Posting Randon Song Lericks in Gd They Gonna Thing Im Crazt Again

"I know this vocal it own't never gonna end"

The Annotated "Ramble On Rose"

An installment in The Annotated Grateful Expressionless Lyrics.

--David Dodd
Inquiry Associate, Music Dept., Academy of California, Santa Cruz.

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Copyright discover

An assay of the lyric is available.

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"Ramble on Rose"

Words by Robert Hunter; music by Jerry Garcia
("Ramble On Rose" composed and written by Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia. Reproduced by organisation with Ice Ix Publishing Company, Inc. (ASCAP)).

Simply like Jack the Ripper
Just like Mojo Hand
Just like Baton Sunday
In a shotgun ragtime ring
Just similar New York City,
But like Jericho
Pace the halls and climb the walls
Get out when they accident

(Chorus)
Did you say your name was
Ramblin' Rose?
Ramble on, baby
Settle downwards easy
Constitutional on, Rose

Just like Jack and Jill
Mama told the sailor
One heat up and one cool downwards
Leave nothin' for the tailor
But like Jack and Jill
My Papa told the jailer
One get upward and ane come downwards
Do yourself a favor

(Chorus)

(Span)

I'm gonna sing you a hundred verses in ragtime
I know this song it ain't never gonna end
I'm gonna march you upward and downward the local county line
Take you to the leader of the ring

Just like Crazy Otto
Just like Wolfman Jack
Sittin' plush with a majestic flush
Aces dorsum to back
Just like Mary Shelley
But like Frankenstein
Clank your chains and count your change
Endeavor to walk the line

(Repeat chorus and bridge)

Goodbye, Mama and Papa
Goodbye, Jack and Jill
The grass own't greener, the vino ain't sweeter
either side of the hill.

Did you say your name was
Ramblin' Rose?
Ramble on, baby
Settle downwardly easy
Ramble on, Rose

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Analysis and Estimation

PROSODY

The song lyric is structured in trochaic rhythm, with paired verses consisting of ii lines of triameter, one of quadrameter, and another of triameter, for a total of thirteen strong anxiety (!) per verse. The verses' rhyming design is A, B, C, [C], B; with the bracketed [C] being an optional internal rhyme: halls, walls; chains/change; and plush/flush. In that location are seven verses, with the first vi in pairs. The final verse stands alone, carrying into the final chorus.

The chorus' rhythm stays in trochees for the first line of five beats, and so switches to dactylic quadrameter for the second line, and a punchy single dactylic line of two beats to wind up. The chorus contains no rhymes. It is repeated 3 times.

The bridge is less easy to pin downwards, moving from iambic to trochaic to dactylic rhythms. It similarly dispenses with any firm rhyming pattern, relying solely on the assonances contained in "ragtime" and "county line." The bridge is repeated twice.

INTERPRETATION

Perhaps the primary bespeak made by this vocal is that a lyric doesn't need a firm interpretation in society to be evocative. Depending on the listener, this song could be about American music itself, or about a carte game, or most a man saying and then long to an young lover. At least three Jacks are invoked: Jack the Ripper, Jack (of Jack and Jill), and Wolfman Jack, which could hands be construed as constituting a poker hand. Can Pan Alley, the Blues, Ragtime, Spirituals, Folk, Nursery rhymes, Country & Western, and Stone and Scroll are all brought into the song, as noted in subsequent links, below. And the narrator seems to be addressing a lover who is determined to leave him on the subject of growing up, of settling down, of not always trying to detect greener grass elsewhere.

How could one person be "just like" then many varied characters and situations? Look at any one person's life, and you will find the reply. In that location is no blackness and white answer to this song, just as at that place is no black and white answer to the questions of life itself. Hunter'due south hyperbolic utilise of the "simply like" simile is a way of granting u.s.a. the freedom to notice our metaphors where we may, depending on the state of affairs.

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"Ramble on Rose"

Recorded on

• Europe '72
  • This version included on What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been
• Dick's Picks, vol. 11

It was introduced on Tuesday, Oct xix, 1971 at the Northrop Auditorium at the Academy of Minnesota in Minneapolis. The prove is noteworthy for a number of reasons. First performances at the show, besides "Constitutional on Rose," included "Comes a Fourth dimension," "Mexicali Dejection," "Saturday Night" (on a Tuesday!), and "Tennessee Jed." It was also Keith Godchaux'southward first prove. "Constitutional On Rose" occupied the #2 spot in the second set up, following "Truckin'," and preceding "Me and Bobby McGee." Since then, information technology has remained in the repertoire, placing 38th in frequency of performance as of 1986.

( DeadBase)

Numbering the vocal amidst his favorites, Robert Hunter stated in an interview in Relix (vol 5, no. 2, p. 25) that "Ramble on Rose is a particular favorite--there'southward something funny well-nigh that vocal."

In Gans' Conversations..., Hunter says:

"I call back "Constitutional On Rose" is the closest to complete whimsy I've come up with. I only saturday down and wrote numerous verses that tied around "Did you say..."" --p. 28

Blair Jackson, in Grateful Expressionless: the Music Never Stopped, had this to say:

"Nearly of Garcia's songs from this period feature unusual rhythms that make them difficult to peg in a specific musical genre. 'Constitutional on Rose,' written around a whimsical, completely undecipherable bit of nonsense poetry past Hunter, has a beat that sounds like a slowed-downwards shuffle with every other beat taken out, and bits of old-time American popular music thrown in." (Jackson p. 135)

An interview with Garcia in The Rolling Stone Stone Northward Roll Reader offers this perspective on Garcia'south approach to musical styles:

"You have to get past the idea that music has to be one thing. To exist alive in America is to hear all kinds of music constantly--radio, records, churches, cats on the street, everywhere music, homo. And with records, the whole history of music is open up to anybody who wants to hear it. ... Nobody has to fool around with musty onetime scores, weird notation, and scholarship bullshit: you can merely get into a record shop and pick a century, pick a state, option anything, and dig it, make information technology a part of y'all, add it to the stuff yous carry around, and see that it's all music." (pp. 259-260)

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Jack the Ripper

Opening the vocal is Jack #ane, a notorious, mysterious, frightening, just plain bad individual whose identity remains unknown. Between August 31 and November 9, 1888, v prostitutes in London were murdered by an assailant who identified himself in anonymous letters to the press as "Jack the Ripper." The killer used a pocketknife to cut throats and mutilate bodies. Over the years, many suggestions have been made to solve the puzzle of the madman's identity. "Jack," of course, is the vernacular equivalent of "John Doe." The well-nigh famous theory is that the Ripper was Prince Albert--"Boil"--of Wales, Duke of Clarence. For a thorough exploration of this theory see Michael Harrison'due south Clarence: Was He Jack the Ripper? (1972). The book concludes that a tutor of Eddy's, one J.K. Stephen, a poet was the actual murderer. Part of the prove given by Harrison is an declared similarity betwixt poems sent to the press by the Ripper and Stephen's own poetry.

Some other theory, which enjoyed brief popularity, was that "Jack" was really "Jill" the Ripper--based on the supposition that a adult female would be less doubtable, and could escape undetected while everyone searched for a male killer.

For more data, or for entertainment, you can read from the list of books beneath:

• 1. Robert Bloch. The Night of the Ripper. (1984) A horror novel by the author of Psycho.
• 2. Tom Cullen. When London Walked in Terror. (1965)
• 3. Stephen Knight. Jack the Ripper. (1976)
• 4. Donald Rumbelow. The Complete Jack the Ripper. (1975)
• 5. Frank Spiering. Prince Jack. (1978)

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Mojo Hand

A note in Golden Road, Wintertime, 1984, stated that "'Mojo Paw'... was a mutual term amongst rural blacks for a person with extraordinary or seemingly magical abilities, and was the name of a song recorded past Lightnin' Hopkins. This reference brings the dejection into the vocal.

There is also a 1986 book by J.J. Phillips entitled Mojo Hand , published by Metropolis Miner Books.

The Oxford English language Lexicon (2nd ed.) does give a definition for "mojo": "local U.S. [Prob. of Afr. orig.:cf. Gullah moco witchcraft, magic, Fula moco'o medicine man.] Magic, the art of casting spells; a charm or amulet used in such spells."

Further down in the definition, an example of usage speaks of a synonym for "mojo" being "lucky hand."

And yet another definition in the OED equates "mojo" with morphine.

According to Hoodoo--Agreeableness--Witchcraft--Rootwork: Beliefs Accepted past Many Negroes and White Persons, These Being Orally Recorded Amid Blacks and Whites by Harry Middleton Hyatt (Hannibal, Mo.: Alma Egan Hyatt Foundation, 1970):

"A paw is a magic helper, an object or human action, which aids a person in obtaining a desire... hand has other names, among them--toby, guide, shield, roots, mojo, jomo (transposition of syllables in mojo), and hoodoo bag."

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Baton Lord's day

Billy Sun, listed in the Baseball Encyclopedia as William Ashley (The Evangelist) Sun, was one of the founders of the American evangelistic move--his heirs of today being Billy Graham, et al. He started out as a baseball game role player for major league teams in Chicago, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, offset his sports career in 1883, quitting the game in 1890. He and so began his religious career, starting out as a desk clerk at the YMCA, working his fashion up every bit a helper to itinerant preachers, and finally becoming the most popular evangelist of the time, preaching to huge crowds.

Sunday's way was highly flamboyant, and included colloquial baseball game lingo, which won him a mass audience. 1 important attribute of his road evidence was the music which accompanied it, which consisted of a huge choir, with pianoforte and trombone accompaniment. The music is said to accept been "far from unctuous; it approached the jazzy."

[They Gathered at the River.

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Shotgun

"Shotgun: passing into adj. Fabricated or done hastily or under force per unit area of necessity."-- Oxford English Dictionary , second ed.

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Ragtime Band

This note is for the phrase "ragtime band", which, in popular music, conjures upwards the famous Irving Berlin song, "Alexander's Ragtime Band." Evoking Irving Berlin is a way of evoking all of the Tin Pan Aisle tradition of American popular music. The phrase "in a shotgun ragtime band" matches the rhythm of the Irving Berlin championship perfectly.

"Alexander'due south Ragtime Band" was published in March of 1911, and was start popularized by Emma Carus. According to James J. Fuld, in his The Book of Globe-Famous Music, "The `Alexander' in the title is reportedly Jack [!] Alexander, a cornet-playing bandleader who died in 1958. It has been frequently pointed out that the song is not in real ragtime. Berlin was born in Temun, Russia, in 1888." (p. 79)

Alec Wilder, in his book American Popular Song: the Bang-up Innovators, 1900-1950, devotes 30 pages to the role of Irving Berlin, and comments every bit follows on the subject field of "Alexander's Ragtime Band": "I take heard enough ragtime to wonder why Alexander's Ragtime Band was so titled. For I find no elements of ragtime in it, unless the give-and-take `ragtime' simply specified the most swinging and exciting of the new American music. It is a very potent, solid song, verse and chorus. More than than that, information technology is not crowded with notes. There are constant open up spots in it. At the outset, in the verse, the showtime 3 measures begin on the 2nd beat. This `kicks' the song, and immediately. Incidentally, this is the earliest popular song I know of in which the verse and chorus are in different keys....Could the slight, chromatic opening phrase of the song have cuased all the furor, the grass fire that spread over the face of Europe? Or was the restatement of this phrase a fourth higher the device which did the trick? In any event, the song was a high point in the evolution of popular music." (pp. 94-95)

Hunter, in alluding to Berlin'southward song, manages to evoke two strains of American pop music simultaneously, ragtime and Tin Pan Alley. This becomes significant as the song progresses, evoking more than and more than tributaries to the mainstream of American music.

[Sources.]

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Alexander'southward Ragtime Band

Words and music by Irving Berlin (1911)

Oh! ma honey, Oh! ma honey,  Better bustle, and let'southward meander; Ain't you goin', own't yous goin' To the leader man, ragged meter man? Oh! ma honey, Oh! ma beloved, Allow me have to to Alexander's grandstand, brass band, Own't you comin' along?        
          [Chorus]        
        
          Come on and hear, come on and hear Alexander'south Ragtime Band; Come up on and hear, come on and hear, It'due south the best band in the land. They can play a bugle call Like yous never heard before, So natural that you want to go to state of war; That'southward just the bestest band what ma, love lamb! Let me have you past the mitt Up to the man, up to the human being Who'southward the leader of the band; And if you care to hear the Swanee River played in ragtime, Come on and hear, come on and hear Alexander'south Ragtime Band.        
        
          Oh! ma honey, Oh! ma honey, There'southward a fiddle with notes that screeches Like a chicken, like a chicken, And the clarinet is a colored pet. Come and mind, come and heed To a classical band what's peaches, come now, somehow, Meliorate hurry along!        
      

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Jericho

This is a fairly obvious reference, but 2 things deserve annotation.

• i. The Biblical account of the fall of Jericho is institute in the Book of Joshua, Chapter 6, vv. i-20.
• 2. The reference to Jericho also calls to mind the spiritual "Joshua Fit de Battle of Jericho." Since so much of this song evokes various aspects of American pop music, this evocation gains significance.

  In Wade in the Water,, Arthur Jones entitles i entire chapter "Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho: Struggle and Resistance."

  "A song like "Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho," for example, could honor the actions of any number of "Joshuas" in the African customs who led their people in boxing in many different "Jerichos." It could besides be used every bit bibliocal support for planned batles. For example, in his meetings with co-conspirators in Charleston, South Carolina, Denmark Vesey preached from the Bible, using poetry from the volume of Joshua to draw parallels between the biblical story of Joshua and the plans for the insurrection in Charleston." -- p. 52.

This annotate from a reader:

"From Hartman@UH.EDU
Engagement: Wed, 01 Mar 1995 10:42:xviii -0600 (CST)
From: Gary Hartman
To: ddodd@serf.uccs.edu
Subject: Annotated GD Lyrics

I have one small-scale comment on Ramble on Rose. I think the terminate of the Jericho verse -- "go out when they blow" -- resonates with the musical allusions y'all have so correctly identified. "To blow" is, particularly in the jazz argot, to play music. And, of class (this may be so obvious that you lot intentionally don't mention it), the walls of Jericho were brought down past the ability of music. It even seems that earlier in the verse, "stride the halls" could refer to the rooms in which the musicians play (and the backstage areas in which they anxiously await the time to blow).

Peace,
Gary"

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Ramblin' Rose

Hunter might well take written "You never said your name was Ramblin' Rose," merely chose not to, leaving the ambiguity of the song firmly in place.

A rambling rose is an old-fashioned and now rarely cultivated blazon of rose which would spread low across the ground on long, whippy canes. Ramblers are now grown usually as climbers, instead.

Three songs in American popular music have borne the proper name "Ramblin(m) Rose." The most famous of the 3 is the 1962 "Ramblin' Rose," words and music by Joe and Noel Sherman. Information technology was introduced past Nat King Cole, who at showtime did not wish to tape it. He was talked into information technology, even so, by his 12-twelvemonth-sometime daughter, (Natalie?) and her instincts were good, because it was a hit, reaching the #2 position on the charts in August, 1962. It has since been recorded by Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Willie Nelson, amid others.

The 2nd most popular melody of this title is the 1948 "Rambling Rose" by Joseph McCarthy (not the infamous Joe McCarthy) and Joe Burke.

The third is of unknown appointment, titled "Ramblin Rose" by Wilkin and Burch, recorded past Slim Whitman.

A fourth song, dating from 1931, is entitled "Marta (Rambling Rose of the Wildwood)" by Gilbert and Simons.

And a reader points out that "Rambling Rose" was also the championship of a movie, starring Laura Dern.

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Jack and Jill

A well-known, perhaps the all-time known nursery rhyme is ingrained in our memories from early childhood.

Jack #two of the song is thus introduced, along with his feminine analogue. References to this pair predate even the nursery rhyme, according to the Oxford Lexicon of Nursery Rhymes, which dates the rhyme from the starting time half of the 17th century. Shakespeare says "Jack shall have Jill, Nought shall go ill," (Midsummer Night's Dream, Human action three, scene 2, line 461) using the names in the general sense of "lad and lass." (And, in Love'southward Labours Lost, there is the line "Jack hath not Gill," [5.02.875]--merely that'southward a different story, and there's already plenty written on Shakespeare.)

Many theories take arisen regarding the origin of the rhyme, simply nearly agree that it tin be traced to the Scandinavian Edda epic, and that it may take pagan ritualistic significance. To most listeners, however, Jack and Jill conjure up an image of babyhood, simply like Mama and Papa.

As with much of this song, at that place is music associated with the words, and it is probable that most of usa have chanted this nursery rhyme, then that the inclusion of Jack and Jill adds nonetheless another component to the swirl of music conjured up past this vocal.

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Jack and Jill

and

Old Matriarch Dob

Jack and Jill
Went up the colina,
To fetch a pail of water;
Jack fell down,
And broke his crown,
And Jill came tumbling after.

Then upward Jack got,
And home did trot,
As fast as he could caper;
To old Matriarch Dob,
Who patched his nob
With vinegar and brown paper.

When Jill came in,
How she did grin
To run across Jack's paper plaster;
Her mother, vexed,
Did whip her next,
For laughing at Jack's disaster.

Now Jack did express joy
And Jill did cry,
But her tears did presently abate;
Then Jill did say,
That they should play
At see-saw across the gate.
Source: The Oxford Nursery Rhyme Volume. Assembled past Iona and Peter Opie. Oxford, 1955.

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I go up...

The Annotated Mother Goose contains the following rhyme: "Gay go up and gay get down/ To ring the bells of London Town." --p. 253.

Percy Green, in his A History of Nursey Rhymes, explains the rhyme equally a children'south game:

"This almost forgotten plant nursery song and game of "The Bells of London Town" has a descriptive burden or ending to each line, giving an imitation of the sounds of the bell-peals of the chief churches in each locality of the Metropolis and the old London suburbs. The game is played by girls and boys holding easily and racing sideways, as they practice in "Band a Band a Rosies," afterward each line has been sung every bit a solo by the children in turns. The

"Gay go up and gay go down
To ring the bells of London town"

is chorussed by all the company, and and so the rollicking dance begins; the feet stamping out a noisy but enjoyable accompaniment to the words, "Gay get upwardly, gay get down." "--p. 180

The line is also echoed in the folk song "Maid Freed from the Gallows, "and may therefore be a reference to hanging. (Sharp #28, version H) The song is likewise registered as a Kid Ballad, #95, "The Prickly Bush."

As a side note, which relfects another aspect of Grateful Dead lyrics in general, namely, how information technology is possible to mis-hear lyrics in concert.

At the endmost of Winterland concert, I distinctly think being so glad that I finally understood this line of Constitutional on Rose. What I heard was: "Buckle upward and buckle down: do yourself a favor."

And it even so makes more than sense to me than the "real" lyric.

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Leader of the band

See the interview with Robert Hunter in Relix, vol. 5, no. 2:

"Relix: We're interested in the 'Leader of the band' concept ... Do yous feel that there is a leader ...?

Hunter: [partial response] Well, it would be hard to imagine the Grateful Dead without Garcia, wouldn't it?

Relix: Were yous getting at anything like that in 'Ramblin' Rose?' [sic] Was talking nearly taking someone to the leader of the band talking well-nigh the Dead per se?

Hunter: I suppose there's an element of the Expressionless in a lot of my songs. Information technology's hard to scramble it out from what's pure fancy."

This seems a fairly noncommittal reply, and is therefore consistent with the song: don't tie it down, package it; don't say: this is what it means. It also seems worth noting the extensive parallels to "Alexander's Ragtime Band", with all its talk of a leader of the band.

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Crazy Otto

This reference is to ane (or both?) of two pianists who were known by that name in the 1950's. The first was the German pianist Fritz Schulz-Reichel, whose career was comparable to that of Peter Schickele, who composes under the pseudonym of P.D.Q. Bach. Schulz-Reichel alternated between playing "serious" music and playing ragtime, for which he donned an cool-looking faux goatee and Kaiser Willie mustache, along with the moniker "Otto der Schrage." (Crazy Otto).

Most reference works on ragtime that mention a Crazy Otto, yet, are referring to Johnny Maddox, another popular pianoforte player. A phone call from Maddox to me on October 22, 1997, revealed the unabridged story of Maddox's association with the Crazy Otto name and music. Maddox says that a returning GI brought back a copy of the Otto der Schrage tape from Federal republic of germany, and brought it to the deejay Walt Henrich at WERE radio in Cleveland. Henrich in turn brought it to Pecker Randall, also a deejay at that station, who played some tracks from the tape on the air. Such was the reaction of the listening public, that Randall got in impact with Randy Forest, who was a producer of "re-create" records, and who, in turn, commissioned Maddox to tape a copy of the ragtime pieces as a medley, which was released as "The Crazy Otto Medley-Played by Johnny Maddox."

At the time, (1954), Maddox was rated the number 1 jukebox artist in America, independent of any association with Crazy Otto. According to Maddox, information technology was a common practice at the time for independent producers to commision "cover records"-virtual note-for-note copies of records which were not readily bachelor. Maddox never wanted to be known as Crazy Otto, though, and he only released one other record which independent a reference to the character, Crazy Otto Pianoforte. He released over forty albums of ragtime and other popular piano pieces under his own proper noun. His biggest album, mentioned in most standard ragtime discographies, was Authentic Ragtime. (As an interesting side note, Maddox noted that many of today'due south reverential ragtime performers make the music sound like it belongs in a funeral home, rather than for dancing.) Maddox hailed from Gallatin, Tennessee.

Sources:

1. David Jasen. Rags and Ragtime: a Musical History. Seabury Printing, 1978.
2. Terry Waldo. This is Ragtime. Hawthorn Books, 1976.
3. Life Magazine, May ii, 1955, p. 113-114: "Otto, Real and Crazy."

This note from a reader:

From: Warren Hurley [mailto:WHurley@uc.usbr.gov]
Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2003 4:xviii PM
Subject: crazy otto

FYI:
Johnny Maddox still plays piano (and still hails from Gallatin), particularly summertime stints at the Diamond Belle Saloon in Durango Colorado.
W

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Wolfman Jack

An elusive character in more ways than one, Wolfman Jack's existent proper name is Bob Smith. Born in Brooklyn in 1938, Wolfman says "We all emulated the Black culture. At that place wasn't any other." His major early influence was a Black deejay named Dr. Jive, and while still a teenager he dropped out of schoolhouse and hit the road, heading south, working for rhythm and blues radio stations. Finally, in 1957, he became station director and late night disk at XERF in Ciudad Acuna, just over the Mexican border from Del Rio, Texas. On a good dark, y'all could hear him north to Canada and west to California, as Mexican stations were immune far college wattage than American stations.

Throughout the tardily l'due south and all through the 60'due south, Wolfman cultivated a vocal persona that led anybody to think he was actually a Black disk. With his first appearance in the flesh, in the moving-picture show "American Graffiti," he shocked everyone with the revelation that he was, indeed, white. "Nobody knew if I was shite or black or whatever," he said in an interview with Time in 1973, "and I kept the mystique up. No pictures, no interviews."

The appellation "Wolfman" conjures upward a wild and supernatural existence, as introduced into American pop culture with the 1941 moving picture "The Wolf Human being," starring Lon Chaney, Jr. (Run into "Werewolves of London" by Warren Zevon, for mention of Chaney in song.) Bela Lugosi as Frankenstein'south monster met Chaney equally the Wolf Man in a 1943 sequel, "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man." They reunited in the 1944 pic "Firm of Frankenstein." And, of course, they see once more in this vocal.

The Dead are not the only ones to take included Wolfman Jack in a vocal. Leon Russell'due south "Living on the Highway" is about him.

Wolfman Jack appears every bit Jack #3 in the song.

As a side note, it is probable that Hunter assumed, as did everyone else, that Wolfman Jack was Blackness, as the song predates his public appearance.

Sources:

• i. Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll, Jim Miller, editor. Random House, 1980.
• ii. Fourth dimension Magazine, August 27, 1973, p. 62: "Wolfman's New Lair."

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Royal Flush, Aces Back to Back

The phrase "Back to back" is said of the beginning two hole cards in seven card stud poker, or of the pigsty card and the get-go upcard when they are paired or "wired." Thus, the paw being bescribed is a seven-card stud poker hand simply prior to the dealing of the final down card, made upward of 10, Jack, Queen, Rex, and Ace all of one suit (the highest manus in poker), with an extra Ace in the hole.

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Mary (Wollstonecraft) Shelley

(1797-1851)

Author (1818) of Frankenstein. Her female parent was the famous early feminist theorist Mary Wollstonecraft. She married Percy Shelley, the poet, at age 16, and wrote Frankenstein at the suggestion of her hubby and Lord Byron, after beginning the story as impromptu amusement effectually the burn down in Geneva, in the summer of 1816.

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Frankenstein

Hunter probably ways to refer, not to Victor Frankenstein, the doctor who created a monster in Mary Shelley's book, but to the monster himself. Castle Frankenstein yet stands near Darmstadt, West Germany. Konrad Dippel (1673-1734) spent his youth in that location, and after studied alchemy at Giessen University under the name "Frankensteina," and had particular interest in the theories stylish at the fourth dimension concerning the life force.

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Walk the Line

This saying seems to have its origin in an old sobriety examination given to sailors: walking betwixt two parallel lines chalked onto the deck--also known as "Walking the chalk." The meaning of the proverb in the present 24-hour interval is inclusive of sobriety, but is much broader, having to exercise with good behavior, usually under some grade of pressure or even duress.

The line also summons up echoes of Johnny Cash and his 1956 song "I Walk the Line," adding some state flavor to the stew that already includes everything from ragtime to Dark Star.

Source: Picturesque Expressions: a Thematic Dictionary. L. Urdang, Gale, 1980.

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The Grass Own't Greener

For an incredible essay on the saying, see Wolfgang Mieder's article, "The Grass Is Ever Greener On the Other Side of the Fence: An American Maxim of Discontent" in De Proverbio: An Electronic Periodical of International Proverb Studies (Vol. 1, north. one: 1995).

Quondam proverbs are usually a breeze to track downwards, every bit they have been the subject of report for years, and a large number of books cataloging and indexing proverbs have been written, dating dorsum to the biblical volume of Proverbs. Nonetheless, a determined search for the origin of the saying "The grass is always greener on the other side of the loma (or fence)" yielded not a inkling.

An inquiry sent to the Bay Area Library and Data Service turned upwardly a file on the phrase, luckily, and its origins plow out to be quite ancient, most likely predating the Latin authors whose work contains the seed of the quotation. Both Ovid and Juvenal wrote lines which, in translation, turned into the proverb we know. Ovid's appears in his Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love), Volume 1, line 349: "Fertilior seges est alienis semper in agris" or "The crop seems e'er more productive in our neighbor'south field." Juvenal'south Satires, in Satire XIV, Line 142, says "Majorque videtur et melior vicina seges," or "And the crop of our neighbor seems greater and better than our own."

The earliest notation of The grass is greener every bit an American phrase is found in an article by Helen Pearce in the California Folklore Quarterly, vol. 5, July 1946, entitled 'Folk Sayings in a Pioneer Family of Western Oregon.' She recorded the phrase as "The greener pasture's over yonder (or The grass is ever greener on the other side of the fence.)"

All this is very well, but it seems unlikely that fifty-fifty Robert Hunter was actually familiar with Ovid and Juvenal and their versions of this phrase. I believe the source is much closer, and that the line merits comparing with the line well-nigh Jericho earlier in the song, as a couple of possible sources in American popular song of the 1960's are much more hands identified--namely, the two songs "Greenish, Green" and "The Grass is Greener." Most of united states tin hum the beginning, which dates from 1963, words and music by Barry McGuire and Randy Sparks, and based on fragments of traditional cloth, co-ordinate to its authors. (This "bitty textile" has yet to come up to low-cal.) The song was a hit record for the New Christy Minstrels. The second tune was written past Barry Mann and Mike Anthony, and was a all-time-selling tape for Brenda Lee, also in 1963.

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Offset posted: February, 1995
Final revised: June 26, 2003

fugateshawat.blogspot.com

Source: http://artsites.ucsc.edu/gdead/agdl/ramble2.html