China Doll (Originally titled "The Suicide Song.")
Lyrics: Robert Hunter
Music: Jerry Garcia
Reprinted with permissions: copyriot Ice nine Publishing
First live performance February 9, 1973 at Roscoe Maples Pavilion, Stanford Univeristy, California.
A pistol shot at five o'clock
The bells of heaven ring
Tell me what you done it for
No I won't tell you a thing
Yesterday I begged you
Before I hit the ground
All I leave behind me
Is only what I found
If you can abide it
Let the hurdy gurdy play
Stranger ones have come by here
Before they flew away
I will not condemn you
Nor yet would I deny
I would ask the same of you
But failing, will not die
Take up your china doll
It's only fractured
Just a little nervous from the fall
La la la la la la la
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Grateful Dead Recordings
Date Album
studio 1974 From The Mars Hotel
29 Dec 1977 Dick's Picks Vol 10
Sep/Oct 1980 Reckoning
Other Recordings
Date Album Recorded By
1991 Deadicated Suzanne Vega
1995 Monday Prayer To Tunkashila Pat Mallinger
1996 Music Of The Grateful Dead David Murray Octet
1999 Terrapin Joe Gallant & Illuminati
2000 Crazy Fingers The Grass Is Dead