Recommendations of the Editorial team
Bob Weir was the everyman at the heart of the Grateful Deadthe one who kept the band’s feet on the ground even during their furthest explorations. In the first 30 years of the band’s history he was an indispensable counterpart to Jerry Garcia. He was firmly anchored in the overall instrumental sound, rolling along with every extended jam, and when he took on lead vocals, his songs became standards.
After Garcia’s death in 1995, Weir took a key role in keeping the band’s flame alive, playing their material to new audiences through the summer of 2025 on his own projects as well as with Dead & Company.
Here are 11 songs we’ll remember him for.
“The Other One”
This song initially appeared as the third part of a four-part suite on the Dead’s second album, 1968’s Anthem of the Sun. But while the rest of this sprawling psychedelic vision soon faded from view, Weir’s contribution – a rare co-authorship with drummer Bill Kreutzmann – remained a beloved element of their setlists for many years.
The line “the heat came round and busted me for smiling on a cloudy day” was based on a true story. “I got arrested for throwing a water balloon at a police officer,” Weir recalled in the Dead’s 2015 oral history by Blair Jackson and David Gans, “This Is All a Dream We Dreamed.” “He was conducting an illegal search of a car that belonged to a friend of mine, right below 710 Ashbury… I thought it was an illegal search, and that made me angry. Plus, there was a water balloon fight going on in the house at the time.” —Simon Vozick-Levinson
“Truckin'”
The Grateful Dead co-wrote the leisurely rolling “Truckin’,” but Bob Weir claimed lead vocals for himself, which meant he got to sing one of the most defining lyrics of the 20th century: “What a long, strange trip it’s been.” His rhythm guitar anchors the song’s deliciously shaggy groove, which moves forward like a character from a Robert Crumb comic come to life.
That’s fitting, because the chorus is actually borrowed from a Crumb cartoon, which itself was inspired by a lyric from blues musician Blind Boy Fuller. —Brian Hiatt
“Sugar Magnolia”
The Dead played “Sugar Magnolia” more than 600 times – and for good reason. Co-written with longtime Dead lyricist Robert Hunter, it’s a sunny tribute Weir penned for his girlfriend Frankie, with whom he lived in the early ’70s. (“Takes the wheel when I’m seeing double / Pays my ticket when I speed” – this woman really deserves saint status.)
The highlight of “American Beauty” became a joyful anthem for Deadheads, usually the most euphoric moment of each show, sometimes complemented by a psychedelic “Sunshine Daydream” coda – the longer and jam-heavy, the better. The song also makes a memorable appearance in Runaway Bride, when Julia Roberts almost marries a Deadhead – but then doesn’t. A mistake on your part. —Angie Martoccio
“Playing in the Band”
Robert Hunter’s text creates an image of a primal hippie-like mystic who leaves the bourgeois world behind: “Standing on a tower, world at my command / You just keep on turning while I’m playing in the band.” Weir’s honest singing kept these words from seeming smug – the way he sings them, he’s on a sincere, open journey.
The music he composed for “Playing in the Band” proved remarkably flexible: the instrumental middle section became home to some of the Dead’s most far-reaching stage jams for decades after the song was first released in 1971. —SVL
“Me and My Uncle”
Legend has it that John Phillips wrote this rollicking cowboy story around 1963 in a drunken haze, so drunk that he later didn’t even remember writing it. The song has been covered by many, including Judy Collins and Joni Mitchell, but the definitive version belongs to Weir, who made it the most played song of the Dead’s 30-year career.
He really made you believe you were standing in that saloon yourself, drenched in sweat over the fateful game of cards. And he sold the brutal twist in the final lines like no other. —SVL