Grateful Dead

By David Dodd

Here’s the plan—each week, I will blog about a different song, focusing, usually, on the lyrics, but also on some other aspects of the song, including its overall impact—a truly subjective thing. Therefore, the best part, I would hope, would not be anything in particular that I might have to say, but rather, the conversation that may happen via the comments over the course of time—and since all the posts will stay up, you can feel free to weigh in any time on any of the songs! With Grateful Dead lyrics, there’s always a new and different take on what they bring up for each listener, it seems.(I’ll consider requests for particular songs—just private message me!)

“Oh Babe It Ain’t No Lie”

Long-time friend and lyrics enthusiast Mary Eisenhart requested this one—Elizabeth Cotten’s song “Oh Babe It Ain’t No Lie.”

I’ve loved this song, too, since first hearing it on Reckoning. Its deceptive simplicity, beautiful melody, and somewhat mysterious words drew me in. As happened often over the course of several decades of listening to the Dead, I found myself wanting to know more—more about the song, about the meaning of the words, and about the source of the song. And so, as usual, I was led quite readily into several directions at once.

First, I noticed the connection to the Elizabeth Cotten credited on my Fred Neil album, Fred Neil, as the co-composer of Neil’s version of “I’ve Got a Secret (Didn’t We Shake Sugaree?).” And then I tracked down the seminal recording of Cotten singing her songs, Folksongs and Instrumentals with Guitar, on the Folkways label, first issued in 1958. There was that amazing voice, singing over a trademark sound of finger-picked guitar of her own invention (she played left-handed, upside down, which lent a distinct pattern to her picking). Her version is a bit faster than than the Dead’s. I’ve always wished that I could somehow find a list of the LPs Garcia checked out from the library when he was pursuing his own folk music education. I can easily imagine that he found all of Elizabeth Cotten’s Folkways output, among the many he devoured, along with the Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music (Folkways, 1952).

(The fact that Garcia mentioned getting Folkways albums out of the public library has always fed my own desire, as a librarian, to make sure that as many different musical avenues as possible are represented in the library collections for which I’ve been responsible. It’s too easy to overlook the less-popular music made by real people around the world in favor of music in high demand by a spoon-fed public…)

The song debuted in the Dead’s repertoire during their Warfield run on September 25, 1980, and was then played ten times over the course of the acoustic shows at the Warfield and Radio City Music Hall runs. After that, it made three more appearances, in one-off situations such as an acoustic set at the Mill Valley Recreation Center, or in the Netherlands for an acoustic set, and finally at Marin Vets, on March 28, 1984, in a performance that kicked off the second set, without Weir and Mydland onstage.

However, I know the song had been “around” for much longer than that. It appears on the studio outtakes from Garcia’s Reflections album, as released in the All Good Things box set. And personal interviews with Garcia’s circle of acquaintances in Palo Alto in the early 1960s make it explicitly clear that he was familiar with the work of Libba Cotten. So I expect Garcia had performed the song many times during his folkie period, and it may have been in the Jug Band repertoire. Anyone out there have information on this period for the song? I’d love to hear it.

Cotten’s lyrics are enigmatic. However, we have the benefit of a transcription from her introduction during a live performance of the song, as cited in Alex Allan’s “Grateful Dead Lyric and Song Finder”:

Elizabeth Cotten's original version (which Jerry follows pretty closely) can be found on the Smithsonian/Folkways recording of her work "Freight Train and Other North Carolina Folk Songs and Tunes." Mike Seeger's liner notes say "An unusual blues sung around the Chapel Hill area." In his notes to the song in the "Old-Time String Band Songbook" he similarly says: "A country blues that Elizabeth Cotten learned around her home near Chapel Hill, North Carolina."

But Elizabeth Cotten herself indicated she wrote it--in particular the verse "One old woman ...". This is a (slightly edited) transcription from a video of her performing the song (posted to rec.music.dylan by Itsuko Nishimura):

"They asked me to do 'Oh Babe It Ain't No Lie'. That's the song I wrote about a lady who lived next door to us. My mother had to go to work and this lady would teach children. She told my mother something: made my mother punish me. They hurt me all the day. 'Cause I know what she told my mum was not true.

And now, they both dead, and they don't know. And don't hear--I don't reckon they do? (laugh) You think they do? Anyway, I feel free to explain and sing it!"

Isn’t that wonderful? She wrote the lyrics to get even with a mean neighbor lady. (Taylor Swift seems to have taken a page from Libba Cotten’s songbook—just listen to “Mean.”)

What unexpected and wonderful corners of music have you explored as the result of hearing something amazing performed by the Dead? Have you been inspired to learn an instrument? Study music? Write your doctoral dissertation? I think the musical exploration and adventure factor is a big one among Deadheads.

I would have to agree with Ms. Cotten: “This life I’m living is mighty high.”