In the week after Jerry Garcia died on 9 August 1995, I wrote a song as a eulogy for him, "The Captain". This morning I pulled it out and ran through it with special attention to the vocals (in connection with my singing lessons). The "captain" in the song is Garcia, along with other characters: the fool (Robert Hunter), the gambler (Phil Lesh), the king (Pigpen), the one-eyed jack (Brent Mydland), the mates (Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann), and the joker (Bob Weir). Only the mates are left now. "Farewell, captain. / The cards have had their say. / Farewell, captain. / Sail into yesterday." And now farewell to the joker. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 15 January 2026; unfortunately, I don't have a good demo of the song.)