Robert Hunter's Words Helped Bring Life To The Grateful Dead

Let's get the obvious out of the way: If Grateful Dead wordsmith Robert Hunter had never written another lyric after "Truckin'," the rock radio staple off 1970's American Beauty immortalized by the refrain, "what a long strange trip it's been," chances are good that the headline writers of America would still have voted him into their hall of fame. A powerful, all-purpose line that hit the sweet spot of subversive clichés, it made speakers appear smarter than they are.

Yet Hunter, who passed away on Monday evening at the age of 78, did indeed keep writing, most often and fruitfully with his Dead songwriting partner Jerry Garcia, though also with other band members (and, in the years since Garcia's 1995 death, with the likes of Bob Dylan and Jim Lauderdale). The uncertain depth that famous line provided generations of pop-culture trainspotters — a line from a potentially typical, rock-band-on-the-road song, birthed during one of Hunter's rare