Talk:Truckin'

First time

I have removed the following:

• At a time when the Grateful Dead were already an underground legend, "Truckin'" was the first time many in the general rock audience actually heard the band's music.

Because of the following from Garcia: An American Life by Blair Jackson on page 188:

• "Uncle John's Band" and "Casey Jones" were the tracks that made the initial splash -- they were many the mainstreams first introduction to the music of the Gateful Dead"

And also on 190, it discusses how big the song was to the mainstream because of first using the word "Goddamn" in the unedited single (which many radio stations played instead of the edited version) and of the reference to cocaine (making the band a "thorn in the side of Nixon that became a badge of honor to the masses"). -- moe.RON ^{talk | done | doing} 16:49, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm. Maybe "Uncle John's Band" was indeed first in the role I'm describing. I'll save my words for the article on it then. Wasted Time R 16:58, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

References

Sweet Jane

"Sweet Jane" is not a band member, as written on the main page, but rather (as explained on David Dodd's Annotated "Truckin'" page) "[...]marijuana. Pot was all the rage for a while, but then it lost its allure, and a lot of people (especially in the early '70s) moved to pills and coke and other harder, more dangerous stuff. Somehow simple, innocent pot lost its sparkle for many. Thus you could read the whole stanza as, "Whatever became of marijuana? It used to be so much fun. Living on the hard stuff, it's such a shame to see your friends go that way." [1] Phishhead (talk) 01:44, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Cover versions

There should be something on cover versions, the 1980's punk parody version, etc... AnonMoos 17:21, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Refer to the subject "Keep on Truckin' (comic)" elsewhere in Wikipedia. The "DooDah Man" was a character drawn by the underground comic artist R Crumb. A picture of the DooDah man is shown to the right side, but not identified as such. R Crumb's DooDah man was a popular counter-cultural icon in the late 60s and early 70s. One meaning of "Truckin" was to walk in the manner shown, with the leading foot and leg extended unusually far forward. (usually just for amusement of oneself or others, rather than for any serious purpose) It could also be done as a sort of dance. This is from my personal knowlege; I did a brief search on Google, and was unable to come up with any stronger documentation. I'll let the original author do the formal reasearch and add it to the page, if anything more definite can be found. However, the DooDah man was a popular counter-culture image in the 60s, and almost anyone who "was there" and still has any brain cells left would remember him. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.165.119.85 (talk) 20:36, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Doo-dah man lyric

In spite of assertions that Robert Hunter (decades after the fact) allegedly claimed the "Truckin', like the doo-dah man", lyric referred to the "doo-dah" man of Camptown Races, this is clearly a brain spasm on Hunter's part as there is no "doo-dah" man in that song, only a chorus repeating the term. On the other hand, R. Crumb's iconic 1968 "Keep on Truckin'" cartoon (of a man, line of men, actually, in full stride towards the viewer) immediately popularlized the term "Truckin'" and embedded it in the counter-culture.

"Truckin's" composition following the cartoon's widespread circulation and permutation by other artists (exploiting the characters' non-copyrighted image), is clearly consistent with the emerging cultural phenomenon both the term "Keep on Truckin'" and the peripatetic central figure of it so rapidly became. Their obvious concatenation into a song lyric is clear evidence of the influence of the cartoon and its catchphrase, subliminal or not, no matter Hunter's alleged claims decades of drug use and memory loss after the fact. Wikiuser100 (talk) 11:06, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

everybody's truckin' (modern mountaineers 1937)

i'm surprised there is no mention of a 1937 western swing song song by the band modern mountaineers titled "everybody's truckin'" - you can here it yourself at:

http://www.archive.org/download/ModernMountaineers-11-20/ModernMountaineers-EverybodysTruckin1937.mp3

truckin' was a dance craze in the 1920's and 30's that apparently originated in Harlem - it was featured at the Cotton Club through this period. an echo of this craze occurred in the 1960's thanks to artist R. Crumb and his "Keep on Truckin'" strip - a phrase that became a signal of optimism in hippie culture. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pmchaffie (talk • contribs) 02:37, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

"national treasure"?

According to the article, the Library of Congress recognized "Truckin'" as a "national treasure" in 1997. I've verified the provided 2003 source as containing this information, and there are many other sources online repeating it--including Robert Hunter's obituary--but I can find no official Library of Congress documentation on the honor, nor any news announcements of such from 1997. In fact, I can find no such LoC designation as "national treasure". There is indeed a National Recording Registry, but it wasn't instituted until 2000 and "Truckin'" has not (yet) been included. I haven't removed the dubious claim for now, but unless others can provide more official evidence, I wonder if this isn't misinformation being spread.--Badmoon36 (talk) 20:58, 11 December 2020 (UTC)