“Eyes of the World” by The Grateful Dead

"Eyes of the World" rolls out of Wake of the Flood, the Grateful Dead's 1973 album, and in January 1974 it came out as the record's second single on Grateful Dead Records, the band's own label. Jerry Garcia wrote the music and Robert Hunter the words, which by Hunter's account are about compassion and learning to see through somebody else's eyes; he later granted that it felt mystical and very much of its moment, and a bit dated in hindsight.

The music is rock with a jazzman's loose-limbed swing, a bright, skipping groove that runs just past five minutes, and it's a good deal perkier than the laid-back demo they cut earlier that year. The Dead produced it themselves, with Dan Healy and Tom Anderson engineering. It quickly became a fan favorite and a fixture of their shows.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.