Talk:Blues for Allah

Name?

Anybody know where the album names comes from? --1000Faces 02:45, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There is a business in Schenectady, New York, which provides writers with ideas. ive misplaced the address, but Barry Longyear and Harlan Ellison can get it for you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.234.123.226 (talk) 04:29, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

re: Album Name - There was a lot going on in the middle east during that time. (What else is new, right?) One of the suggested names was "Glass Camels" implying that the events could turn the desert sands to glass. I suspect it was Hunter that wrote the lyric and they took the name of the album from that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cloudy memory (talk • contribs) 21:28, 14 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Fair use rationale for Image:GDbluesforallah.jpg

Image:GDbluesforallah.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot (talk) 14:38, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Fair use rationale has been added to album cover image. — Mudwater 01:41, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

King Faisal

It seems very unlikely that a Saudi king, born in 1906 would be a fan of the band when he was in his 60's and 70's. This seems to be a joke, akin to Arlo Guthrie's joke about Nixon owning a copy of Alice's Restaurant.

The original citation seems to be Robert Hunter (lyricist), who in his book, "Box of Rain" writes about Faisal. I did not find that book online, but "The American Book of the Dead" by Oliver Trager quotes from "Box of Rain" on p. 241 and states that Faisal was a fan of the Grateful Dead: "Hunter's note in A Box of Rain says, 'This lyric is a requiem for King Faisal of Saudi Arabia - a progressive and democratically inclined ruler [and incidentally a fan of the Grateful Dead] whose assassination in 1975 shocked us personally.' "
Another book by Trager, "The American Book of the Dead" quotes a second hand conversation with Garcia from around the time Blues for Allah was written (1975) and indicates that they were not personally acquainted with Faisal. See p. 45.

In light of the fact that I could find no mention of the relationship between Faisal and the Grateful Dead in LexisNexis or the NY Times, I've marked this as Template:Verify_source in the interim. Cxbrx (talk) 02:17, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe the text should read that it is a claim by Hunter? Bangabandhu (talk) 06:28, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A retroactive claim. The article more or less says so now, because the lyrics were obviously written before Faisal's assassination. One can't ignore that the lyrics of the title suite address the violence in Islam: "Out in no man's land, where Allah does command / What good is spilling blood? It will not grow a thing / "Taste eternity", the swords sing..." Wastrel Way (talk)Eric

Good point. I reworded that section. I'm going to pull the text from the King Faisal article. It seems preposterous that King Faisal would be a fan of the Dead. BTW - Faisal was assassinated when he was 68, so I was incorrect above, he would not have been a fan in his 70's. Cxbrx (talk) 04:43, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe there was confusion because his assassin Faisal bin Musaid was in the US around 1970 and arrested for selling LSD and Hashish in Boulder, Colorado. It seems more likely that his assassin was a fan of the Grateful Dead, though there is no direct evidence of that. Cxbrx (talk) 04:56, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand the rationale behind removing any reference to Blues for Allah from the Faisal page. The album was still a tribute to Faisal and noteworthy, even if its questionable whether Faisal was a fan. Also thanks for the interesting references and background. Bangabandhu (talk) 19:39, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The rationale is that one source, Robert Hunter, claims that King Faisal was a fan of the Grateful Dead. I could find no other sources that support this. There is the interesting coincidence that King Faisal's assassin, also named Faisal, was in Boulder, Colorado in 1970 where he was arrested for selling LSD and Hashish. It is purely conjecture on my part, with no supporting evidence, but it is far more likely that Faisal bin Musaid was a fan of the Grateful Dead than King Faisal. The facts that Faisal bin Musaid was arrested for drugs in 1970 and was also in Colorado at the same year as the Grateful Dead (April 22, 1970, Mammoth Gardens, Denver) support this conjecture. Also Faisal bin Musaid probably was referred to as a Prince Faisal, hence the possible confusion between the two. Anyway, my concern is with the notion that King Faisal was a fan of the Grateful Dead, not that Blues for Allah was a eulogy to him. If there was one other original source like a newspaper, book or magazine that stated King Faisal was a fan of the Grateful Dead, I would strongly encourage adding that to the King Faisal article. However, in the absence of a second source, I think at best we could state that Robert Hunter claims he was a fan, and it is even better to state nothing. I'm fine with you putting the text about Blues for Allah back in the King Faisal article. You might want to cite Robert Hunter's book, "Box of Rain" directly instead of the alternet article. Hunter's quote is much more of an original source and more likely to survive the test of time. My primary reason for removing it is that a band dedicating an album or song to such a significant figure seems trivial to me, but I don't feel that strongly about it. Elton John/Princess Di, I understand. The Dead and a much older man from a very different culture that presumably never met the band seems like a stretch. Thanks for you feedback on the change I made and I'm fine with the change you made. I think both articles are better after both our efforts. (In an interesting coincidence, I'm about to go see Dick Dale tonight!) Cxbrx (talk) 02:15, 6 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Name?

Yeah, when did Grateful dead become a Taqwacore band? What made them say "let's use the arabic word for God"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.70.62.212 (talk) 22:42, 1 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Franklin's Tower - (re)moved content

As of this revision of the dab page Franklin's Tower, someone added their explanation of that song's meaning. I've removed it from there - I'd add it here, but they've provided no source, and their prose is somewhat suboptimally intelligible. If someone here, with access to sources, cares to add a clearer explanation of the song, maybe this will be a start. -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 13:15, 17 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]