Alright. Honestly, I cannot believe that nobody has yet mentioned what this song is actually supposed to be about. In a way, it is about drugs, and it's also about traveling, but it's not the Dead alone who are doing the traveling, it's also Owsley "Bear" Stanley, the Dead's early sound guy who was arrested for manufacturing and attempting to transport LSD. They were all arrested for real in New Orleans, (which is where Bourbon St. is), but the charges were dropped for everyone but Owsley who already had past manufacturing charges against him. It's a great song, and plenty of the Dead's songs have little to do with drugs, but this is not one of them. It's also foolish to say that LSD did not have a massive influence on their music--it did. On the cover of Aoxomoxoa "The Greatful Dead" can also be read "WE ATE THE ACID."
Also, the line with "reds, vitamin C, and cocaine" is very clearly about drugs. "Reds" (as anyone who were actually alive in the era, or an active drug user at any time, would know) are any drugs that are depressants and have sedative effects. This includes various barbiturates and opiates. The term originates from opium poppies, which are red. "Vitamin C and cocaine" is referring not to ketamine (known as vitamin K) which may not have even existed, and certainly was not yet popular, at the time this song was written (it certainly was not called vitamin K yet, as it was first called that in a book written in the early-mid eighties, where it was used as an altered states therapy drug, but not identified in order to prevent what the writer of the book considered to be "abuse"), but rather, it is referring to cut cocaine, more specifically cocaine that has been cut with vitamin C, a very common white-powder drug adulterant.
Anyway, you guys should try to get your facts straight before you get all holier than now, and act like you know exactly what the song was about.
Alright. Honestly, I cannot believe that nobody has yet mentioned what this song is actually supposed to be about. In a way, it is about drugs, and it's also about traveling, but it's not the Dead alone who are doing the traveling, it's also Owsley "Bear" Stanley, the Dead's early sound guy who was arrested for manufacturing and attempting to transport LSD. They were all arrested for real in New Orleans, (which is where Bourbon St. is), but the charges were dropped for everyone but Owsley who already had past manufacturing charges against him. It's a great song, and plenty of the Dead's songs have little to do with drugs, but this is not one of them. It's also foolish to say that LSD did not have a massive influence on their music--it did. On the cover of Aoxomoxoa "The Greatful Dead" can also be read "WE ATE THE ACID."
Also, the line with "reds, vitamin C, and cocaine" is very clearly about drugs. "Reds" (as anyone who were actually alive in the era, or an active drug user at any time, would know) are any drugs that are depressants and have sedative effects. This includes various barbiturates and opiates. The term originates from opium poppies, which are red. "Vitamin C and cocaine" is referring not to ketamine (known as vitamin K) which may not have even existed, and certainly was not yet popular, at the time this song was written (it certainly was not called vitamin K yet, as it was first called that in a book written in the early-mid eighties, where it was used as an altered states therapy drug, but not identified in order to prevent what the writer of the book considered to be "abuse"), but rather, it is referring to cut cocaine, more specifically cocaine that has been cut with vitamin C, a very common white-powder drug adulterant.
Anyway, you guys should try to get your facts straight before you get all holier than now, and act like you know exactly what the song was about.