Song of the Day 11/18: The Grateful Dead, “Touch of Grey”

The media hasn’t had time to remind you lately, what with a couple of wars and a couple of Trump trials and Republicans In Disarray Chapter XII, but Joe Biden is older today than he was last week, which is the last time they checked in on that emerging story.

Robert Hunter was not yet 40 when he wrote what became the Grateful Dead’s only Top 40 hit (their previous highest-charting single: “Truckin’,” No. 64 in 1970), but it’s not really about aging, even if the band’s first-ever video featured a bunch of skeletal musicians. Hunter, the band’s lyrics-only member, wrote it for an intended solo album of his own in 1980. He never made the album, so Jerry Garcia set the downbeat lyrics to a sprightly tune that became a concert staple from 1982 onward. But it wasn’t recorded until 1987’s “In the Dark” LP, the band’s first in seven years.

Released as a single and buoyed by the video’s frequent appearance on MTV, “Touch of Grey” rose to No. 9 on the Hot 100 and No. 1 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. The video introduced the Dead to a new, younger audience that viewed the Dead’s concerts and longtime followers as a freak show, so I understand old Dead heads don’t much care for the tune.