I was sitting in my
5th floor shoebox the other day... looking out at the
alps and listening to the
JGB. When after the show ends a filler song comes up... "So Many Roads"
Now I was at the
Grateful Dead show when this song was first played, just as I was at the last show it was played at (which was the last
Dead show ever 7/5/95
Soldiers Field Chicago) and this song, Or so I always thought, was one of the better, moodier tunes penned by
Hunter/
Garcia in their twilight years.
The version the Dead played that night in
July of
'95 made me cry,
swear to god it did and I also swear that right then and there I felt like it was
the end of the
long strange trip, which it was.
So up in my shoebox with the sun blazing in and me drinking a
cafe I was reminded how powerful some words can be and how they can bring you back, back in rhyme to the time and place, to the very moment and it's sights, smells, emotions and, well you get the gist.
"So Many Roads" - words by
Robert Hunter music by
Jerry Garcia Reprinted with permissions copyright
Ice Nine Publishing
Thought I heard a
blackbird singin'
up on
Bluebird Hill
Call me a
whinin' boy if you will
Born
where the sun don't shine
and I don't deny my name
Got no place to go, ain't that a shame?
Thought I heard that
KC whistle
moanin' sweet & low
Thought I heard that KC when she blow
Down where the sun don't shine
Underneath the
Kokomo
Whinin' boy -- got no place else to go
So many roads I tell you
So many roads I know
So many
roads --
so many roads --
Mountain high,
river wide
So many roads to ride
So many roads
So many roads
Thought I heard a
jug band playin'
"If you don't -- who else will?"
from over on the far side of the hill
All I know the sun don't shine,
the rain refuse to fall
and you don't seem to hear me when I call
Wind inside & the wind outside
Tangled in the
window blind
Tell me why you treat me so
unkind
Down where the sun don't shine
Lonely and I call your name
No place left to go, ain't that a shame?
So many roads
I tell you
New York to
San Francisco
All I want is one
to
take me home
From
the high road to the low
So many roads I know
So many roads - So many roads
From the land of the
midnight sun
where
ice blue roses grow
'long those roads of
gold and silver snow
Howlin' wide or moanin low
So many roads I know
So many roads to ease my soul
First performance: Sunday,
February 22,
1992 at the
Coliseum Arena,
Oakland,
California.