because they are both Bobby tunes. They have similar themes of being in the west and leading a rough and tumble life complete with gambling and murder. Is Jack Straw the sequel to Me & My Uncle?
Having a thematic week also offers a chance to revisit some songs we’ve already covered here in order to highlight differences between versions. It’s been over 100 days since our last Jack Straw.
How does this version stack up to that one? Any others that should be on my radar?
Brent doubles the vocals with Bobby on the first verse. Perhaps I never paid as close of attention, but I never noticed this before on Jack Straw. Brent’s a bit out of sync and the addition a third voice disrupts the two person narrative a bit. Brent’s keys are up in the mix here, but Jerry sounds in fine form to me, crafting spirited, ascending and descending runs when called upon to do so. The drummers sound very powerful, especially when inserting fills. Jerry has a touch of distortion during his solo which gives this tale a nice little edge, but I think it’s mitigated a bit by Brent’s keys, which are very bright. I’d love to hear this one with some B3 and see what kind of a difference it makes. As the song ends it dissolves into Don’t Ease Me In.
Complete Setlist 11/1/85
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An oddly-placed choice, this benefits from its preceding sister song. Bombastic tom hits from Mickey drive us from verse to verse. The band is hot! Again we are turned up just one notch high in tempo, but not to any crazy extent. The singing retains its meaning and the accents provide high points. Garcia is a man afire on the fills and little solos. You’d be hard-pressed to find a better latter-day version of this song, really. Mydland’s volume in the mix occludes the guitar a bit by the end of the solo, but have forgiveness. The burst into the last verse is enormous. It wraps with a cool fizzle and a segue arrow into Don’t Ease Me In.
I always felt that this was (sort of) Hunter’s version of Me and My Uncle. Not to say it’s not original, but it has a similar theme. By the same token, Mexicali Blues seems to me to be Barlow’s take on El Paso. It’s probably wrong to imply that there was a conscious effort by either lyricist to write something similar to those older songs, though.
Jack Straw is one of those rare Dead tunes that seems to have broad appeal (at least it would if only certain listeners didn’t know who was playing the song). I imagine some of my more conservative acquaintances would enjoy thoughts of eagles filling the sky on Independence Day and certainly the opening lyric is pretty inviting to most men.
I was going to say that I like all versions of this song but have to admit to being a tad disappointed when Bruce would take a verse or two. The Europe ’72 versions are pretty definitive and I enjoy this song with Donna adding vocals as well. I had a nice tape of the second set of 10-24-84 for a long time and recently discovered the first set over at the archive. That’s a pretty hot Jack Straw to end the first set.