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From: rcd@opus.UUCP (Dick Dunn)
Newsgroups: net.music.gdead
Subject: Re: Are they political? (New Speedway Boogie)
Message-ID: <1161@opus.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 24-Apr-85 20:18:19 EST
Article-I.D.: opus.1161
Posted: Wed Apr 24 20:18:19 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 27-Apr-85 01:50:29 EST
References: <518@syteka.UUCP>
Organization: NBI,Inc, Boulder CO
Lines: 18

> "New Speedway Boogie" always seemed to me to be the epitome
> of the Dead's political stance...
> ... "Speedway", to me, clearly defines the
> Dead's political interests to lie in that netherworld once
> called the "counter-culture", the real world where mind-set
> is more important than income and life-style dominates to an
> extent paralleled only by the starving artist community.

My understanding of New Speedway Boogie is that it was written because of,
and about, the Altamont concert--where the Hell's Angels did the security.
It seems to me that it concerns the end of a certain counter-culture phase,
when "flower children" started to fade before a much nastier element.

The song certainly contains moral judgments, but I'm not convinced that
there's all that much political in it...or am I reading it entirely wrong?
-- 
Dick Dunn	{hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd		(303)444-5710 x3086
   ...Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.