Estimated Prophet: A Synoptic Survey
"Standing on the beach, the sea will part before me. You will follow me, and we will ride to glory."
Perhaps it is not-being that is the true state, and all our dream of life is inexistent; but, if so, we feel that these phrases of music, these conceptions which exist in relation to our dream, must be nothing either. We shall perish, but we have as hostages these divine captives who will follow and share our fate. And death in their company is somehow less bitter, less inglorious, perhaps even less probable. Marcel Proust
Estimated Prophet is the Grateful Dead's finest song. Fears of the afterlife are not unreasonably predicated on the suspicion that it won't compare. It contains everything they do brilliantly in a unique package. The Jam after the bridge has face-melting goodness worthy of The Eleven. Seeing it live was a vision quest, invoking episodes of what Proust called involuntary memory, when the past is suddenly recreated and you return to a previous self: the person who heard it for the first time, the person who first understood. Estimated Prophet is sui generis, not reminiscent of other songs, not molded from existing forms, some act of special creation, an anomaly without predecessors or siblings. Had they retired it in 78 the loss would have been grieved like Dark Star. The enthralling spell cast on crowds evades scientific explanation.
We have no compass, only the First Version, 2-26-77, first show of the year: The 1977 Manifesto. Talk about bold promises fulfilled. It's also the first Terrapin. Estimated should have made more appearances in the first set. You join it already in progress. It's been waiting. There's something special about the inflection during the chorus, a peculiar ring or emphasis or innocence it does not give its descendants, the enunciation of California and angel sculpted by external forces or some Platonic form sought and attained. The wah wah in Jerry's guitar is the missing link between the physical realm and the void.
Earliest Fossil Form on 2-22-74. Estimated could have been a country tune, kin to Sugar Magnolia. Missing links abound. Just as there's a Library of Babel with all possible books, there's an iPod with all possible songs. Would that we could hear the bouncing country prophet raise hell, like some preacher at a revival.
5-8-77! Mandatory. Brace yourself. Some folks never move past it. Can't blame them. If you pass Cornell, proceed to 11-24-78. Foundational. You're welcome.
4-19-82 Chaotic seas part at 10:48 and a thematic jam appears like some vindicated prophecy. It's the full equal of the Mind Left Body Jam or any jam you'd care to mention. It's the ONLY time they played this. SATORI. And this version is ferocious long before the Light appears near the end: the harmony and its wild synergy, Jerry's emphasis on California and angel diverging from Weir like prism rays. They're both testifying. The Jam persists with noble defiance and what happens at 10:48 is shattering. Watkins Glen tier. Why did they not play this every time? 4-19-82 is spellbinding. Not essential, urgent.
Compare 1978 to 1988. The song does not remain the same. I'm tempted to say it improved. I will say it. Quote me. Weir did not attain True Bobness until the 80s. An easygoing confidence begot awareness that he was chosen. The sound-effects and howling descended from Acid Test madness. Some folks have dark nights of the soul here. Just remember you're surrounded by people who care in a meaningful universe created by an act of love. Listen to Jerry light the way in both versions. Very different jams. The 88 one from 3:40 --> 5:20 will give you a sweet tooth. How to describe it? How do you write about music with metaphors and similes? Music isn't like anything. Synesthesia here we come.
As a crude approximation: there's sweet jam under the bridge, Jerry's solo after "men gonna light my way." Partake. Your face feels like a flag swept by lunar gusts. It has a bright sound, like some bioluminous entity emerging from a cocoon and soaring away, propelled by blasts from Weir and Lesh, vibrating with wah wah majesty, ascending and changing its form again. The solid state was merely a chrysalis. To describe its Presence we need a different explanatory paradigm: What intentions does it harbor? Contact is precarious and transitory. The gravity of the opening rivals black holes and returns everything to where it began. Bobby testifies but his tone has changed, wrathful like a prophet scorned, forlorn like the traveler from an antique land who saw a ruined statue and deduced the shelf life of glory.
Note the cyclic nature of the song. Or is it? Which type of Time is coming? There will be different meanings and interpretations if the messenger presupposes the A Theory or B Theory. Look closer. Patterns emerge and vanish, icebergs of data drifting in an ocean of static. Some people break codes. Some codes break people. The line is slight and you won’t know you’ve crossed it. Others might.
I have no intention of listing best versions. I remain unimpressed by their objectivity. I remain unimpressed by Objectivity. What conditions could we ask this song to meet? We can only try to describe what we've seen. Heraclitus said no man ever listens to the same Estimated Prophet twice, for it is not the same song and he is not the same man. This bespeaks nothing of subjectivity, only the insufficiency of our concepts and measurements. Just as consensus does not entail truth, a lack of it does not mean there is no truth. Writing about the Grateful Dead's "finest song" is an unlikely pursuit for a relativist.
5-10-78 astounds. Acquire Dicks Picks 25 for this alone. Angelic moments from Donna and the absolute perfection of everything else. Note the soaring disarray instantaneously contained like an eruption reversing itself as Weir returns to testify. Note the song that so often follows, as if in theological clarification.
VIP VSV (very slow version) on 5-19-77, filled with chunky reggae goodness. Seriously consider the acquisition of Dick's Picks 29. This is how Celibidache would have conducted the Dead. (Allusions like that keep my book sales safely under 1,000,000.)
Listen to the crowd on audience recordings. The only barrier separating Then from Now is a distance finite and definite, measurable by the hands of a clock, each minute connected to the next like a series of steps leading inexorably between two towns. Yet that time could just as well be Atlantis. And you're visiting. They were living their lives like you are now, that time just as real to them. What became of it? How can something so vivid and tangible become the dream of a shadow? Maybe this moment will be different. They tell you to seize the day but they never say how. Does Home Depot have special gloves?
The Rocks so Red on 7-8-78, and not only the rocks. It coagulates from simple elements and crystallizes into a temple. Everything that consists of parts is less fundamental than the parts of which it consists. Plotinus said. This EP might be a non-contingent composite.
Estimated was less a work in progress than a species evolving, shifting its shape via random mutations or cryptic teleology. It's vaguely Dark Star-ish in this respect, only more structured, a fragile haiku splitting its seems.
You would not believe me. You will now: 11-13-87. Weir's vocals will bring out the True Believer in you. This is a level of testification unheard of in the 70s. The song became a Tasmanian Devil. We already knew it was a chameleon.
Is there an alchemist in the house? How does 12-31-91 coalesce such discrepancies, lumbering through verses alien and dysphoric, then igniting a celebratory chorus? (Check the date again. Yes Virginia, there was great Dead music in the 90s.) Estimated is all about the Bridge where the prophet declaims, "Shining on the beach, the sea will part before me. Then you will follow me, and we will rise to glory." This one is special. He's telling you the truth. There is no derangement in his voice. He's convinced but not zealous, as many are inclined to interpret these lyrics, which you should not.
2-26-79 was two years to the day since the first appearance and a full solar eclipse. Coincidence? Please. Symphonic pulses of energy appear from the dusky brim of existence. Dick's Picks 5 warms their chilling glow, perhaps too much. Soundboards can have an antiseptic studio vibe. The Dead were in fine company by preferring the magic of Now to the studio. Sergiu Celibidache felt their pain.
Not that there's anything wrong with the studio. This version has its charms. (Don't look at me like that. Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.) Why this never became a commercial hit is best explained by Divine intervention. What if they'd had a Touch of Grey experience in 77? Estimated had the potential. It's "catchy." I heard it on the radio once. Seriously, once.
Dear Deer Creek, I'd trade all my tomorrows to see a single run again. (This offer does not include 95 and is not valid in New Jersey and Alaska.) The Prophet from 6-6-91 approaches like some shambling traveler on the road, a refugee from sights beyond your horizons. He walks with you and tells you things as if each is a performative utterance like let there be light. Then he wanders off, his empathy disarming. He's concerned about your state of mind, about you worrying about him, as if afraid what impact his company will have. You'll soon find out. 92's Estimated shook the hills with cosmic grandeur. It comes together from discrete elements in the way Democritus believed the universe was assembled from atoms swirling aimlessly in the void. Hear Smokestack Lightning. Say a prayer for a soul in torment.
“Whereof one cannot speak, he should remain silent.” Too bad. We need to discuss 8-12-79. The casual delivery sounds more like a buddy sharing enthusiasms than a messenger of day-glow doom. Until the Jam jams and the enthusiasms appear in a different light, cold and austere.