Tag: Donna Jean Godchaux

I want to thank all of you for reading last week’s “covers” week. Based on the positive response…I’ll start doing covers on Tuesdays coming up.

I just finished another Grateful Dead book so I’ve been listening to the Dead’s albums. Wake of the Flood has slowly become one of my favorites. It’s hard to beat American Beauty and Workingman’s Dead but it’s up there.

The verses of this song are straight-up Grateful Dead but the chorus reminds me a little of The Beatles. No, the Dead didn’t copy anything but it’s a type of chorus that the Beatles would attempt. Phil Lesh’s bass is prominent in this song…so is Jerry Garcia’s wonderful weaving guitar playing.

Garcia wrote the music and the Dead’s lyricist Robert Hunter wrote the verses. The song was influenced by a tragic event. Robert Hunter wrote in his book: Remembering the great Vanport, Washington flood of 1949, living in other people’s homes, a family abandoned by father, second grade. Hunter didn’t state the proper year or state of the flood but some about him.

Hunter was not in the flood but he was 7 years old and in second grade when it happened. His father around this time also abandoned his family. Hunter would live in different foster homes until he returned to his mom.

The song is about the flood that happened in Vanport City Oregon in 1948. Calling this a flood would be treating it mildly. It actually washed the town away. On Monday at 4:17 p.m. on Memorial Day 1948,  a combination of heavy rainfall and the Columbia River heavy with melted snowfall broke a portion of the dike surrounding Vanport. Floodwaters fifteen feet deep washed Vanport away.

Residents had been assured by authorities that the dikes were holding and that they would be warned in ample time to evacuate. The break caught everyone, including the authorities, by surprise. Thankfully, the swamps within Vanport absorbed the initial surge, allowing around 40 minutes for most people to escape Vanport to higher ground along Denver Avenue. Still, 15-16 (different sources) people lost their lives in the flood.

Vanport is no more. Several acres of the former city became “West Delta Park” which is now the Portland International Raceway.

The song was on the Wake of the Flood album released in 1973… but not without its problems. It came three long years after the Dead’s previous studio album, American Beauty. They did release the live  Europe 72 between the two albums. The Dead had just left Warner Bros and were without a record deal. So they did what other bands did at that time…make their own record company. This was the first album released on their new label.

Mickey Hart was not part of the Grateful Dead at this time. Mickey’s last show was 2/18/71 at the Capital Theater and he rejoined the band the last night of the “Farewell” shows at Winterland in October of ’74.

The album peaked at #18 on the Billboard Album Charts and #30 in Canada in 1973. This song was the B side to the single “Let Me Sing Your Blues Away.”

This would not be a Dead post if I didn’t give you a live version of it. 

Here Comes Sunshine

Wake of the flood, laughing water, forty-nine
Get out the pans, don’t just stand there dreaming
Get out the way, get out the way

Here comes sunshine
Here comes sunshine

Line up a long shot maybe try it two times, maybe more
Good to know you got shoes to wear, when you find the floor
Why hold out for more

Here comes sunshine
Here comes sunshine

Asking you nice, now, keep the mother rollin’
One more time, been down before
You just don’t have to go no more, no more

Here comes sunshine
Here comes sunshine