Level: 2/3
Tuning: Standard

In 1968, "underground cartoonist" Robert Crumb illustrated some of the lines from an old blues song by Blind Boy Fuller and other bluesmen, "Truckin' My Blues Away." His cartoon of the &"truckin'"; character became associated with the Dead, and in 1970 they included this autobiographical song about their misadventures on the road in the "American Beauty" album. It included the now-iconic line "What a long strange trip it's been." With a lyric by Robert Hunter and Garcia, Weir and Lesh adding the music, "Truckin'" includes personal details about band drama, as well as general comments on the times. In this key-of-E arrangement, the verse has a monotone bass which switches (in the chorus) to a boogie bass line. The bridge has chord arpeggios, and in the solo the thumb reverts to steady, monotone bass, while the fingers pick up-the-neck, bluesy melody in a style not unlike Lightning Hopkins.