Dead Songs in Depth

    
Pride Of Cucamonga
w: Petersen m: Lesh
AGDL: http://arts.ucsc.edu/gdead/agdl/pride.html
LASF: http://www.whitegum.com/songfile/PRIDECUC.HTM
  

    
Pride Of Cucamonga 
Lyrics: Bobby Petersen
Music: Phil Lesh

Copyright Ice Nine Publishing; used by permission.

Out on the edge of the empty highway
Howling at the blood on the moon
Big diesel Mack rolling down my way
Can't hit that border too soon

Running hard out of Muskrat Flats
It was sixty days or double life
Hail at my back like a shotgun blast
High wind chimes in the night

Oh, oh, pride of Cucamonga
Oh, oh, bitter olives in the sun
Oh, oh, I had me some loving
And I done some time

Since I came down from Oregon
There's a lesson or two I've learned
By standing in the road alone
Standing watching the fires burn

The northern sky it stinks with greed
You can smell it for miles around
Good old boys in the Greystone Hotel
Sitting doing that git-on-down

Oh, oh, pride of Cucamonga
Oh, oh, silver apples in the sun
Oh, oh, I had me some loving
And I done some time

I see your silver shining town
But I know I can't go there
Your streets run deep with poisoned wine
Your doorways crawl with fear

So I think I'll drift for old where it's at
Where the weed grows green and fine
And wrap myself around a bush
Of that bright whoa, oh, Oaxaca vine

Yes it's me, I'm the pride of Cucamonga
I can see golden forests in the sun
Oh, oh, I had me some loving
And I done some time
And I done some time
And I done some time
  

    
Does anyone have a pointer for an online copy of the original Pride of
Cucamonga poem written by Robert Peterson?
  

    


A reader named George says:


Tim,

His writings and paper are supposedly held at University of California Santa
Cruz

<http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt1199q2gs/>

On their website (the above link) they state nothing of his is online.

But fwiw there is this discussion about the song on the  Univ of California
Santa Cruz website):

<http://artsites.ucsc.edu/GDead/agdl/pride.html>
  

    
Some confusion here due to the existence of a poet named Robert
Peterson (note the "o" in the last name), who is not the same as the
lyricist Robert Petersen. 

Tim--not sure what you mean by "the original Pride of Cucamonga poem."
What have you heard about?
  

    
I visited the Archive this past weekend and noticed they had a
typewritten copy of Pride of Cucamonga on display which had different
verses than the song.  I wasn't sure if it was written as a poem or as
the original lyrics pre-edit.
  

    
Well, that is wonderful to hear! I'll have to get on Nick's case to
send me a transcript. 
  

    
Here are the lyrics I was talking about above...

http://picpaste.com/pics/Pride-3vLmLU7F.1354215354.jpg
  

    
Wow! Thanks for that. Probably worth transcribing....one of these
days.
  

    
Talk to <xian>.  If memory serves, he transcribed them some years ago,
though I could be wrong about that.
  

    
Nah, I attempted to transcribe the one and only performance of
"Revolutionary Hamstrung Blues," for which Trist tells me no typescript
exists in the Ice Nine files.
  

    
Yes, and thank you for your heroic efforts on that one, Christian!
  

    
the problem is they only sang it once, so there's nothing to
cross-check. can't tell verbal slips from intentional weirdness, etc.
  

    
Right. And the lyrics went through the laundry in someone's back
pocket... Oh well!
  

    
The typescript mentioned above is included in Nicholas Meriwether's 
essay "Shadow Boxing The Apocalypse: An Alternate History of the
Grateful Dead", included with the "30 Trips Around The Sun" box set.

Here's a transcript:

Standing on the edge of a big empty highway
Lookin' at the blood on the moon
Big diesel Mack comes toolin' down my way
Can't get to that border too soon

Since I came down from Oregon
There's some lessons I have learned
Just standing out there on 101
And watch the fires burn

Running hard and fast out of Klamath Falls
Sixty days or double life
Hail at my back like a shotgun blast
Wind like a cold, cold knife

O Pride of Cucamonga
Bitter olives in the sun
Had me some lovin; and I done some time on
Highway 101

Up in Eureka the sky's full of greed
You can smell it for miles around
For a long lost good old boy down on E Street
It's sure's a hard go-round

Down in Salinas the Strawberry King
Serves Pie-On-The-Sky for the lame and wounded only
Brothers on the yard in cold blue clothes know
Soledad means lonely

I copped Some spare change in Union Square
And heading for the Golden Gate
But i got lost drinking tokay wine in someplace
Called the Haight

O Pride of Cucamonga
Bitter olives in the sun
Had me some lovin' and I done some time on
Highway 101

Up north they say I'm crazy
Back east don't even know my name
You gave me the wrong directions but I
Got here just the same

I see your silver City shine
But you know I can't stay there
Your streets are filled with poison wine
Your windows filled with fear

So I think I'll go down to old Mexico
Where the weed grows green and fine
And wrap myself around a bush of that bright
Oaxaca vine

O Pride of Cucamonga
Bitter olives in the sun
Had me some lovin' and I done some time on
Highway 101
  

    

cool thanks!!
  

    
Wow--that is great. "Klamath Falls..." consistent with my ongoing
speculation about Muskrat Flats.  Wonder who did the word
replacements here and there throughout that lyric?
  

    
Speaking as a inger, I would say "Muskrat Flats" MUCH easier to sing than
"Klamath Falls" in that line.
  

    
True! But you could have some fun with the word "Klamath." 
  

    

<https://www.dailybulletin.com/2021/04/15/grateful-deads-pride-of-cucamonga-was
-inspired-by-filippi-wine/>
  

    
wat
  

    
Would have loved to read the article but the website says I have
reached my limit of free reads which I most decidedly have not..
  

    
Use another browser?
  

    
Cool article. Here's the text (and I did make a note of this
association early on in the annotation process...): 

When I wrote last month about Filippi Winery in Rancho Cucamonga,
which may transition to a new owner in the coming years as part of
new development, I didn’t go into one of the winery’s claims to
fame.
But along came reader/Deadhead William Hill to plug that gap.
From 1946 to 1969, Filippi produced a cheap wine named Pride of
Cucamonga, sold with a white screw cap. The locally sold wine
somehow came to the attention of the Grateful Dead, who recorded a
song titled “Pride of Cucamonga” in 1974.
“Oh oh, the pride of Cucamonga/Oh oh, silver apples in the sun/Oh
oh, I had me some lovin’/And I done some time,” goes one chorus of
the somewhat elusive song, in which the narrator is hitchhiking from
Oregon to Mexico to escape some sort of trouble.
Pride of Cucamonga was an ironic name for a low-end wine, but the
song gave the product a splash of pop-culture immortality and may
have led the winery in later years to revive the name, this time for
a better wine.
A giant reproduction of the Pride of Cucamonga label is part of a
mural on the winery building at 12467 Base Line Road on the
north-facing wall next to the sidewalk. Put on a tie-dyed shirt and
go pose for a selfie. Also, a Dead cover band in the 909 is named
Pride of Cucamonga.
I once asked Gino Filippi, then the winery’s vice president, about
the wine’s legacy.
“Perhaps Pride of Cucamonga helped put Cucamonga on the map and
helped the boys on the long road trips,” Filippi mused in 2005.
“Keep on truckin’!”
Hill tells me that although he attended more than 100 Dead shows —
which may have left him dead on his feet — he never heard the band
play the song, despite requests. At least one Dead fansite says the
song was never performed live.
This is where we get into some Dead lore that had never come to my
attention. It involves member Phil Lesh, who wrote the music to
“Pride of Cucamonga” to go along with poet Robert M. Petersen’s
words.
“At shows it was often fun sport to yell out to the band ‘Let Phil
sing’ and then in a later-year evolution ‘Make Phil sing.’ It was
also on T-shirts and such,” Hill explains. That’s because bass
player Lesh sang only a few songs, “Box of Rain” among them and, you
guessed it, “Pride of Cucamonga.”
“Within this subgroup of Let-Phil-Sing promoters,” Hill continues,
“we would sometimes yell out ‘Pride of Cucamonga!’ to show off our
depth of knowledge on the subject, hoping some neophyte would ask us
about Cucamonga.”
Hill says he’s long intended to send a bottle of Pride of Cucamonga
wine to Lesh at his Marin County restaurant and music venue,
Terrapin Crossroads. “If these notes merit a mention in your
column,” he says in his email, “perhaps I will, and include your
column.”
To your health, Mr. Lesh.
  

    
And, of course, the first GD Songbook illustrated Ripple with the
wine bottle!
  

    
That's right--always disliked that illustration.