Casey Jones
Sunday, October 11, 2009 at 4:03 PM Analyzing the Grateful dead version of Casey Jones to the 1912 version of Casey Jones there is a stark contrast between the two. In the 1912 version the casey johns is expressed in the lyrics a hero. By the constant repititiion of his name with more than one voice . The melody is extremely upbeat and reminds me of a song that may have been sung at a fair. In the lyrics where there talking about his kids getting a new papa the melody does not change creating a morbid difference between the lyrics and the melody.Maybe to express the fact that life was short in that era and the need for a new papa was custamary if your husband died and you had kids.So it was not a question of grieving but a matter of practacality.
Whereas in the grateful dead version John casey is characterized as a druggy and therefore a antithesis of the john casey in the 1912 version. This represents a change in diaspora where once the song meant the worshipping of a good engineer now it is remodled to express the primary ideas and concepts of the seventies. For example the song starts with a very mellow melody and the lyrics are expressed as though he has only a passing interest in what is going on do the his drug induced haze. Which was a very popular subject in the songs that became a commodity in that era.
Reader Comments (4)
The lyrical differences between the several versions of “Casey Jones” are due to artistic intent by the performers and a product of the environment that they were written in. Lucas Oliver (link:http://tinyurl.com/yk8h4qs) discusses how the Grateful Dead’s version of the song “takes the music of a classic American psychedelic rock band and uses the traditional lyrics as a metaphor to some of their own inside drug problems.” The lyrical retooling of the song to fit the Grateful Dead’s purpose is both understandable and to our own benefit (if lyrical and musical styles had not changed, you’d know Def Leppard as Def Mozart) because it gives us a deeper pool of analysis into the changes and developments of popular music. Lucas Oliver also points out how “the idea of ‘authenticity’ is practiced through a completely different style, and different meaning.” The notion of authenticity is really ambiguous when evaluating Mississippi John Hurt and The Grateful Dead; they’re both undoubtedly “authentic” yet they are separated by 42 years and different in almost every way. The different identities of each Casey Jones, one of an admirable railcar man and another of a cocaine abusing person pushing the limit, define authenticity to a different audience and with a different intent.
The lyrical address and relation of the singer to Casey Jones also changes between Mississippi John Hurt and the Grateful Dead. In Mississippi John Hurt’s version we hear of Casey Jones as a folk hero who died admirably and lives in the psyche of American heroes (this may sound overly dramatic, but this is to characterize that type of folk hero). The Grateful Dead completely alter that relationship and talk about Casey Jones in a more descriptive and foreboding manner. Taylor Fridrich (link: http://tinyurl.com/tayfri)
analyzes the way Jerry Garcia’s delivery as intending to be “talking directly to Casey Jones, Warning him, and trying to grab his attention with intensified volume and instrumentals.” This a really good point, and draw upon the difference in relationship that the performer has to the subject their focusing on.
For your essays, look to draw comparisons of lyrical content in relation to the song as a whole, and maybe the historical context it is in or the particular performer. Look at how the song promotes a message, or and ideal, and think about how that may have changed or stayed the same over the course of history. As you can all imagine, “popular” in popular culture is built upon what preceded it adapted to a particular context, and these songs are no different.
I think your distinction between what was popular in the different times is very important to understanding the stylistic choices of the musicians. Similar story but in a different medium. I dig that.
These two songs are similar yet very different. I think your commentary about the context of each song is interesting. These two songs actually reminded me of Lead Belly and Kurt Cobain's versions of "Where Did You Sleep Last Night." The songs both kept the melody and a lot of the same lyrics but because the time had changed and the backgrounds of the performers, the contextual meanings of lyrics differed.
I think your ideas for both songs are interesting. I did not previously think about subject of the "practicality" of finding a new father during that time. Do you think the mood and ideas of the 1912 version of Casey Jones would have changed at all had the music been slower and paced more like the speed of a ballad?