Not one of my fav Dead songs, but i still like it alot. But thats comparing it to so many greats like scarlet, tleo,birdsong, deal, and on and on and on....
I love bobby's distortion on his guitar on this song.
The song makes you really think.
Love the ending how they fade away and Bobby keeps singing "Am i the victim or the crime " over and over
Billy really gets tight at the end of this tune as does the whole band.
Great opener to a first or second set.

Jerry's voice sounds very healthy and strong in this Scarlet...me likey

pretty rare to split up scarlet>fire
i like the risk.
I don't think you could ever ruin a scarlet fire
even if you had an elephant walk out on stage and take a huge dump right on center front stage and lit it on fire. bad example but you get the point. Its an indestructable pair of songs.

I meant to look when you posted this thread, but I was distracted looking up other recommendations in my listening notes. Dim. According to Deadbase, this was the only time they played Scarlet>Victim>Fire. Cool deal. Then I realized I was at this show. My final California show. Really dim.

They played Victim> Foolish 19 times and Foolish>Victim 2 times. I only caught one of these a single time, and it was in Atlanta in '91.

(((DISSONANCE)))

Yeah exactly. It is not that they played Victim in between Scarlet Fire that made it special but how Hornsby took the reigns and led them into Victim, it was impressive to witness. I remember the roller coaster of being upset that they "skipped" Fire for Victim and then the realization that no they had not forgotten at all!

Here is the story behind the lyrics as told by Garrett Graham himself. artsites.ucsc.edu/GDead/agdl/votc.html

Here is Jerry on Victim:
Jerry Garcia, interviewed by Bonnie Simmons 9/28/89 for a "Built to Last"
promotional disc:


JG: I think the first time Weir showed it ["Victim or the Crime"] to me was
when we played with Joan Baez at an AIDS thing in the city, and he -- I lis-
tened in amazement and said "God, that's got pretty angular changes, doesn't
it?" It's fascinating because it defies, almost, any effort to play freely
through it. You have to know it; it's that simple. It has changes in it,
and they're very strict, and they have lots of real dissonant moments. So
the angularity of it was fascinating to me, the tonality was, because it's
one of those things where you really have to stretch to figure out something
appropriate to play to add to the tonal mood of the tune.

The text of it -- I don't believe I've ever actually listened to all the
words to it. Ever. I have the gist of it; by now I probably could recite
it if I really had to, but the text of it is more of the same in a way, it
doesn't have a whole lot of light in it. It's very dense, and it's
angstridden to boot. So it seemed to me when we were starting to record it,
in order to save it from an effort to make it more attractive, I thought
that what would work with the song would be to just go with it, to go with
the angularity and the sort of asymmetrical way it's structured, and play to
expose that. An early possibility that occurred to me was that this would
be an interesting song to do something really strange with. And this is
where of course Mickey comes into the picture, 'cause he's one of the guys
that holds down the strangeness corner and he's always a willing accomplice
in these ideas. So I thought the Beam, which is an instrument that people
feel about about the way they feel about Victim or the Crime, the tune -- I
thought, let's take two of the things that really have a huge potential for
really upsetting people --

BS: A polarization tool.

JG: Absolutely -- and let's combine them in a happy marriage, something
that will be a real horror show. And it's turned out to be strangely
beautiful. I really enjoy it, now. When me and Mickey started working on
it, I'd be sitting there listening and say "You know, I may be going crazy,
but I'm starting to like this..."

BS: I am too. Initially I thought it was one of the oddest things I had
ever imagined.

JG: Well, it certainly is strange. It's one of Weir's stunningly odd com-
positions, but it's also very adventurous. It's uncompromising; it's what
it is, and the challenge of coming up with stuff to play that sounds intel-
ligent in the context has been incredible, but also appropriately gnarly. I
really wanted that part of it to work. I think we did a nice job on the
record with it. It works. Whatever it is, it works. I'm real happy with
it because it was one of those things that was like, "What are we going to
do with this?" It's like having a monster brother that you lock in the at-
tic. It's like a relative that you -- "God, I hope nobody comes over when
he's eating...." But that's one of the things that makes the Grateful Dead
fun.

We've got a handle on it, I think, now, and there's also places for us to
take it. I think it may open up into something truly monstrous. It may
turn into something truly monstrous in the future, and certainly the re-
corded version works.

Garcia hits it right on the nose why I always liked this tune, it lead to really interesting and different jams. I don't give a fuck about lyrics most of the time (even though in the case of Victim they seem to add to the strangeness of the tune). I am now in the process of going back through my favorate Victim jams...I will be into this for a while...All it takes is someone to put the little bug in my ear and it naws away for a week or two. I love the Grateful Dead!

So this appears to be my favorate Victim right now! archive.org/details/gd89-10-08.sbd.berth...ley.25261.sbeok.shnf
It was also my first GD tape (a head gave it to me in the parking lot of my first show). The eyes that follows is really good too, as is most of this show and this run (does anyone have the Rhino release box set? If so, how is it?).