China Doll is, to me, a good example of a song’s melodic and tonal qualities reflecting its lyrical sentiments. There’s just enough dissonance and resolution here, and Garcia typically sings this with a certain fragility in his voice. I don’t know if that’s intentional or just a product of the melody, but it seems pretty consistent to me so maybe this song just brought out something extra in ole Jer.
China Doll was played a total of 114 times, but it never consistently appeared in setlists. Generally it was played a handful of times in a given year, if that. Oftentimes it would emerge in the post-drums/space slot in shows, providing a gentle transition from the stratosphere back to Earth.
My favorite part of the song has always been the key change in the “pick up your china doll” part. Would that be the bridge? Regardless, I find that to be a very powerful moment in the song and the feeling it communicates is one of the reasons I like the song so much. At the same time it’s not a song I listen to a lot, probably because I don’t want that natural response to become muted, but when I put on an album that has China Doll on it I’m always pleased.
Being an Atlantan, this show holds a special place in my heart even though I didn’t move here from Tampa until 2011. I just love this town and especially the Fox. I saw 2 shows there in 1985 that were nowhere near as good as this one. Anyway:
It seems the tempo is a bit elusive at the top of this. Someone coughs on the right side, an indicator of lots of audience source still here. Jerry himself misses a chord change or two. Besides the obvious acoustic/electric difference, I’d say this version has little in common with the Reckoning version, unlike other songs on this release. This is much more of a struggle. The guitar solo fades up, laden with distortion and expression. It’s harsh and beautiful. Then it’s back to the crystalline sounds of another verse. The ending chorus is redeeming, as I’m sure it was supposed to be when the song was written. That is the genius of this tune – unexpected death and then a surprising return to life are evoked in turn. Garcia hints where this might end up, then forces the issue with Chuck Berry licks that can only be the start of Around and Around.
This is a little late but I wanted to chime in anyway.
I was wondering, Lunchbox, if our discussion about audience tapes and matrix recordings inspired this choice, or if you already had it planned. Either way it’s a perfect choice soon after some of the discussion from the Doin’ That Rag entry.
1980 is far from my favorite year but I really enjoyed this release and I think the matrix recording had a lot to do with it. This release is light years above the Road Trips release from the same year, IMO.
I used to listen to a lot of audience tapes when I was really into tape trading and it was particularly easy to find audience tapes of recent shows in the 90s. Those tapes were great to listen to because we didn’t have anything better but most of the time a good soundboard tape was preferred. Still, once in a great while, a really superb audience tape would surface and in some ways turn out to be even better than a soundboard (this might be a slight exaggeration of memory, but hopefully you get the point).
One of the greatest listening experiences of my life was hearing the 10-9-89 show for the first time and it was on a spectacular audience tape. My friend had just acquired the tapes and we had it turned up LOUD in the early morning hours. We were drinking and smoking just as we would if we were there and we were digging the music big time. One of the great things about those audience tapes was that you still had all the pauses and tunings between songs, it really put you there at the show. There are plenty of shows on the archive where you can get that feeling. Anyway, by the time Dark Star and Space had ended we felt like we were in the crowd and the crowd was going absolutely crazy. The tape continued to roll after the Good Lovin’ closer until the band came back out for the encore and that felt so real. And, of course, the encore was Attics and the crowd went nuts. And we felt like we were there. The tape continued to roll; maybe the taper thought they’d play two encores on this special night. We sat riveted to our chairs waiting to hear what might come next when there was a loud groan, obviously we knew the house lights came on, and then heard what sounded like very happy chattering as people headed to the exits.
Months later I acquired a nice soundboard tape of the same show, and it was good, but just didn’t quite have that same magic as the audience tape had. But that’s the exception, not the rule.