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Days Between
Composer: Jerry Garcia / Robert Hunter

Days Between was first performed by the Grateful Dead in February 1993. It was played regularly through to June 1995. The song was performed over 40 times.


Grateful Dead

info So Many Roads (1965-1995), 1999
info 30 Trips Around The Sun Box Set, 2015
info Long Strange Trip (amazon edition), 2017
info Ready Or Not, Grateful Dead, 2019

Fare Thee Well shows 2015

info Fare Thee Well July 3, 4 & 5 2015 Complete Box, 2015
info Fare Thee Well July 5, 2015

The Dead

info Morrison, CO, July 6, 2003
info Ft Lauderdale, FL, July 29, 2003
info Darien Center, NY, August 8, 2003
info Mountain View, CA, September 19, 2003
info Morrison, CO, June 15, 2004
info Detroit, MI, July 27, 2004
info Holmdel, NJ, August 10, 2004
info Dead '09: Worcester, MA April 18, 2009
info Dead '09: E. Rutherford, NJ, April 29, 2009
info Dead '09: Quincy, WA, May 16, 2009

Furthur

info Dec 8, 2009, New York, NY, 2009
info Feb 12, 2010, Hampton, VA, 2010
info Feb 23, 2010, New York, NY, 2010
info Mar 8, 2010, Portland, OR, 2010
info July 4, 2010, Oxford, ME
info July 10, 2010, Philadelphia, PA
info September 20, 2010, Santa Barbara, CA
info September 26, 2010, Morrison, CO
info November 14, 2010, Cincinnati, OH
info March 8, 2011, Wallingford, CT
info March 27, 2011, New York, NY
info July 29, 2011, Simpsonville, SC
info Oct 5, 2011, Los Angeles, CA
info Nov 10, 2011, New York, NY
info April 14, 2012, New York, NY
info July 11, 2012, Cary, NC
info July 18, 2012, Rochester Hills, MI
info September 29, 2012, Troutdale, OR
info December 30, 2012, San Francisco, CA
info January 18, 2013, Mill Valley, CA
info February 24, 2013, Broomfield, CO
info April 21, 2013, Port Chester, NY
info April 27, 2013, Atlantic CIty, NJ
info Sept 6, 2013, Arrington, VA
info Sept 19, 2013, Morrison, CO
info Sept 28, 2013, Berkeley, CA
info Oct 6, 2013, Los Angeles, CA

Dead & Company

info San Francisco, CA, 23 May, 2016
info Saratoga Springs, NY, 21 June, 2016
info Flushing, NY, 26 June, 2016
info Boston, MA, 16 July, 2016
info Mountain View, CA, 30 July, 2016
info Atlanta, GA, 13 Jun, 2017
info oston, MA, 18 Jun, 2017
info Chicago, IL, 1 Jul, 2017
info Washington, DC, 21 Nov, 2017
info Sunrise, FL, 26 Feb, 2018
info New York, NY, 15 Jun, 2018
info Mountain View, CA, 3 July, 2018
info Boulder, CO, 14 July, 2018
info Chicago, IL, 14 Jun, 2019
info Boulder, CO, 6 Jul, 2019
info Hampton, VA, 8 Nov, 2019
info Cancún, MX, 19 Jan, 2020
info Saratoga Springs, NY, Aug 27, 2021
info Chicago, IL, Sep 18, 2021
info The Woodlands, TX, Oct 15, 2021
info Los Angeles, CA, Oct 30, 2021
info Chicago, IL, June 25, 2022
info Philadelphia, PA, July 10, 2022
info Bristow, VA, June 3, 2023
info Saratoga Springs, NY, June 17, 2023
info Boulder, CO, July 1, 2023
info San Francisco, CA, July 16, 2023

Phil Lesh & Friends

info March 17, 2016, Port Chester, NY, 2016

Ratdog

info Albany, NY, November 3, 2007
info Orlando FL, November 16, 2007
info Royal Oak, MI, March 28, 2008
info New York, NY, April 5, 2008
info Quincy, CA, July 5, 2008
info Holmdel, NJ, August 15, 2008
info Atlantic City, NJ, July 11, 2009
info Bridgeport, CT, July 25, 2009
info New York, NY, October 23, 2009
info Westbury, NY, February 22, 2014
info Chicago, IL, March 7, 2014
info Kansas City, MO, June 14, 2014

Bob Weir & Wolf Bros

info Live In Colorado, Vol. 2, Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros, 2022

Weir/Robinson/Greene Trio

info May 30, 2012, Ryman Auditorium, Nashville, TN, 2012
info June 4, 2012, Chautauqua Auditorium, Boulder, CO, 2012

Other Dead related

info Move Me Brightly performance/documentary, 2013

Other recordings

info 20° Of Solitude, Grass Is Dead, 2004
info Our Trip Is Short Vol. 1, Your Trip Is Short, 2017
info Cut The Dead Some Slack, Stephen Inglis, 2018
info 11/17/18, Fragile Thunder Duo, 2019
info Alone Together, Vol 2, Holly Bowling, 2020
info The Wilderness Sessions Vol. 8: Taos, Holly Bowling, 2021

 
Genesis of the song

This was the last song written together by Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia. The song looks back to the days and attitudes of the formative period (1960/61) in their lives that eventually gave rise to the Grateful Dead;

There were days
There were days
And there were days I know
When all we ever wanted
Was to learn and love and grow
In an open letter to Garcia written in 1996, a year after Garcia's death, Robert Hunter wrote:
Obviously, faith in the underlying vision which spawned the Grateful Dead might be hard to muster for those who weren't part of the all night rap sessions circa 1960-61 ... sessions that picked up the next morning at Kepler's bookstore then headed over to the Stanford cellar or St. Mike's to continue over coffee and guitars. There were no hippies in those days and the beats had bellied up. There was only us vs. 50's consciousness. There were no jobs to be had if we wanted them. Just folk music and tremendous dreams. Yeah, we dreamed our way here. I trust it. So did you. Not so long ago we wrote a song about all that, and you sang it like a prayer. The Days Between. Last song we ever wrote.
Hunter discussed the genesis of the song in an interview;
I wrote a verse while Jerry was working out something on piano. I gave it to him, he said he liked the rhyme scheme and idea, and began working out the melody. As he was doing that I wrote the rest of the verses. An hour's work.
In an interview in 1993 Garcia referred to Days Between whilst talking about working with Hunter;
... I feel like I can discuss anything with Hunter, any idea, without any difficulty at all. And we are both very comfortable with each other on the level of changing stuff. Sometimes I insist that he do something over and over ..... One of the songs we wrote recently was The Days Between. I had an idea there - it had to do with the length of the phrases and how I wanted the phrases to work. I had a hard time communicating it. But with Hunter it's a matter of finding the key. I'll sort of scat sing the way I want it to work.
Later in the interview he discusses the repetition of words in the song;
The phantom thing was funny, because the first line went, When ships with phantom sails set to sea on phantom tides. I said that I wanted it to be 'When something ships with phantom sails set to sea on phantom tides. I want another two syllables.' So Hunter came up with a bunch of things, but then he said, 'What about phantom, use phantom again.' Yeah, right, When phantom ships with phantom sails set to sea on phantom tides. It worked perfectly. It has this ghostly, hollow quality - it's skeletal. So singing that song is like, ooh, it works for me. I get chills. It's that happy marriage of setting and sense. Hunter - he's so good at that. We're really hitting some nice spaces lately.
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