Though I'm not a great fan of concert albums, I've been listening again and again to the endless subtleties on this CD of two great honky tonk sets. The Flying Burrito Brothers played support for the Grateful Dead at the Avalon Ballroom in April 1969. The double CD of two San Francisco nights features a couple of bonus home demos too, one of which is a drawing room solo of the second Gram Parsons' tune I took a shine to--'$1,000 Wedding'. The first was 'Grievous Angel' on an NME compilation tape. On the album Grievous Angel, I thought '$1,000 Wedding' was about a bride not showing up to a wedding because she's had second thoughts. Maybe it was an arranged marriage. The line goes 'the bride went away' which makes the funeral in the song more of a metaphor for the deserted groom's feelings. This reading seemed convincing probably because it prodded some of my own insecurities. In the earlier demo version, Parsons sings 'the bride passed away' which makes the funeral more literal. Interesting and clever, deeper little alteration made in those few years between the demo and the album version. I'm not a Gramologist, haven't researched this change in the words, but in any case the demo is as lovely as the later studio version.
THE FLYING BURRITO BROTHERS now packaged as GRAM PARSONS & THE FLYING BURRITO BROTHERS
$1,000 Wedding (home demo)
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