Far Away Radios Robert M Petersen

self published 1980

Imposter syndrome disclaimer: I know nothing about poetry, which makes examining Robert M. Petersen’s Far Away Radios feel like a yellow belt narrating Jackie Chan fight choreography while trying to explain a Tomoe Nage throw. Yet, here we are.

Petersen is best known in Dead circles for the lyrics to “New Potato Caboose”, “Pride of Cucamonga” and unicorn rare “Revolutionary Hamstrung Blues", performed only once on 3/27/86. His most enduring imprint in the Deadisphere, is the aching beauty of "Unbroken Chain."

Given my shallow poetic credentials, I approached Far Away Radios as if a trove of lyrics… reading each piece aloud several times to explore flow, phrasing and silence. What emerged was a portrait of a wandering soul. Published as a small private-press edition in 1980, the collection traces Petersen’s restless path: the woods of Oregon, the edges of the Bay Area beat enclaves, sun-scorched highways, dusty Mexico. Each piece stamped by longing, exile and hopes of connection. 

Many of the poems feel like postcards sent from someone forever in transit-- a modern minstrel writing from hotel rooms, border towns and temporary refuges. Peterson mixes rawness and tenderness: there’s no romantic veil over hardship, no sanding down the edges of sorrow.

There are poems honoring Pigpen and Janis Joplin. One which particularly resonated may have been the most accessible of all the pieces in the volume; Peterson's tribute to Billie Holiday.

For Lady Day

white gardenias

& white junk

a spoonful of

blues

4 times a day

all those years of

blackness

for an unmarked

grave

& a song

For Deadheads — or anyone shaped by the late-’60s and ’70s counterculture — Far Away Radios is an emotional echo of a world that helped keep Dead’s wheels turning. Even for readers without that history, the book stands on its own as a modest, quietly haunting collection from a poet who lived hard, wrote honestly and left behind a slim volume that hums with human truth.

• Special thanks to Daniel Berger for allowing me to borrow his copy of Far Away Radios. Dan's first show was Billerica on 5/11/78 and he's the kind of happily obsessive Head who collects the whole ecosystem- band and extended family- through artwork, music and... modest, slim volumes of poetry from one of the Dead's lesser-known lyricists.

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“Unbroken Chain” From the Mars Hotel

Gratitude to Stephen Stuchell for helping me slow down to appreciate the beauty in Grateful Dead albums. A studio potter and ceramic artist now based in Michigan, during the mid ‘80s through early ‘90s, Stephen lived in Berkeley as part of an arts collective creating impossibly intricate hand-crafted sinks... functional objects elevated into quiet, everyday sculptures.

During those years, I was exclusively glued to the live experience. I devoured cassettes and dissected shows in an attempt to map the band’s evolution from night to night. Stephen possessed a deep tape stash and I was always eager to hear something new. Studio records, by comparison, were afterthoughts.

One night, we climbed into his friend’s bus and I expected another unearthed gem from the vault. Instead, they slid in From the Mars Hotel. While a beautifully recorded album, I always felt the studio takes paled in comparison to the live excursions, particularly on “U.S. Blues” and “Scarlet Begonias” and “China Doll.” Yet, when “Unbroken Chain” came on, something shifted. Its production shimmered and the arrangement breathed. Because it had never been performed live, I wasn’t comparing it to anything – I was simply listening.

Stephen opened a doorway I’d overlooked: that the studio catalogue wasn’t a consolation prize, but another facet of the band’s imagination.