Perspective on Truckin'

Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, and Robert Hunter explain their song "Truckin'," the concluding track of American Beauty. They recorded and produced it without commercial success in mind. "The music we were making had some value to us and to the world that we lived in," says Jerry Garcia. The Grateful Dead, like the hippies, cared more about meaning and their own personal communities than they did about the world outside. Artistic value was of paramount importance.