Dead Songs in Depth

    
Sugaree
w: Hunter m: Garcia
AGDL: http://arts.ucsc.edu/gdead/agdl/sugaree.html
LASF: http://www.whitegum.com/songfile/SUGAREE.HTM
  

    
Sugaree 
Lyrics: Robert Hunter
Music: Jerry Garcia

Copyright Ice Nine Publishing; used by permission.

When they come to take you down
When they bring that wagon round
When they come to call on you
And drag your poor body down

Chorus
Just one thing I ask of you
Just one thing for me
Please forget you knew my name
My darling, Sugaree

Shake it, shake it, Sugaree
Just don't tell them that you know me
Shake it, shake it, Sugaree
Just don't tell them that you know me

You thought you was the cool fool
And never would do no wrong
You had everything sewed up tight
How come you lay awake all night long

[chorus]

Well in spite of all you gained
You still have to stand out in the pouring rain
One last voice is calling you
And I guess it's time you go

[chorus]

Well shake it up now, Sugaree
I'll meet you at the jubilee
And if that jubilee don't come
Maybe I'll meet you on the run

[chorus]
  

    

Graham Parker on how he came to record "Sugaree"

http://www.punkhart.com/gparker/thoughts.shtml


(Part 19, posted 4.11.04, just in case the text is different when you go
there)
  

    
Someone should send that link to Hunter, he might get a kick out of
it.
  

    
Done
  

    
So now we have two Bowie links - "I'm an alligator" and "Put your
raygun to my head" - in one song, Moonage Daydream!

Happy Trails
  

    
That is friggin' great. Bring that Raygun 'round!
  

    
Reminds me of Drugstore Truck Drivin' Man, on some recording or other, being
introduced as about Ronnie Ray-guns.
  

    
has anyone dug into the etymological connection between Sugaree and
shivaree?
  

    
From Hunter's liner notes for the re-issue of "Garcia" in the box set
"All Good Things":

"Sugaree was written soon after I moved from the Garcia household to
China Camp. People assume the idea was cadged from Elizabeth Cotten's
Sugaree, but, in fact, the song was originally titled 'Stingaree,'
which is a poisonous South Sea manta. The phrase 'just don't tell them
that you know me' was prompted by something said by an associate in my
pre-Dead days when my destitute circumstances found me fraternizing
with a gang of minor criminals. What he said, when departing, was:
'Hold your mud and don't mention my name.'

"Why change the title to 'Sugaree'? Just thought it sounded better
that way, made the addressee seem more hard-bitten to bear a
sugar-coated name. The song, as I imagined it, is addressed to a pimp.
And yes, I knew Libba's song, and did indeed borrow the new name from
her, suggested by the 'Shake it' refrain."

Interesting background. I did wonder if Hunter was pulling our leg:
"Stingaree" sounds so implausible (though it really is a manta ray - I
checked!). But I guess not.
  

    
Right, but I did once read that Sugaree per Lizabeth Cotton (Cotten?)
was dervied ultimately from shivaree which is I believe an south asian
or middle eastern word? I need to look this up (but where?).
  

    
At dictionary.com:

shiv7a7ree
n. Midwestern & Western U.S.
A noisy mock serenade for newlyweds.Also called regionally charivari,
belling, horning, serenade.

 [Alteration of charivari.]
Regional Note: Shivaree is the most common American regional form of
charivari, a French word meaning "a noisy mock serenade for newlyweds" and
probably deriving in turn from a Late Latin word meaning "headache." The
term, most likely borrowed from French traders and settlers along the
Mississippi River, was well established in the United States by 1805; an
account dating from that year describes a shivaree in New Orleans: "The
house is mobbed by thousands of the people of the town, vociferating and
shouting with loud acclaim.... [M]any [are] in disguises and masks; and all
have some kind of discordant and noisy music, such as old kettles, and
shovels, and tongs.... All civil authority and rule seems laid aside" (John
F. Watson). The word shivaree is especially common along and west of the
Mississippi River. Its use thus forms a dialect boundary running north-
south, dividing western usage from eastern. This is unusual in that most
dialect boundaries run east-west, dividing the country into northern and
southern dialect regions. Some regional equivalents are belling, used in
Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan; horning, from
upstate New York, northern Pennsylvania, and western New England; and
serenade, a term used chiefly in the South Atlantic states.
  

    
Thanks, Christian, for the tip! This is a leap forward in Sugaree
annotation!
  

    
I only know it because when I was in college there was a play put on
on campus called Shivaree (I obviously misremembered the geographical
source of the word) and somehow at the time it was connected for me
directly to Sugaree, though it would be nice to document that
connection too.

Stingaree is almost cognate with stingray, is it not?
  

    



Robert Reifenberg writes:



This song, it seems to me, captures the plea of a fugitive American slave to
his covert wife that she not reveal their relationship ("forget my name") to
the slave master. The appeal, therefore, is not so much for the benefit of
the escaped, but rather,  for the one who remains. The speaker seeks to spare
his wife punishment at the hands of the master once his absence is revealed.
Hunter's affinity for the dark side of American history is exemplified in
this simple verse which evokes profound imagery in the tradition of the
American folk song.  Hunter uses the imagined dialect of the time with
language such as "poor body"  and "my darlin." Reference to bringing the
"wagon round" connotes the common method of transporting slaves to market
where they would be bought or sold. She is being called out to go to market
by the "one last voice." The desperate tone is tempered by the hope that they
will see each other again after the "Jubilee" (emancipation), or "if that
Jubilee don't come" when they both escape and are "on the run."

Robert Reifenberg
Chicago
  

    

okay, as someone who has professionally studied the culture of the enslaved
populations in America's deep south, he's about dead-on.
  

    
Nice. But what about the part: 

You thought you was the cruel fool
Never could do no wrong
Had everything sewn up tight
How come you lay awake all night long?

That doesn't sound so benevolent, sounds kind of bitter and spiteful.
  

    

Here's waht Robert Hunter had to say in his liner notes for "Garcia" in the
boxed set "All Good Things":


> Sugaree was written soon after I moved from the Garcia household to China
> Camp. People assume the idea was caged from Elizabeth Cotton's ""Sugaree"
> but, in fact, the song was originally titled "Stingaree" which is a
> poisonous South Sea Manta. The phrase "just don't tell them that you know
> me" was prompted by something said by an associate from my pre-Dead days
> when my destitute circumstances found me fraternizing with a gang of minor
> criminals.  What he said, when departing, was: "Hold your mud and don't
> mention my name." Why change the title to "Sugaree"? Just thought it
> sounded better that way, made the addressee seem more hard bitten to bear a
> sugar coated name. The song, as I imagined it, is addressed to a pimp. And
> yes, I knew Libba's song and did indeed borrow the new name from her, sug-
> gested by the "Shake it" refrain.
  

    
This is one Garcia Hunter song I have always had trouble singing,
probably because I have not been able to crack the cipher. Even the
chorus is an enigma. What is Sugaree being exhorted to shake?

A leg (as in hurry up)? A fit of the blues? A money-maker? The hand of
the narrator (shake my hand, but treat me as though I am a stranger)?
Their head (in denial)?
  

    
I've often used this song to be self-critical, or to feel a needed
distancing from someone I am feeling entrenched with.  I have deluded myself
into denying my shortcomings and bad deeds (thought I had everything sewn up
tight) and yet have been left with a deep sense of unease and/or
breakthoughs of guilt (staying awake all night long).  I have gained much in
my life, yet sometimes feel so far from where I want to be (out in the
pouring rain, so to speak).  But there is always this voice...

Same thing when evaluating others, but when it is about someone else, I feel
somewhat judgemental, but most importantly, separated and divorced from
them.  Its kind of like Positively 4th Street in that regard.

The voice - always the hint/glimmer of redemption that soothes me.  Either
bringing me peace, or leading an adversary to enlightenment.
  

    
Pardon me for being crude and too literal, but doesn't a body at the
end of the rope, hanging, shake, shake, legs kickin', before that last
throttled gasp.

I might have writ the verse the same way, and meant it quite obvious,
cruel, and sad.

Hunter, perhaps, was more poetic.
  

    
Why would Hunter even try to compete with "Strange Fruit"
that song is untouchable.

Still????

The slave connection is there, isn't it?
Even thou I never would have thought of that myself.

I'm think'in more of the dance floor thing.
Hav'in fun dan'cin
not a care in the world
Don't come to me tommorow and ask me to bail you out.
  

    
Yeah, that's the way i thought.

Wow, Robert R's #14 there is mind-blowing for me, 
i'd never thought of that -- instantly gives me three-
dimensional vision of a song i've wondered about for
3 decades!  He hasn't got it quite right -- the wagon's
coming to bring her back to Master's house, where she 
"shakes it" for him, thinking she'll get great benefits
from that, thinking she's got it all figured out (as so
many pretty 19-yr-old ladies think they do!);  but the
singer foresees disaster from this behavior...  Can only
hope she'll come to her senses in time, and he'll see 
her again at the Jubilee or on the run.

Doesn't matter that Hunter wrote some different 
origin/interpretation....  What does HE know?  :-)
  

    
Beauty is in the eye's of the beholder :-)
  

    
Posted on behalf of Rob Weil:

David,
 
I would hardly call myself a "Deadhead" but I have truly come to
admire and enjoy the Grateful Dead's music in my older years.  Your
website is great to reference when you just cant seem to wrap your mind
around what Jerry is trying to say.  I am probably many years too late
to add my two-cents to your site but I would like to throw this out
there.
 
Is Sugaree a prostitute...???
 
"When they bring that wagon around,"  -could be the paddywagon coming
to arrest her for being a hooker
 
"When they come to call on you, drag your poor body down," -could
reference the men who are hiring her for the night
 
"Please forget you knew my name, my darlin Sugaree," -client
confidentiality-no names please
 
"How come you lay awake all night," -working girl doing her thing all
night long
 
"You know in spite of all you gained, still have to stand out in the
pouring rain, one last voice is calling you, and I guess its time you
go"  -she has made plenty of money hooking that night but maybe the
pimp wont let her go home yet, then one more lonely customer is calling
on her so she must go
 
It seems obvious to me that this song is about a hooker named Sugaree.
 There are no posts to the Annotated Sugaree about it, so I thought
I'd share my thoughts.
 
ROB WEIL
  

    
Three years later, I agree.