Dead Songs in Depth

    
Standing On The Corner
w&m: Grateful Dead
LASF: http://www.whitegum.com/songfile/STANDOCO.HTM
  

    
Standing On The Corner 
Lyrics: Grateful Dead
Music: Grateful Dead

Copyright Ice Nine Publishing; used by permission.

I was standing on the corner, wondering what's become of me
I was standing on the corner, wondering what's become of me
Well things don't seem to be the way they used to seem to be

I think I'll go up on a mountain, I'll fling myself off into space
I think I'll go up on a mountain, I'll fling myself off into space
I'm not doing it because I'm desperate, I'm just trying to save some
space

If you ask me what my name is, I'll just stop and scratch my head
If you ask me what my name is, I'll just stop and scratch my head
Well they took away my name and gave me a number instead

Well all the things I used to know seem so far behind
There's a lot of new things that are running around my mind
  

    
This from Chris Wallis:

"in the version of Standing on the Corner played on 7/29/66 in
Vancouver, the final verse is different:

  If you ask me what I'm doing, I can't answer right
  If you ask me what I'm doing, I can't answer right
  Seems like nothin' ever changes, and nothing's gonna turn out right

"Most pessimistic Dead song ever?"
  

    
Nope -- Death Don't HNM is more pessimistic that that!
And so, to me, is the famous Wharf Rat...
  

    
I kind of think of songs like those as gritty, darkly real, but hardly
pessimistic.  Just a reflection of part of our consensual reality. 
And the primary song at issue in this topic follows a well-traversed
blues theme.  It's Americana, pure and simple.