High Time - Grateful Dead Song Review

Is this song is a love song? Kind of?

It is rather dark, but High Time is a classic.  It is the 2nd song on Workingman's Dead - which is kind of a dark album (but a classic).  High Time features beautiful harmonies and nice pedal steel playing by Jerry. It has a lonesome sound

High Time was played infrequently throughout most of the band's career (with a 6 year break from 1970 to 1976).

I associate this song with the 1st set because that's when it was played almost exclusively for the last several years. When this song starts, it's slow and kind of hard to recognize so it's always great to hear the crowd react to the first line You told me goodbye...

Hunter and Garcia brought words that seemed to be spoken from one wayward soul to another.  High Time seems intent on communicating the sad state of affairs that the narrator is in.  I do not know what a 'typical' song would be from Hunter and Garcia but High Time is not it.

I didn't ever connect as deeply with High Time as some Deadheads do, but I like it and when it comes up on a show I'm listening, I always listen to it the whole thing, possibly because of rareness factor.

At the bottom of this blog entry is a audio of Garcia playing High Time in the studio (the video that accompanies is a collage of other things).


High Time Song Rating on a Scale of 1-10: 8.9

Disclaimer: This is part of my blog that reviews all things Grateful Dead for fun. Music is a beautiful thing because it is so personal and subjective, so keep in mind that this is one man's opinion.

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