Beat Culture and the Grateful Dead

How did beat writers like Jack Kerouac influence the Grateful Dead’s music?

Know (knowledge):

• Beat figures Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Diane Di Prima, Neal Cassady, Joyce Johnson, and Herbert Huncke
• The band the Grateful Dead, and the influence Beat Culture had upon them
• How Jack Kerouac and the Grateful Dead rejected social norms

Mastery Objective:

• Students will be able to define the ideals of the Beat countercultural movement by examining the philosophical and aesthetic connections between Beat writers and the Grateful Dead.

In post-WWII America, a radical new movement took over the literary world. Anchored by writers like Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs, the Beat Generation, as they came to be known, viewed conventional American culture with disillusionment. They embraced things like free sexuality and drug use, explorations of Eastern religion, and a shirking of materialism in favor of a liberated lifestyle. One of the era’s most definitive works, Jack Kerouac’s 1957 novel On the Road, explores these themes through a semi-autobiographical road trip across America.

By the 1960s, the ideals espoused by the Beats were perhaps no better exemplified in musical culture than by the Grateful Dead. For their 30 year career, the Grateful Dead embraced the liberating, always-on-the-move lifestyle promoted by works such as Kerouac’s On the Road. The band eschewed industry conventions by becoming a perpetual “road band,” gaining a reputation not through chart hits, lavish studio recordings, or flashy media appearances, but via ceaseless touring and adventurous, inclusive,and always-changing live performances.

In this lesson, students will examine how the Grateful Dead exemplified the countercultural ideals promoted by Beat Generation writers by watching clips from Long Strange Trip, reading passages from Beat Generation writers, and brainstorming the ways the Grateful Dead’s approach to music was inspired by the Beat Movement.

Note to teacher: The handout in this lesson contains descriptions of drug use. Our hope is that the language used, which quite often details the repulsive nature of addiction rather than glamorizing it, will paint a realistic, and not desirable picture of drug use. However, we suggest reviewing the handout and making a plan for using it with your classroom before working with the lesson.