Mind Left Body Jam

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History

Purportedly an intentional tune with an exciting history, “Mind Left Body Jam” is little more than four descending chords. The orthodox history is that Phish is covering a Grateful Dead instrumental derived from the song “Your Mind Has Left Your Body” from the Paul Kantner / Grace Slick album Baron von Tollbooth and the Chrome Nun (re-mastered and re-released in 1997).

”Your Mind Has Left Your Body” – Baron von Tollbooth & the Chrome Nun

The album, which came during the lapse between Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship, was a powerful collaboration of Bay Area icons - including David Freiberg, Jerry Garcia, Mickey Hart, Jorma Kaukonen, David Crosby, Jack Casady, Papa John Creach, and the Pointer Sisters. (The album also features a tune called “Fishman,” about “the son of Caliban” who “rules the ocean land,” “holds the ocean in his hands,” and is pursued by the singer, who wants to make love to him “over and over in the sand.”) 

For many decades, Grateful Dead fans have referred to a melodic theme with a descending chord progression that sounds akin to part of “Your Mind Has Left Your Body” as the "Mind Left Body Jam," classic performances of which include 6/28/74, and 3/24/90 out of “Terrapin Station.” However, Phil Lesh has often insisted that the band never consciously covered or teased the Kantner/Slick song, and never called anything they played “Mind Left Body Jam” (“MLBJ”). The Dead even mocked fans by giving the name “Mud Love Buddy” to a jamming track on Dozin’ at the Knick. Ironically, that mockery seemed to many to institutionalize a suspected connection, even giving it a second name. And due to a widely circulated but mislabeled tape, “MLBJ” was further confused with the very different “Heaven Help (the Fool) Jam,” full of rockin’ crescendos – and thus, for a time, had a third (and incorrect) name.

Phish's improvisational wanderings have similarly included chord progressions for which fans have sought labels, or in which they've attributed intentional allusion. Some of these have at times sounded more like "MLBJ" but been (mistakenly) labelled “Dave’s Energy Guide” (or vice versa), despite radical differences: "DEG" (e.g. 4/1/86, 3/23/87, 4/29/87, or 9/8/88) is a bouncing array of interlocking and repeating themes, about as far from "MLBJ’s" four descending chords as you can get. Worse, some have labeled as “MLBJ” digital delay-loop jams which are not even “DEG” (much less “MLBJ”), such as in the “TweezerFest” on 5/7/94, before “Bowie” on 12/29/94, ending “Mike’s Song” on 12/31/95, after “Bouncing” on 12/28/96, starting “Bowie” on 8/10/97, and during “Scent” on 8/17/97, which is possibly the closest to “DEG” the digital delay-loop jam got during the 1990s.

On several occasions, a jam with a descending chord progression similar (if not strikingly so) to “MLBJ” has appeared in Phish history. In three, they are sufficient that Phish.net officially lists “MLBJ” in the setlist proper: during the 8/21/93 “Bowie,” the 6/18/94 “Bowie” (likely the strongest of all) and the 11/13/98 "Wolfman's Brother." In others, the appearance is brief enough to constitute only a tease: the 5/13/94 "YEM," the 6/19/95 “Bowie,” the 11/16/95 “Timber,” the 7/31/97 “McGrupp” and the 7/3/11 "Wilson." 

Some fans, of course, find this whole exercise amusing, seeing these progressions as no more conscious or intentional than the Grateful Dead's "performances" of the "song." Phish has thus included just enough allusion to enhance confusion; doing so is practically their forte. But in any event, the descending chord progression that largely comprises the melodic theme of “Mind Left Body” is identical to part of the recurring melodic theme in “You’re All I Need To Get By,” a popular 1968 song by Marvin Gaye with Tammi Terrell. In other words, what is popularly known as the (or a) “Mind Left Body Jam” did originate close-in-time and seemingly in connection with Kantner/Slick/Freiberg’s “Your Mind Has Left Your Body,” but this 1973 tune’s melodic theme (popularized by Grateful Dead versions of “Mind Left Body Jam”) may have been influenced, consciously or otherwise, by Marvin Gaye’s “You’re All I Need To Get By,” from 1968. Therefore, all “Mind Left Body Jams” necessarily tease “You’re All I Need To Get By,” or they’re not “Mind Left Body Jams” at all. And if your mind is still with your body after reading this song history, congratulations!

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