Dead Songs in Depth

    
Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodleloo
w: Hunter m: Garcia
AGDL: http://arts.ucsc.edu/gdead/agdl/halfstep.html
LASF: http://www.whitegum.com/songfile/MISSISSI.HTM
  

    
Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodleloo 
Lyrics: Robert Hunter
Music: Jerry Garcia

Copyright Ice Nine Publishing; used by permission.

On the day that I was born Daddy sat down and cried
I had the mark just as plain as day, I could not be denied
They say that Cain caught Abel rolling loaded dice
Ace of spades behind his ear and him not thinking twice

Chorus:
Half step, Mississippi uptown toodleloo
Hello baby I'm gone goodbye
Half a cup of rock and rye
Farewell to you old southern skies
I'm on my way, on my way

If all you got to live for is what you left behind
Get yourself a powder charge and seal that silver mine
Lost my boots in transit babe, pile of smoking leather
Nailed a retread to my feet and prayed for better weather

[chorus]

They say that when your ship comes in, first man takes the sails
Second takes the after deck, third the planks and rails
What's the point of calling shots, this cue ain't straight in line
Cue balls made of styrofoam and no-one's got the time

[chorus]

Across the Rio Grand-eo
Across the lazy river
[etc]
  

    


Bill M writes:




One wonders if Hunter really meant to say "Toogaloo", which if you go to
their web page....

Tougaloo College is a private, coeducational, historically black, church-
related, but not church controlled, four-year liberal arts institution
located on West County Line Road on the northern edge of the city of Jackson,
Mississippi.

Founded in 1869 by the American Missionary Association, Tougaloo College was
chartered on the principle that it "be accessible to all irrespective of
their religious tenets, and conducted on the most liberal principles for the
benefit of our citizens in general."  Tougaloo acknowledges and respects its
traditions, remains dedicated to the equality of all people, and continues to
be a value-oriented community where students are guided by a concerned
faculty and staff.  The members of this community apply current knowledge to
prepare students for lifelong learning related to new information and
emerging technologies, as well as humane standards in a global society.



Nice folks there and they believe the song is about their college.....

Not quite as poetic maybe, but one of the closet colleges to the Mississippi
River and certainly one that would have been attended by someone with the
"Mark" in the South -being black.
  

    
Hmmm! Interesting note! I guess I always thought of the 'mark' as just
being some sort of portent. Like being born veiled or something.
  

    
I suspect East St. Louis Toodle-oo is the real antecedent (a tune once
covered by Steely Dan, fwiw).
  

    
That's my thinkin' on it, too.
  

    
and unless a toodle-oo is a specific rhythm pattern or type of jig or
something, i'd guess it was just meant literally as "goodbye" or
"farewell" in the original song's name, that is unless there's a deeper
tradition of "name of place toodeloo" songs.
  

    
From the Annoated Lyrics:

From the Oxford English Dictionary:
"toodle-oo int. colloq. [Origin unknown; perh. f. TOOT (An act of
tooting...)] Goodbye. Cf. PIP-PIP.
1907 Punch 26 June 465 'Toodle-oo, old sport.' Mr. Punch turned round at the
amazing words and gazed at his companion. ...
Also toodle-, tootle-pip.
Partridge speculates:

"...or maybe, as Mr F.W. Thomas has most ingeniously suggested, a Cockney
corruption of the French equivalent of '(I'll) see you soon': a tout a
l'heure."
  

    
The thing that interests me about this one is the first couplet of the
last verse:

"They say that when your ship comes in, first man takes the sails
Second takes the after deck, third the planks and rails"

One view of this might be that, when great good fortune arrives ("your
ship comes in"), the bounty is stipped by false friends.

Alternatively, it could just be a naval protocol thing (at one point I
heard it as "first mate" rather than "first man"), where the meaning
of "takes" is "takes care of" rather than "takes away" as in the first
interpretation.

Happy Trails
  

    

I think your first view is the one.

Certainly matches my experience in the GD culture and elsewhere.
  

    
Funny--I had always thought it was some Navy protocol thing, too! Always
meant to research it and annotate it. Any seafaring folks out there want to
weigh in (as it were)?
  

    
I took the word "take" not to mean "steal" but to mean to take care of.  The
first man takes down the sails, the second secures the after deck, and the
third secures the planks and rails.  Teamwork always came to mind.  This
seemed to be reinforced by the next line, which references "calling shots."
I then looked at the whole verse as
something like don't make plans to acheive something unless you have your
foundation intact. I would usually then think of some way in which my cue is
not in line in life or where my cueball is made of styrofoam - places inside
me that I needed to work on to have a more intact foundation...

The second part of the verse seems to comport better with the second
interpretation in #8 to me.
  

    
I agree with <jewel>
  

    
So, in the first couplet, we have success (the ship coming in)
dependent on other people beyond just the individual (at least two of
the crew taking care of the ship), and then, further more, given the
uncertainties and random elements afoot (crooked cue, styrofoam cue
ball) and the speed at which events can unfold (no one's got the time),
there is no point in devoting too much effort to planning (calling
shots). Moral: build relationships and live in the moment.

Happy Trails
  

    

I am quite surprised by these interpretations, I must say!  I hear the whole
song as the lamentations of a congenital hard-luck story.
  

    
Well, I'm not sure it is all lamentations about hard luck, and I also
see environmental as well as genetic factors at work.

The first verse tells of a life marked for evil by Fate. It's not just
going to be a tough life - Cain murdered his brother, Abel (an
unfortunate mother got it wrong and named her child Cain Ball in Thomas
Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd). Who is it who doesn't think
twice? I suggest it is Cain, cutting down his brother in a rage at
finding him cheating.

In the second verse, first couplet, we have some advice on what to do
about cutting ties that hold back progress:

"If all you got to live for is what you left behind
Get yourself a powder charge and seal that silver mine"

This is a complementary sentiment to the moral posited for verse three
in Post #136.

The second couplet is about tenacity and the imperative to move
forward in life. Obstacles will be faced in the course of the journey -
"Lost my boots in transit babe, pile of smoking leather" - but the
traveller must keep going, improvising if necessary - "Nailed a retread
to my feet and prayed for better weather" (remember those sandals with
soles made from car tyres?).

So, in this interpretation, more about overcoming fate and adversity
to keep progressing.

Happy Trails
  

    


Tim White writes:




Hi

Good to read all the recent contributions. I've got a couple more comments
about Half-Step:

1. "If all you got to live for is what you left behind
    Get yourself a powder charge and seal that silver mine"
I think it's significant that that the past is a silver mine - it had, and
perhaps still has, special value. It's not a tin mine, or a lead mine.

2. "Half step, Mississippi uptown toodleloo"
I'm not sure that "toodleloo" has much meaning, perhaps it's there as a
generally evocative word that has the right rhythm? That line seems to stand
out because of its rapid rhythm, the lines that come before and after it are
more drawn out. So it says Look out! here's the chorus! It's an illustration
of how good Hunter and Garcia got at the craft of writing a song, and of
course how good they and the rest of the band were at arranging and
interpreting them.

Cheers
Tim
  

    

> I think it's significant that that the past is a silver mine - it had, and
> perhaps still has, special value. It's not a tin mine, or a lead mine.

I think this is areference to the "silver mine" in "Uncle John's Band."
  

    
>>I think this is areference to the "silver mine" in "Uncle John's Band."

good call.

I always took it as a double entendre. When your ship comes in, literally, 
you pack it up (take the sails), and swab the decks (the planks and 
rails). When your ship comes in, like, "Oh, baby, I can't wait til my ship 
comes in" ie, the big hoped for windfall taking you to riches, that will 
be your big dream come true. But that ain't happening because you are back 
out doing that Uptown Toodleoo.......hello baby, I'm gone, goodbye.
  

    
definitely I always thought that it was a ref to the silver mine, the
one the narrator calls "beggar's tomb." Like you live in a silver mine
but you are entombed there, unable to actual spend any of your
(biblical allusion switcheroo) talents.

(I also equate the raven or crow on the back of Wake as being the crow
who "told me" the "same story" in Uncle John's
  

    


Rick Lieberman writes:



Very interesting discussion on the third verse.

"They say that when your ship comes in, first man takes the sails
Second takes the after deck, third the planks and rails"

Every single time I've ever heard the song, I've thought it was a brilliant
multi-level joke that changes its meaning & focus as you hear each line; it
devolves from success & taking care of business (nautical procedure) to
chaos & thievery without ever really changing syntax.  This makes the
"third" line a punch line that puts the others in a different light.  Maybe
I've always heard it "wrong", but those have always been my favorite lines
in the song nevertheless.
  

    


James Reis writes:




With the lines "I had the mark just as plain as day" and  "They say that Cain
caught Abel rolling loaded dice", Hunter is undoubtedly referring to the
'Mark of Cain' described in Herman Hesse's 1917 novel Demian.

In the story, the protagonist is aided by a friend who gives him a unique
perspective on the story of Cain and Abel; suggesting that Cain was not
marked for killing Abel, but rather that Cain already had the mark, which led
to the dispute between them.

In the book, Hesse suggests that understanding God is an inner, questioning,
transformative journey rather than about obeying the rules.

One good review of the book is found at:
http://departments.cvuhs.org/joe/NovelReview02/DemianMills.htm

Thank you for your efforts
James Reis
  

    
What's the point of calling shots...?  This always struck me as
meaning "What's the point of doing stuff when it's all an illusion?" 
Physisist's tell us the universe is curved - this cue ain't straight in
line -, and that we're mostly made of space rather than matter -
styrofoam - and the Bhagavad Gita tells us time doesn't exist: "Ends
and beginnings are dreams!  Birthless and deathless and changeless
remaineth the Spirit forever..." - no one's got the time.  
  

    
Interesting, though I don't think it is really a question of what is
the point of doing stuff so much as what's the point of trying to
control everything.
  

    
Michael!  So nice to see from you here!!
  

    
Nice deconstruction, Michael. I love it! And one can substitute in
Neil's phrase quite easily into Michael's statement, right?