Perchance to Dream

The midpoint of the band’s career, which was shaped in part by recent changes in the performing lineup, saw the Grateful Dead leaning once again on literary sources as a means of expressing doubt about and weighing alternatives to business as usual. In this instance, the sources to which it turned for some of its lyrics included the works of William Shakespeare. Its song “Althea,” composed in 1979 and released on a 1980 studio album, was particularly shaped by Shakespearean texts, including Hamlet and, less apparently but, as I argue, just as profoundly, 2 Henry IV. These lyrics bring strongly to the fore a tendency by the band to refer to Shakespeare, and some earlier pieces, such as “Mountains of the Moon,” which is read in this chapter in relation to King Lear, provide context for the band’s Shakespearean turn in 1979.