Songs › Grateful Dead › St. Stephen

Grateful Dead

St. Stephen

Aoxomoxoa · 1969 · Jerry Garcia / Phil Lesh / Robert Hunter

GLI58

Lennon Leaning

Confidence 84% · evidence quality, not position

Jerry Garcia and Mickey Hart on stage at Red Rocks, 11 August 1987. — Mark L. Knowles (User:Grateful Dead) · CC BY-SA 3.0

Three writers, several sections, and a bridge that came and went.

GARCIAPerformance creates the music

DEAD CENTERNeither wins

LENNONComposition creates the music

100

St. Stephen · 58

Hollow marks: the other 49 scored songs · Hatched band: the Crossover Zone

The case

The strongest honest argument for each side, then the ruling.

The Garcia argument

Live versions usually carried a section that is not on the studio recording at all. The band retired the song in 1971, brought it back in 1976 with a looser feel, and at Cornell split it in two around a 16-minute Not Fade Away. The version people treat as definitive is a concert recording.

The Lennon argument

It is one of the most composed things the early Dead wrote. Hunter wrote the words, Garcia the main music and Lesh a separate coda, and the sections follow in a fixed order with a signature riff. The album it comes from was recorded twice and then remixed.

The verdict: GLI 58

A sectional written song whose parts were rearranged over the years. The material is predetermined; which parts appear, and at what tempo, was decided era by era. It sits on the Lennon side of centre, short of Sugar Magnolia.

What is fixed

The riff
Verses and lyric
The order of the main sections

What is open

Whether the bridge is played
Tempo and feel
What it is joined to

Evidence dimensions

Each runs from 0, Garcia, to 100, Lennon. Their weighted composite is 58. The published GLI is 58, the same.

Structural FixityHow much of sequence, form and duration is settled beforehand?

Elastic

Fixed

Several composed sections in a set order, with one that was added and later removed.

Performance ConsistencyHow far can two performances differ and still be the same work?

Transformative

Reproducible

A 1969 version and a 1977 version differ in tempo, feel and which sections appear.

PredeterminationHow much of what matters exists before the performance begins?

Emergent

Predetermined

Verses, riff and coda were written by three people. The links between songs were not.

Development MethodHow does the music move forward?

Exploratory

Composed

Mostly composed, with an instrumental passage in the middle.

Recording SpecificityDoes the recording document an occurrence, or define the object?

Documents event

Defines work

The studio take is not treated as the reference. The Live/Dead version is.

Transformational tolerance

It lost and regained a whole section and changed tempo between eras.

Confidence: 84%

Counts disagree widely between sources (289 and 193). The arrangement history is well described.

Keep arguing

Every placement is relative. These are the songs this one was measured against.

The record

Hunter wrote the words, Garcia most of the music, and Lesh composed the coda that carries it into The Eleven on Live/Dead.Source ↗
Live versions usually included a section, absent from the studio recording, known as the William Tell bridge.Source ↗
Aoxomoxoa was recorded on 8-track, scrapped, and re-recorded on 16-track; Garcia and Lesh remixed it again in 1971.Source ↗
It left the repertoire in 1971, returned from 1976 to 1979, and came back for a few performances in 1983.Source ↗
At Cornell on 8 May 1977 it was split around a 16-minute Not Fade Away.Source ↗

Where the sources disagree

Performance count: 289 (dead.net) or 193 (setlist.fm). The gap is unexplained.

Catalog facts

Catalog no.: GLI·GD·010
Artist: Grateful Dead
Writers: Jerry Garcia / Phil Lesh / Robert Hunter
Release: Aoxomoxoa (1969)
Released: 20 June 1969
Duration: 4:26
Performed: 289 times (dead.net ("289 known performances")); 193 per setlist.fm
First played: 24 May 1968
Last played: 31 October 1983

Sources

Classified 5 October 2026