Little-Known Factoids About Well-Known Grateful Dead Lyrics
For the casual fan of the Grateful Dead, it’s probably one of the more easily overlooked complexities of the band’s repertoire that a good portion of well-known lyrics contain a variety of little known anecdotes and clever references spanning everything from Greek mythology and timeless nursery rhymes to classic literature. This is attributable to the fact that in addition to being the only non-performing member of a band ever inducted to the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame and co-writer of the majority of the band’s best material (as well as a bit of Bob Dylan’s), longtime Dead lyricist Robert Hunter (born Robert Burns) was a well studied poet, storyteller and literary translator.
With entries based on and culled from The American Book of the Dead: The Definitive Grateful Dead Encyclopedia by Oliver Trager, let’s take a look at a sampling of some of the best references and anecdotes from the Robert Hunter songbook.
Reuben and Cerise – Reuben and Cerise has been a fan favorite since day the early days with JGB for its pleasant music and singalong lyrics, but Jerry Garcia used to joke about the sinister difficulty of remembering the sheer amount of words and lack of repeated verses and choruses. It’s a stealthily complicated tune for that reason, but what’s perhaps most interesting about the song is that the story actually tells a modernized version of the Greek myth where Orpheus journeys to the underworld to retrieve the body of his love Eurydice. Specifically, the Hunter version actually takes from a 1960s film called Black Orpheus, which retells the original myth set Rio at Carnival, but this one is set at Carnival in New Orleans.
Re: He’s Gone, it should be noted that Mickey’s father wasn’t “gone” by death; in fact he ran off with over $150,000 of the band’s money in 1970. So while the song is often used/looked at as a tribute to the fallen, in the original context of Lenny Hart it’s not.
I still think Robert Burns most popular song is Auld Ange Syne. But what do I know?
In Hunter’s version of Lady of Carlisle, the only thing left to the listener is “you decide if he was wise.” The sailor gets the lady, “the lady fairly leapt at him. That’s how it stands today.”
A lot of Hunters lyrics had references to card games (mainly poker) using different poker hands he drew, as an analogy to life’s situations.
Very informative blog, I found it thru a Google search. I saved your site & I will absolutelyreturn! :)
~Very cool. I have always wondered about the “We can share the women, we can share the wine. Even in the era of free love it seemed a little…gross? And out-a place.cjf
I’m not sure how I got here but I’m glad I did. It’s not every day that I learn things I never knew about the Dead. For those interested in Terrapin lyrics, check out Robert Hunter’s Jack O’Roses album. It has the original and very long Terrapin, which links a number of other Dead songs into a larger story. A bit hard to find, though!
Dark Star also takes from a T.S. Eliot poem called “the love song of J. Alfred Prufrock” with the first line of dark star being “shall we go then, you and I”