Grateful Dead & Nursery Rhymes

Grateful Goose?

The Grateful Dead's Lyrics and Nursery Rhymes

By

David Dodd

University of Colorado at Colorado Springs

Consider the evidence:

Picture Bob Weir up there screaming those age-old lines: "Rain, rain, go away, "and "Ashes, ashes, all fall down."

Turn up Aoxomoxoa and catch the words: "Heigh, ho, the carrion crow, folderolderiddle" from "Mountains of the Moon;" "Is it all fall down, is it all go under?" from "Doin' That Rag." And if "St. Stephen" isn't a perfect example (along with "Ramble on Rose") of nursery rhyme format, I don't know what is.

Nursery rhymes have contributed to the lyrics of popular song since long before the Grateful Dead. "Mairzy Doats" is an example from the 1930's; "Good Golly Miss Molly" is another example. Doubtless there are tens, if not hundreds more such examples. And the trend continues to the present, having been used since by the Beatles quite often, noticeably in the "Abbey Road" chant "One two three four five six seven, all good children go to heaven."

For an excellent study of the use of nursery rhymes in popular music, see Popular Music Perspectives , by B. Lee Cooper.

There are quite a large number of collections of nursery rhymes, and the best are Iona and Peter Opie's The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes , and The Annotated Mother Goose . So if these sketchy notes intrigue you at all, go find these books--they make surprisingly fun reading.

Two things become clear as you read books about these rhymes. First, they cannot be dated. They are ancient, and may have been collected as recently as a hundred years ago. Second, they are difficult to interpret. Scholars have, over the years, written lengthy conjectural articles on the possible meanings of just about every rhyme, and can never seem to agree on any single interpretation.

Aside from the songs already noted, here are some more examples of lyrics showing evidence of nursery rhyme influence:

"When I was a little boy,

My mammy kept me in,

But now I am a great big boy

Fit to serve the king" To which compare: "When I was a young man,

I needed good luck.

But I'm a little bit older now

And I know my stuff." --"Sing My Blues Away" and

To which compare: and "As I was a-walking

by Westminster Bridge..." To which compare: "As I was walking 'round Grosvenor Sqaure..." --"Scarlet Begonias" "Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross

To see a fine lady upon a white horse

Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes

And she shall have music wherever she goes" To which compare: "Rings on her fingers and bells on her shoes

And I knew without asking she was into the blues." --"Scarlet Begonias"

To which compare:

As an interesting footnote to this last rhyme, its source is apparently a children's version of the May Ridings, a customary celebration of spring where two or three ride a horse simultaneously, and which has been identified by folklorists as an outgrowth of fertility rites connected with the Teutonic goddess Hertha, so that the lady in the rhyme is actually of divine descent, and her bells and attendant music are part of her worship.

Familiar from "Blues for Allah":

"Monday's child is fair of face,

Tuesday's child is full of grace,

Wednesday's child is full of woe,

Thursday's child has far to go,

Friday's child is loving and giving,

Saturday's child works hard for his living,

And the child that is born on the Sabbath day

Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay."

"If all the world were paper,

And all the sea were ink,"

"If the spirit's sleeping,

Then the flesh is ink"

"Ring-a-ring-a-roses,

A pocket full of posies,

Ashes, Ashes, all fall down."

Deadheads and Barlow may be interested to learn that the rhyme was previously used in the context of comment on nuclear capabilities for destruction in a rhyme published in 1949 in the Observer:

"Ring-a-ring-o'-geranium,

A Pocket full of urnaium,

Hiro, shima, all fall down!"

And one final example, pointing to the counting rhyme in "The Eleven"

"Twelve huntsmen with horn and hounds,

Hunting over other men's grounds,

Eleven ships sailing o'er the main,

Some bound for France and some for Spain,

Ten comets in the sky,

Some low and some high;

Nine peacocks in the air,

I wonder how they all came there,

I don't know nore I don't care; ["Ripple?!"]

Eight joiners in joiner's hall,

Working with their tools and all;

Seven lobsters in a dish,

As fresh as any heart could wish;

Six beetles against a wall,

Close by an old woman's apple stall;

Five puppies by our dog Ball,

Who daily for their breakfast call;

Four horses stuck in a bog,

Three monkeys tied to a clog,

Two pudding ends would choke a dog,

With a gaping wide-mouthed waddling frog."