#Ghost town song movie#
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The lyrics by Weir and Kaufman have a certain Western movie flair as well, with phrases about outrunning the sheriff's mayor, finding work punching cows and a valley wide with grass. TUCKER: On another lovely song, 'Gallop On The Run,' Kaufman and Weir create the musical equivalent of a vast, open territory, something out of a John Ford Western shot in Monument Valley. Come ki-yi bossie, come on bossie, come along. My turn to tell my story, and I guess it's worth a try. I was looking for salvation, but nothing caught my eye. I know I deserve to be there, but I don't remember why. In a 12-step meeting under harsh fluorescent light - man, that's bright. WEIR: (Singing) In a cold church basement one November Friday night, come along, come along. The song takes us inside - inside a troubled mind into a dream of escape that is sadly elusive. We're no longer outside, roaming the country. It's called 'Ki-Yi Bossie' and begins with its narrator in a 12-step meeting in a cold church basement, wincing at its harsh fluorescent light. TUCKER: It's significant that the most intriguing song on this album is the only one whose songwriting credit belongs solely to Weir. Dig a hole, dig a hole in the meadow to lay my Lily down, to lay my Lily down. The sun coming through the window, and I'd have known her anywhere. WEIR: (Singing) Well, the first time I saw my newborn girl, she was pulling on her mama's hair.

#Ghost town song free#

Terse and tense, it gives this young woman her due as a free spirit that is rising from the earth even as her body is being lowered into it. It summons up the memory of a wild-child daughter whose grave is now being dug. TUCKER: While the Grateful Dead has rarely had anything interesting to say musically about women, one song on Weir's record, 'Lay My Lily Down,' is a marvelous exception to that history. Hey, hey, hey, only a river going to make things right. And I never saw the ocean till I was close to your age now. WEIR: (Singing) Well, I was born up in the mountains, raised up in a desert town.

As they see it, the river transforms life into a better place merely by its continued existence. On 'Only A River,' Weir and Ritter take the 19th century folk song 'Oh Shenandoah' and imbue the Shenandoah River with mystical properties. His sensibility and his voice, which is at once strong and ghostly, suffuse every line, every melody, every theme. Nevertheless, it's very much a Bob Weir album. TUCKER: That's 'Cottonwood Lullaby.' Its lyric was co-written by Josh Kaufman, who produced this album, and Josh Ritter, who co-writes most of the material here. But the angels appeared one time to folks such as us. Good night, all you cowboys, build your plans smart enough. In the quiet of the evening, there's a song. WEIR: (Singing) When the daylight is leaving, the work is nearly done. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, 'COTTONWOOD LULLABY') And this solo album really does sound like a solo piece, the work of a man who cherishes his solitary moments, times for reflection and dreaming. Although he's backed by a band, it's not the Dead. KEN TUCKER, BYLINE: On 'Blue Mountain,' Bob Weir sings about Pinto ponies and ghost towns, about saloons and coyotes, about cowboys and something he calls the misery train. And whatever happened to Rose? And whatever happened. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, 'WHATEVER HAPPENED TO ROSE')īOB WEIR: (Singing) And whatever happened to Rose? Whatever happened to the end of the trail? The gold strike, the gold spike, the wood, the nail in every brass rail, my thirst of a rogue (ph). It's called 'Blue Mountain,' and our rock critic, Ken Tucker, has a review. Now Weir has released a solo album, his first album of entirely new material since 1978. In recent years, he's continued to tour, performing Grateful Dead material with a group called Dead & Company. Bob Weir is best known as a founding member of the Grateful Dead.