The Days Between

The days between is a fitting name for the holy week between Jerry’s birthday on August 1st and the anniversary of his passing on the 9th, referencing, as it does, one of the last collaborations between Robert Hunter and Garcia. Debuted on February 22, 1993 at Oakland Coliseum Arena, and last played on June 24, 1995 at RFK, the Grateful Dead played Days Between 41 times. 

At times, the repeated “There were days, and there were days, and there were days between…” could get tedious or worse as Jerry and the band muddled their way through the tune. But in the better moments, Days Between was a soaring and beautiful reflection. Just listen to the band work through the tune at Club Front in early 1993 or to a great live version like that from December 11, 1994 in Oakland.

In Searching for the Sound, Phil calls Days Between “achingly nostalgic” and notes it

evokes the past. The music climbs laboriously out of shadows, growing and peaking with each verse, only to fall back each time in hopeless resignation. When Jerry sings the line ‘when all we ever wanted / was to learn and love and grow’ or ‘gave the best we had to give / how much we’ll never know,’ I am immediately transported decades back in time, to a beautiful spring morning with Jerry, Hunter, Barbara Meier, and Alan Trist – all of us goofing on the sheer exhilaration of being alive. I don’t know whether to weep with joy at the beauty of the vision or with sadness at the impassable chasm of time between the golden past and the often painful present.

After Jerry’s passing, Days Between became a sort of watchword for the early August interregnum, perhaps born out of some of the more obvious resonances of the tune, “The singing man is at his song” while the rest of us Deadheads are “the holy on their knees.” But the tune also offers that transcendence that Phil speaks of, provoking us to range back in our memories. As the song takes us through the seasons of life, it occasions a mediation on the shadowy ways the world erodes the human heart. But as this corrosion happens as a natural order of things, the lyrics offer some solace. Memory, existence, meaning, all of these are just below the surface, resulting in reflection and communion.

In one of our early podcast episodes, our friend Tom Ribe talked about listening to Days Between on June 18, 1994 at Autzen Stadium and just being overwhelmed by the emotions the song evoked. During this days between, we hope you find yourself having just such a moment, the music grabbing hold of your very soul, transporting and transforming you as we make our way through this imperfect world. After all, at its heart, that is what Jerry did for us and why we are all here as Deadheads.