Grateful Dead – Ripple

“One of the most-loved Grateful Dead songs, Ripple was one of the many standouts on American Beauty. It was played 11 times 1970-1971, and then dropped until it returned in 1980, played as the set-closing song every night during the Dead’s acoustic sets. It made one final appearance on 9/3/88 in Landover, MD, before being retired for good.” – David Lemieux.

Released in 1970, “Ripple” is one of the Grateful Dead’s more popular tracks. Originally featured on their album American Beauty, “Ripple” is one of the Grateful Dead’s songs that rival their biggest hits “Uncle John’s Band”, “Touch of Grey”, and “Truckin’”. However, surprisingly, it never did reach the charts.

Given the song’s popularity amidst the general public, the band only played the song a total of 40 times. And again, that is quite the statistic given that the Grateful Dead played over 2,300 shows and most of the shows lasted for over three hours. That being so, their acoustic performance of the song at Radio City Music Hall made the history books and is still getting praised to this day.

Directed by Len Dell’Amico and co-produced by Len Dell’Amico and GDP.

“Ripple” – Single by Grateful Dead from the album American Beauty.
A-side: “Truckin'”
Released: November 1, 1970
Recorded: September 1970
Songwriters: Jerry Garcia, Robert Hunter
Producers: Grateful Dead, Steve Barncard.

“Ripple” is the sixth song on the Grateful Dead album American Beauty. It was released as the B-side to the single “Truckin'”.

This song, which was recorded in a country-folk style, was written by Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter. Hunter was not a performing member of the band, but wrote the lyrics to many of their songs. Hunter’s words were often very poetic, lending themselves to interpretation. In this song, he writes about the joy of music in the air and how we must all choose our own path.

The song’s first performance came during a show at San Francisco’s Fillmore West on August 18, 1970. It was the same night that “Brokedown Palace,” Operator,” and “Truckin'” were first played in public. “Ripple” was played during the first set, which was acoustic. It appeared between “Dark Hollow” and “Brokedown Palace.”

The song appears at the end of the final episode of the TV series Freaks and Geeks, in which the character Lindsay Weir secretly skips out on a trip to an academic summit to join a couple hippies from her school and, presumably (taking into account earlier conversations), strikes off to follow the Dead on tour for the summer.

In 2024, Rolling Stone ranked the song at number 334 in their updated list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.