Dead Songs in Depth

    
Mountains Of The Moon
w: Hunter m: Garcia
AGDL: http://arts.ucsc.edu/gdead/agdl/moon.html
LASF: http://www.whitegum.com/songfile/MOUNTMOO.HTM
  

    
Mountains Of The Moon 
Lyrics: Robert Hunter
Music: Jerry Garcia

Copyright Ice Nine Publishing; used by permission.

Cold mountain water, the jade merchant's daughter
Mountains of the moon, Electra, bow and bend to me
Hi-ho, the carrion crow, folderol-de-riddle
Hi-ho, the carrion crow, bow and bend to me

Hey, Tom Banjo
Hey, a laurel
More than laurel you may sow
More than laurel you may sow
Hey, the laurel, hey, the city in the rain
Hey, hey, the wild wheat waving in the wind

Twenty degrees of solitude, twenty degrees in alL
All the dancing kings and wives assembled in the hall
Lost is the long and loneliest time, fairy Sybil flying
All along the, all along the mountains of the moon

Hey, Tom Banjo
It's time to matter
The earth will see you on through this time
The earth will see you on through this time
Down by the water, the marsh king's daughter, did you know
Clothed in tatters, always will be, Tom where did you go?

Mountains of the moon, Electra, mountains of the moon
All along the, all along the mountains of the moon
Heigh ho, the carrion crow, folderol-de-riddle
Heigh ho, the carrion crow, bow and bend to me
Bend to me
  

    
Listening to this in the car the other day from the recent boxed set
release, it occurred to me (not for the first time) that this song
*strongly* puts me in mind of the Lord of the Rings. I think I always
subconsciously associate Tom Banjo with Tom Bombadil and the
Marsh-King's daughter with Bombadil's wife, the river's daugher.

Doesn't Bombadil sing the Hey Nonny Nonny type thing too? He's a bit
of an earth elemental, so the earth (middle-earth) would see him on
through this time.

I realize it's not an exact fit. It's no Misty Mountain Hop or what
have you, but the feel is inescapable, for me.
  

    
Posted on behalf of Mary Goodenough:

Reading The Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Grahame) to my kids has been
a pleasure and a joy, especially with appreciation for Hunter's lyrics,
of which I had no knowledge when the book was read aloud to me as a
child. Of course there's the obvious reference from "Scarlett Begonias"
("the wind in the willows played tea for two") -- probably the first
of many that made an impression during my early years of becoming a
deadhead. Reading it aloud to my children has given me the opportunity
to dwell on how Grahame's words sometimes just slip off the tongue,
leaving images of nature very reminiscent of Hunter's as well. The
chapter headings also read something like a description of tour. (or
hero's journey, really the same thing)

1. The River Bank
2. The Open Road
3. The Wild Wood
4. Mr. Badger
5. Dulce Domum
6. Mr. Toad
7. The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (In Annotated Lyrics, David Dodd
well notes the kinship between Grahame's description of nature here and
the world painted by Hunter. I would add that the central activity of
this chapter involves the search for, rescue and return to home of a
small lost otter with a keen sense of adventure -- who of course is
found entranced at the piper's feet at the gates of dawn.
8.  Toad's Adventures
9. Wayfareres All
10. The Further Adventures of Toad
11. 'Like Summer Tempests Came His Tears'
12. The Return of Ulysses

You can imagine my surprise and delight to read the following in
Chapter 9:

"Restlessly the Rat wandered off once more, climbed the slope that
rose gently from the north bank of the river, and lay looking out
towards the great ring of Downs that barred his vision further
southwards -- his simple horizon hitherto, his Mountains of the Moon,
his limit behind which lay nothing he cared to see or to know. Today,
to him gazing South with a new-born need stirring in his heart, the
clear sky over their long low outline seemed to pulsate with promise;
today, the unseen was everything, the unknown the only real fact of
life. On this side of the hills was now the real blank, on the other
lay the crowded and coloured panorama that his inner eye was seeing so
clearly. What seas lay beyond, green, leaping, crested!"

Maya and Raj were unimpressed by the discovery of a Grateful Dead song
in the midst of their bedtime story and urged me to get on with it.

Children of all ages will enjoy the centenary edition (2007)
illustrated by Robert Ingpen. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
  

    
Wonderful!
  

    
!!
  

    
:-)