In addition to being the band’s sound engineer, Owsley Stanley was also one of the world’s first private LSD manufacturers. The Bears originally appeared on the back cover of the Grateful Dead’s Bear’s Choice album launching the design into the public eye, but this album circulation only accounted for a portion of the rapid fame attributed to the bears. The actual principal design for the style of bear we now commonly associate with the Grateful Dead was born from a 36-point lead type slug featuring a generic bear print that Thomas found and used as his primary artistic inspiration. There is also speculation that the moniker “Dancing Bear” was attributed to Stanley in reference to his peculiar choice of dance moves at concerts while high on acid. The choice to create a symbol using bears as the focal point stems from Owsley Stanley’s nickname “Bear” given to him by childhood friends as a result of his excessive chest hair. In addition to these ubiquitous graphics, Thomas also designed the art for the The Dead’s Steal Your Face and Live Dead as well as the logo for Alembic, an American manufacturer of high-end electric guitars, basses and preamps started by Owsley Stanley, the Grateful Dead’s sound engineer. Thomas actually has a long history tied with The Dead having co-designed the band’s iconic “Lightning Bolt” logo with Owsley Stanley in 1969 as a means of keeping track of the band’s equipment while on tour.

The dancing bear design was originally created by artist and renaissance man Bob Thomas for use on the back of the Grateful Dead’s 1973 album The History of the Grateful Dead, Volume 1 (Bear’s Choice). What's really being asked for here is to be kept in the plane of the enlightened rather than spit back out on Earth to live life again.A Design Born from Artistic Collaboration Lord, until the sun goes down, 'til it goes down Why don't you arrest me? Throw me in to the jail house It's all night pourin', but not a drop on me Ran into a rainstorm, I ducked back into a bardo That interpretation clarifies why Garcia begs to be arrested. You die, spend time in the bardo, and then are born again (unless you've achieved enlightenment). Where things get really interesting is with the line 'ducked back into a bar door,' which could be play on the word 'bardo.' In Buddhism, bardo is the place or state-of-existence between two lives. That why, if you please, I'm on my bendin' kneesīertha don't you come around here, anymore If we look at 'Bertha' as 'birth,' then the chorus: So, in 'Bertha,' Garcia's saying (with Hunter's words) that he's tired of running through the birth-death-reincarnation cycle over and over again. A simplified view on the Buddhist belief is that we have to keep cycling through lives until we achieve enlightenment, at which point we can get out of the run around and escape the game. The song is then about a fellow going through the cycle of birth, death, and reincarnation. Going by Hunter's statement, though, the song is far more interesting that that. The song is fun and upbeat, so the silliness of the lyrics seems fitting.

The simple surface interpretation of 'Bertha' is that some unnamed character runs from a window, into a tree, and then into a bar, where he takes shelter from the rain.

Grateful dead dancing bears record