I think The Grateful Dead kind of represents the spirit of being able to go out and have an adventure in America at large.

Samba rhythm is a great one to sing on, but it's also got some other suggestions in it, an undercurrent of being primitive - because it is a primitive African, South American, Afro-whatever-you-call-that rhythm. So to white people, it has a very sinister thing about it.

Music's for grooving man, and music's not for puttin' yourself through bad changes, y'know? I mean, you don't have to go take anybody's shit, man, just to like music, y'know what I mean? You don't. So... so if you're getting' more shit than you deserve, you know what to do about it man. Y'know, it's just music. Music's... music's s'posed to be different than that.

I don't think people care about the mechanics of songwriting.

People, whether they know it or not, like their blues singers miserable. They like their blues singers to die afterwards.

It's kind of limiting using your intellect to write songs like Brown Sugar, isn't it? The only thing I'm really interested in is comparative religion and ancient history.