R.I.P.: Robert Hunter, Grateful Dead's Wordsmith

Robert Hunter - 2015

Robert Hunter, the primary lyricist on many of the Grateful Dead’s most memorable songs, including “Uncle John’s Band,” “Scarlet Begonias,” “Dark Star” and “Truckin’,” died on Monday night at his home in San Rafael, Calif.

He was 78, according to The NYTimes.   Hunter had recently had surgery.

His lyrics, often dreamlike variations on the American folk tradition, meshed seamlessly with the band’s casual musical style, helping to define the Grateful Dead as a counterculture touchstone. Interpreting his slippery lyrics became a favorite pastime of the band's most fervent fans, the Deadheads, something he relished.

Mr. Hunter wrote an oft-quoted lyric in “Truckin’” that could describe his own life pretty well: “What a long, strange trip it’s been.”

He owed at least some of his songwriting sensibilities to the C.I.A.-sponsored experiments with LSD and other hallucinogens known as MK-Ultra. He was among the volunteer research subjects in the program at Stanford University in 1962, he said, and whatever they were giving him helped his writing process considerably.


Hunter wrote for and with other performers as well, including Bob Dylan. He and Mr. Dylan wrote all but one of the songs on Mr. Dylan’s album “Together Through Life,” released in 2009.