Editing Grateful Dead (section)

=== Lyrical themes ===
Following the songwriting renaissance that defined the band's early 1970s period, as reflected in the albums ''[[Workingman's Dead]]'' and ''[[American Beauty (album)|American Beauty]],'' [[Robert Hunter (lyricist)|Robert Hunter]], Jerry Garcia's primary lyrical partner, frequently made use of [[motif (narrative)|motifs]] common to [[American folklore]] including trains, guns, elements, [[folk instrument|traditional musical instruments]], gambling, murder, animals, alcohol, descriptions of [[Geography of the United States|American geography]], and [[religious symbolism]] to illustrate themes involving love and loss, life and death, beauty and horror, and chaos and order.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Motif and theme index to The Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics|url=http://artsites.ucsc.edu/gdead/agdl/motif.html|access-date=February 24, 2022|website=artsites.ucsc.edu}}</ref> Following in the footsteps of several [[Music of the United States|American musical traditions]], these songs are often confessional and feature narration from the perspective of an [[antihero]]. Critic [[Robert Christgau]] described them as "American myths" that later gave way to "the old karma-go-round".<ref name="CG-myth">{{Citation|last=Christgau|first=Robert|title=Wake of the Flood (review)|url=https://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=Grateful+Dead|publisher=robertchristgau.com|access-date=October 30, 2016}}</ref> 

An extremely common feature in both Robert Hunter's lyrics, as well as the band's visual iconography, is the presence of [[Dualism in cosmology|dualistic]] and opposing imagery illustrating the dynamic range of the [[human condition|human experience]] (Heaven and hell, law and crime, dark and light, etc.). Hunter and Garcia's earlier, more directly [[psychedelia|psychedelic-influenced]] compositions often make use of [[surrealism|surreal]] imagery, [[nonsense verse|nonsense]], and whimsey reflective of traditions in [[English poetry]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Nonsense & Whimsy in Robert Hunter's Lyrics|url=http://artsites.ucsc.edu/gdead/agdl/nonsense.html#english|access-date=February 24, 2022|website=artsites.ucsc.edu}}</ref> In a retrospective, ''[[The New Yorker]]'' described Hunter's verses as "elliptical, by turns vivid and [[Gnomic poetry|gnomic]]", which were often "hippie poetry about roses and bells and dew".<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Paumgarten |first=Nick |date=November 26, 2012 |title=Deadhead: The Afterlife |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140902013058/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/11/26/deadhead |archive-date=September 2, 2014 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/11/26/deadhead |magazine=[[The New Yorker]] |access-date=July 7, 2015 }}</ref> Grateful Dead biographer Dennis McNally has described Hunter's lyrics as creating "a non-literal hyper-Americana" weaving a psychedelic, kaleidoscopic tapestry in the hopes of elucidating America's [[Culture of the United States|national character]]. At least one of Hunter and Bob Weir's collaborations, "[[Jack Straw (song)|Jack Straw]]", was inspired by the work of [[John Steinbeck]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Grateful Dead Greatest Stories Ever Told - "Jack Straw"|url=https://www.dead.net/features/greatest-stories-ever-told/greatest-stories-ever-told-jack-straw|access-date=February 24, 2022|website=Grateful Dead|date=May 30, 2013 |language=en}}</ref>