Mike and a Herd of Penguins

Monday, June 06, 2011

Box of Rain

This exchange appeared in Hunter's mailbag on 8/6/96:

Date: Jul 25 1996 12:36 AM EDT
From: cebass@pacbell.net (Charles E. Bass)

Dear Robert,
After reading through a number of Mailbags posted at your web site, I finally decided that it was time to contribute a thought and a question.
Between your evocative, thoughtful lyrics and Jerry's powerful melodies, I have aphorisms and meditations a-plenty to help me through my days and in my life. For that, thank you, thank you, thank you.
I sat down the other day and figured out the chord changes to Mission in the Rain. My wife (who is not a deadhead) especially likes that song. Maybe it is because we live in San Francisco and there is a reference to the Mission. When I play it she always starts dancing.
Robert, if you would, please tell me what you were thinking when you penned the phrase "box of rain." What, for you, does a box of rain represent. I am not asking for the meaning of the song, or for you to explain the song to me -- I spent plenty of time on my own doing that. I am just terribly curious how you came to choose that image.
Well, I won't take any more bandwith. There is much I would like to say, but I've said it in my mind for so long now, it feels funny and self-conscious trying to put onto "paper."
Regards,
Charlie Bass

Charlie,

well, I don't like to do this, since it encourages others to ask about what I had in mind when I wrote a song, and mostly you'd need to have my mind to understand even approximately what I had in it. By "box of rain," I meant the world we live on, but "ball" of rain didn't have the right ring to my ear, so box it became, and I don't know who put it there.
[rh]

Hunter notes in his anthology of lyrics, named for this song,
"Phil Lesh wanted a song to sing to his dying father and had composed a piece complete with every vocal nuance but the words. If ever a lyric 'wrote itself,' this did--as fast as the pen would pull."

Lesh: And at that time, my dad was dying of cancer, and I would drive out to visit with him, in the hospital, and also at the nursing home he spent his final days in, and after Bob gave me the lyrics, on the way out there I would practice singing the song. I sort of identified that song with my dad and his approaching death. The lyrics that he produced were so apt, so perfect. It was very moving, very moving for me to experience that during the period of my dad's passing. I felt like singing it in other situations similar to that since then.

Monday, May 16, 2011

I am on a short countdown now, ending a 37 yr relationship with this place- some uncertainty because I can't really imagine the future. It seems all will be OK, I am not really worried about it.

Connected by DROID on Verizon Wireless

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Pics are from the 2009 trip. This was the second coldest year, about -7 degrees. Can't say for sure because the thermometers froze. It was -4 at the bottom of the hill on Friday night, so we think at least 3 degrees colder up high.