The Grateful Dead song "Truckin'" ("American Beauty", 1970) memorializes their drug arrest in New Orleans on 31 January, 1970: "Busted down on Bourbon Street / Set up, like a bowling pin". That background also informs an earlier line in a list of cities the band visited on tours: "Houston, too close to New Orleans". But beyond the bust, "Bourbon Street" stands for the musical history of New Orleans and the early development of jazz. The song's first list of cities, "Chicago, New York, Detroit", also has historical resonance: all three contributed to jazz's further development, while Chicago was also a major city for electric blues and Detroit the home of Motown. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 21 February 2026)