Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter discusses his final conversation with Jerry Garcia in a 2014 interview that appears in Alan Paul’s new ebook Reckoning: Conversation With the Grateful Dead. Billboard published an excerpt from the talk, which also touches on Jerry’s songwriting style and Hunter’s ill-fated work relationship with Bob Weir.

When asked if he and Garcia ever talked about the fact that, “As the band became what they became and Jerry became an icon, your words became the public’s vision of his vision. When people quoted him, they quoted you,” Hunter said:

No, we didn’t really. The last time I ever spoke to Jerry, he called me on the phone about a week or two before he died. We were getting a writing session together. Looking back, the conversation was rather strange on his part. He started complimenting me, which is something he had never done before. He said, “Your words never stuck in my throat.” And I thought, “What? This is coming from Jerry?” Because we took each other 100 percent for granted. It just wasn’t how we spoke to one another and boy… He definitely was [saying good-bye], because talking like that was just not Jerry’s nature. Generally, I’d give him a new batch of songs and he’d say, “Oh crap, Hunter!” [Laughs] He’d be angry because it meant he had to work. He said in an interview once that he’d rather sit and toss cards into a hat than write a song.

As previously reported, Hunter and Garcia were honored with a place in the Songwriters Hall of Fame last month. The pair were inducted by Zac Brown, while Hunter performed a solo acoustic rendition of “Ripple” at the ceremony.