Dead Songs in Depth

    

I heard "chain" in the Europe '72 performances.
  

    
Pretty sure I used "chain" in the Annotated Lyrics book...of course, I
don't have a copy handy at this moment.
  

    
Maybe he meant "change".
  

    
David - you used "range" in the book!
  

    
Aha. That's what I get for using Box of Rain as my authoritative text.
Always loved the rhyme with "chain."
  

    
The not-quite-rhyme. The unexpected end to the couplet. 
  

    
there are others of the heteronyms or whatever they're called.

things like how in Black Peter the lyric "See here how everything"
also suggests "See, hear how everything" and many others like that.
Things that are one transitive step away from a more common or likely
or expected lyric.
  

    


John Ryan writes:

I believe Ice Nine refers to Kurt Vonnegut's great book Cat's Cradle, in
which a strange, brilliant scientist invents an ultimate weapon, more deadly
than atomic weapons, after looking at how cannonballs are stacked. Is this
drawing too long a bow for 'their walls are made of cannonballs, their motto
is don't tread on me'?
  

    
Possibly, yes. 

Of course, Garcia was a fan of Vonnegut and optioned the film rights
to 'The Sirens of Titan'. I suspect Hunter likes Vonnegut too, although
I don't know that for a fact. The GD publishing company is Ice Nine. 

I think that those lines in UJB refer to a certain kind of patriotism
that values enemies more highly than friends.

When we were looking for a boarding school for my daughter, Hannah, I
applied a "Vonnegut Test". I would check how many Vonnegut books were
on the shelves in the library. Any less than six titles was a fail. I
guess these days one might just check for a library.
  

    

You may be right about that.


> I think that those lines in UJB refer to a certain kind of patriotism that
> values enemies more highly than friends.

Well said.
  

    
I never heard it that way. I heard it as a plain sort of statement of
toughness and resilience.
  

    
I think the key is that the song is full of "you" and "me" but in
those lines it is "their".
  

    
I have always heard that line as a lemonade-from-lemons approach to taking
the challenges life gives you and building from that an internal structure
of strength and self-empowerment and protection.  The line introduces the
band so I took it as a reflection of the ethos of the band and its
followers.  That is the "they" in the song, to me.  You and me should go see
them by the riverside.
  

    
Interesting, I will give that one a bit of a run in the aging
biocomputer. I don't quite get how the line introduces the band, though
I guess it is linked through the chorus structure.
  

    
It is the last line before the first "Come hear uncle John's band" line
which is what I meant by it introduces the band.
  

    
I think "Come hear Uncle John's Band" is an exhortation to avoid the sort of
people who buid walls of cannonballs and yell "Don't tread on me!"
  

    
Oooh - opposite interpretation but makes sense and I like it.
  

    
That is what I have been hearing too. I had that impression long
before "Don't tread on me" was adopted by the tea partiers.
  

    
Being a furriner, RObin, you may not be aware that the Tea Party recycled
that phrase from the American Revolution.
  

    
Yes, knew that (hence "adopted"). Probably, as a furriner, I am able
to more easily see negative aspects of a phrase like that.
  

    
Posted on behalf of Jonathan Siegel:

I was reading a lovely biography of US Grant last evening (by Jean
Edward Smith), and came across references to a minor General named John
Sedgwick, affectionately known as "Uncle John".  I have long thought
the lyrics for the song made repeated references to the Civil War - the
"don't tread on me" bit - though originating in the Revolution - was
an important motto for the Confederate troops. ... with "walls are
built of cannonballs" and other allusions.  I believe it was written at
about the time of the Dead's early associations with The Band - who
were on and off writing pieces related to the Civil War. (Garcia's
riffs including Main Ten predate the lyrics by what, 6 months?). 
Sedgwick died at Spotsylvania in 1864, as Union troops were finally
advancing on Lee. As he stood safely at a great distance from the
Confederate line, Sedgwick turned to his troops and said that the
sharpshooters 'couldn't hit an elephant from this distance'. Just as he
uttered those words, he was taken down by a bullet to the head. ("when
life looks like easy street, there is danger at your door"). He was
apparently a real friend to both Grant and Meade.  Really even "the
rising tide" part could easily enough be an allusion to the Confederacy
as a whole.  The song began as almost a dirge - a ballad the first few
performances, before becoming more up-tempo and perhaps being
autobiographical about the Dead, and the metaphorical dangers they
faced... 
  

    
Elvis Presley's mother, Gladys, was known as an ace buck dancer in
her younger days. It was a shuffling kind of dance where the dancer
beat out a fast, complex rhythm on their thigh. On the fantastic
documentary I just watched, Elvis and Me, narrated by Joanna Lumley
(Ab Fab and The Avengers), one of the Tupelo folk she interviews
attributed Elvis' first class sense of rhythm to buck dancing
Gladys.
  

    
I haven't seen a plug for Uncle John also being John McClaren,
designer of Golden Gate Park, so an Uncle in that he provided a
place for the band to play.
  

    
https://www.dead.net/deadcast/workingmans-dead-50-uncle-johns-band