Standing On the Moon

Following the success of their 1987 album In the Dark and their pop hit “Touch of Grey”, the Grateful Dead were a commercially successful band for the first time in their long, multi-decade career.

For a follow-up the group delivered Built to Last in late 1989, which turned out to be their final studio album. Included here was an original tune the Dead had been playing live for the better part of a year called “Standing on the Moon”. On this song Jerry Garcia composed the music and delivered the lead vocals with lyrics provided by Robert Hunter, depicting an astronaut observing the Earth from afar. The tune seems to strike a poetic balance between isolation and appreciation and its second verse includes the lyric that inspired the title of this website.

Standing on the moon
I see the battle rage below
Standing on the moon
I see the soldiers come and go
There’s a metal flag beside me
Someone planted long ago
Old Glory standing stiffly
Crimson, white and indigo

That image is powerful because it holds contradiction without resolving it. The flag is American, but it is distant. It is planted in triumph, but the observer sees battle below. It is beautiful, but cold and metallic. For this project, “crimson, white and indigo” becomes more than a borrowed lyric. It becomes a way of looking at America from a slight distance: with affection, concern, memory, criticism, and hope all present at once.