Dead Songs in Depth

    
We have already seen some gems come up in this discussion (smile,
smile, smile). Are you getting a lot of new insights as a result of the
book coming out?
  

    
I had some insights into Miss 1/2 back at the time of the recent
flooding.  And from life here on *a* Big River, meaning the Ohio.
I'd have to reconstruct my epiphany, but all of the sudden a
very complicated and confusing lyric made a whole lot more sense,
in my mind anyway.  Something along the lines of Mississippi not
being *the* Mississippi, but rather a metaphor for Big River.
And Rio Grande not being *the* Rio Grand, but *a* Rio Grand,
spanish for Big River.  Pronounce Rye O Grand near this "big"
river.
  

    
Two couples i know have a new 
  

    
....hmm, what happened? Anyway, two couples i know have a new holiday
gift. Thanks, David! I'm surprised by Hunter saying he associates Row
Jimmy with New Mexico, a state i don't associate a lot with rowing,
aside from the Rio Grande( which, interestingly, is in the last line of
Half Step, the song which comes right before Row Jimmy on Wake of the
Flood). I've always had images of the area by the Mississippi, or
somewhere in the South, when hearing the tune. 
  

    
Thanks, jstrahl!
I know--that about "Row Jimmy" does seem odd, but the way water runs through
so many of the _Wake of the Flood_ songs ties it all together, as you point
out. I just had an email today about the Rio Grande-o line, pointing out
that it translates as Big River, so maybe it wasn't the literal Rio Grande.
This is the kind of stuff I get to deal with day in day out! At least six
interesting emails today--it seems to be picking up again in volume, what
with the book coming out. Now I have to find time to update the website!
Phew.
  

    
David,

I've read where you said that the book is not designed to interpret
songs or provide meaning for the listener. 

My mind responded to the Sweet Jane reference in "Truckin" as having
something to do with the Lou Reed song. I knew it likely was not the
case, but that's where I went. Knowing that Hunter had in mind a
toothpaste jingle now takes the line out of my mindset with its baggage
and puts it back into his.
 
In some cases, knowing exactly what the phrase meant or the literary
allusion was might keep a mind from wandering, so to speak.  


By way of weak example, "He's Gone" for so many years was clearly
about my friend Tom. How could it not since the song perfectly
described my best friend. Then I read about Mickey's dad and that mess.
So now instead of thinking about Tom, I think about Mickey's dad and
Tom. 


What happens when one of your notes provides a listener with details
that are too concrete to ignore? Can such background be distracting?

And thanks again for the wonderful effort. It is a treasure.
  

    
Would the timing fit Lou Reed's Sweet Jane? Truckin' was done in '70,
i don't remember hearing Lou Reed's tune till at least '73, but then i
didn't hear about him at all till then (Walk on the Wild Side), wasn't
at all in the Velvet mindset back in the '60s (nor the Dead, for that
matter).
  

    
That is a great point about the concrete examples potentially detracting
from where the songs take our mind as a result of our individual
perspective.  I have been reading David's website for years and I have found
that even though the new knowledge adds to the experience, over time, my
imagination takes the helm once again and adrift I go.  I think that is one
of the most beautiful things about great songs - their ability to perfectly
mean so many very different things to so many people.  I have encouraged
David to write a second book - the Interpreted Grateful Dead Lyrics where
the focus is on a wide variety of interpretations for each song.  Sure they
may have an official "meaning" or not, but there is clearly this other whole
dimension.
  

    
Great topic, I've got to rush out and get the book immediately.
BTW, Sweet Jane is from Loaded - 1970, so it fits.  Or maybe Lou and
Hunter took inspiration from the same muse, tooth paste or something
more obscure.
  

    
>>>I have encouraged David to write a second book - the Interpreted
Grateful Dead Lyrics where the focus is on a wide variety of
interpretations for each song.  Sure they may have an official
"meaning" or not, but there is clearly this other whole dimension.<<<

This is a great idea. There's a Hunter quote somewhere (perhaps it's
in <tnf>'s book) about how folks would come up to him with all sorts of
imaginative spins on his lyrics which were often more interesting, he
said, than what he had intended.

I don't know who "Black Peter" is about, if anyone specific, but if I
found out that Hunter meant it about someone he knew it would not
diminish at all the strong connection I always feel the song makes with
the death of my mother. The song's "life goes on" ethic, rendered in
gorgeous poetry, is the perfect bromide in the wake of the death of a
loved one. It's my favorite Dead song of all even though I still water
up about half the times I hear it. 
  

    
As I typed that another question came to mind:

David, have you considered a project like this with Dylan's lyrics?
  

    

"Black Peter" is the song Patti Smith and her band recorded the night Jerry
died.  I was fortunate to get permission to use it on "Stolen Roses: Songs of
the Grateful Dead."
  

    
It is an amazing, raggedy rendition. It is a treasure.

Um, I don't mind knowing different interpetrations of Hunter's lyrics,
the images and metaphors. There can often be so many, it's like
rummaging through a drawer full of old jewelery, sometimes finding just
the right gem. Sometimes, of course, I've just invented my own, and
that is exactly what the song meant at that time for my emotions and
experience.
  

    
What a wonderful series of posts! I remain hopeful that things aren't
allowed to get too concrete--don't want to fix that hole and stop anyone's
mind from wandering where it will go... (Now THERE's an annotated lyrics
project I'd like to see. And as to Dylan--that would require an editorial
board, but I think it's worth doing, yes. So: Beatles and Dylan next.)

I've likened the overall effect of the annotated lyrics project, at least in
terms of the Dead's lyrics and the listeners, to the kind of light shed on
things by the mirrorball in Winterland. Brief illuminations that don't
really light up the whole picture, and whose effects won't necessarily last.
So yes, even though I know now intellectually that Hunter had a toothpaste
jingle in mind, that will never really overshadow my own personal image that
is called up when I hear the lines about Sweet Jane. (And by the way, there
are so many sweet Janes ((marijuana, the movie with the title about whatever
happened to Baby Jane, etc. etc.)) that I will never be able to track them
all, I fear.)

The Interpreted Grateful Dead Lyrics. I see this as an endless project best
held, for the time being, as a web-based effort. And in fact, David Gans,
Alex Allan and I established the deadsongs.vue conference as a platform for
just that sort of effort--the collective wisdom about the songs, including
what they mean to you! Take a look.
  

    
Great idea re the platform for interpretations. Interesting to see
Black Peter interpreted as "life goes on". I always saw it as "my own
death seems so ordinary", and maybe allusions to race and African
Americans being hidden from view,even in death.
  

    


http://www.well.com/deadsongs
  

    
It is amazing to see how even the annotations themselves can lend themselves
to inspiring new interpretations.  Black Peter, for instance.  From the
annotation, it appears that a Black Peters carry bundles of switches with
which they beat naughty children. Reading that I think of the man laying on
his death bed beating himself for his misdeeds in life.
  

    
Black Peter - oh my... for years and years, I always envisioned it a synanon
for salt peter - now hear me out, please...  :-)  I'll get you there, as odd
as this might be...  but the song and death - for a teenager, at least this
teenager, was much like having to deal with puberty while taking salt
peter...

later, after seeing a wonderfully short lived play... black peter becuase
the coal miner catching a lungfull of the stuff years and years of
coal-mining would produce...                                       ^became
  

    
Somehow it never occurred to me for for years that Black Peter was
African-American. It seems like an obvious enough interpretation in
retrospect but I guess I always interpreted it as meaning "low in
spirits," "dark in mood," etc.

A Blue Peter is a flag signalling it's time to board a ship as it
sails on the next tide. I wonder if a Black Peter is also a flag?

And that Dutch Black Peter (Swarte Piet or something like that)
accompanying Santa (Sinterklas?) is often associated with the devil.
Or, maybe, de debbil.
  

    
An appropriate discussion for Christmastime! 

I had to go look into the question of the Blue Peter vs. potential
Black Peter as a flag. Nothing that I can find in a cursory look
around. 

One index element that I wanted for the book but which was scotched by
the publisher was a set of motif indexes, where I would group
references in the song lyrics to colors, numbers, animals, flora,
personal names, geographical names, and so on. "Blue" and "Black" were
pretty heavy in their respective numbers of references, as I recall.
Ask me about the indexes sometime.
  

    

Are they online?
  

    
No, they're not--maybe that would be good, but unfortunately, since
they got quashed in production, the page numbers won't correspond to
reality without a good deal of work. But let me think about how I might
do that...
  

    
> "Black Peter" is the song Patti Smith and her band recorded the night 
Jerry died.

>  It is an amazing, raggedy rendition. It is a treasure.


And the backstory is, Patti's then-lover Oliver Ray called me from the 
studio that night, told me Patti wanted to do the song, and had me dictate 
the lyrics!  It's a lovely recording.

David, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on Hunter's evolution from
Joycean psychedelicist to Old Western storyteller circa 1969-1970.  It's
quite a leap across the ol' Rio Grandio to go from coppertone bodhis and
hallelujah hatracks to incisive little portraits of cowboys in the desert.  
Wha' happen?
  

    
An early-ish interview with Hunter (BAM magazine, I want to say 1977,
and I want to say the interviewer was Gans, but my reference books are
at home...) had him saying something about how he felt that the
"glittery image-bank" lyrics had become old hat to him, and how he
could toss off a "China Cat" or a "Dark Star" in no time, but that it
was a challenge to write the character songs. 

I do think there's a link between the two (only connect...) types of
lyrics. Both proceed from a psychedelic mindset: "we're all One" and
similar revelatory truths. The psychedlic lyrics work to provide
connections between unlikely things: "hallelujah hatrack" (from "The
Eleven") is a perfect example: divine and mundane side-by-side. Then
look at "Wharf Rat," for instance, and the connection forged is between
the listener and the unlikely object of our empathy: a street person
panhandling for spare change. Hunter is making connections, letting us
in on the big secret that we're all one. 

Just my thoughts, though... 

I'd argue that there's a third (or possibly fourth) era of Hunter
lyrics in which he becomes more inclined to dispense advice and wisdom.
"Foolish Heart," "Days Between," "Touch of Grey," and so on.
  

    
just love the way Me & My Uncle (I think) rides up out of the middle
of The Other One inside the Dark Star from the Harding Theatre show in
1971.