Grateful Dead's 30 Days of Dead Kicks Off with "Comes a Time"

'Tis the season

BY Nika Petrosian Published Nov 1, 2023

Since 2010, Grateful Dead archivist and producer David Lemieux has selected a live song for each day in November to give away for free as an MP3 download. Since then, "30 Days of Dead" has become an annual tradition for Deadheads every November.

For the casual enjoyer, this is enough of a post-Halloween, pre-Christmas treat — fans can listen to a new, previously unreleased Grateful Dead song, and then download all 30 tracks at the end of the month through a ZIP file.

For the seasoned Deadhead, however, 30 Days of Dead is also a guessing game; with every track, Lemieux also releases a hint as to where and when the song was recorded. Any listener who guesses the venue and date correctly is automatically entered for a chance to win a Grateful Dead wall calendar, as well as this year's grand prize — a boxed set of the Grateful Dead's 1973 live album Here Comes Sunshine.

This year, Lemieux has kicked off the 13th annual "30 Days of Dead" with "Comes a Time," which came with the hint: "A song that first appeared in 1971 and came and went from the repertoire. It was rare enough that it was always a newsworthy song when the Dead played it right up to its final performance in 1994."

Listen to "Comes a Time" and keep checking Dead.net every day for new tracks and clues.

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