Dead Songs in Depth

    
Caution (Do Not Stop On Tracks)
w&m: Grateful Dead
AGDL: http://arts.ucsc.edu/gdead/agdl/caut.html
LASF: http://www.whitegum.com/songfile/CAUTION.HTM
  

    
Caution (Do Not Stop On Tracks) 
Lyrics: Grateful Dead
Music: Grateful Dead

Copyright Ice Nine Publishing; used by permission.

I went down one day
I went down to see a gypsy woman just one day, yes I did
I wanna find out
What's wrong with me and my baby
We ain't been getting down like we used to do
I mean it's pretty good now
But there was a time when it didn't work out too well
I went down to see this gypsy woman, you understand
And I told her my story
I told her what was going on
And she turned to me and she said
All you need
All you gotta have
Just a touch, that's all you gotta have
Just a touch of mojo hand
And it feels pretty good
  

    
This is from Barry Barnes book "Everything I Know About Business I
Learned From The Grateful Dead":

"As the band continued to play their grueling sets at the In Room,
they noticed that the trains on nearby tracks rolled by at consistent
times every night. Rather than waiting for the trains to pass, or
trying to drown out the noise, they chose to play along with the rumble
of the trains. Within a few nights, they took that train noise,
combined it with a fragment of the song "Mystic Eyes," by Them (whose
lead singer was Van Morrison) and created "Caution (Do Not Stop On
Tracks)." (pp13-14)

The link to "Mystic Eyes" has been well documented, but I don't think
I'd seen the reference to playing along with passing trains before.
  

    
Fantastic! I love that.
  

    
Barry got that from McNally's book (p 92 of the hardcover), "A Long Strange
Trip."
  

    
Ah! I hadn't spotted that.
  

    
From a Jas Obrecht interview with Weir:

That could well have been. We, late in ’65, got into the studio. Ah,
wait a minute – come to think of it, we played something that was
pretty loose. We put down a track – I don’t think it was ever released
anywhere – it was called “Caution (Do Not Stop on Tracks).” Or we just
referred to it as “Caution.” That was sort of an ironic name for the
tune, because caution was anything but what the tune was about. And it
was just, I guess, our loose interpretation of the ride – and THE RIDE
in capital letters.

http://jasobrecht.com/bob-weir-psychedelic-san-francisco-birth-grateful-dead/