A recurring theme in Grateful Dead songs is the outlaw on the run. For those of us who travelled around the country to see Dead shows, the lyrics were easy to self-apply.
In Friend of the Devil we hear: ‘I lit out from Reno, I was trailed by twenty hounds,
didn’t get to sleep that night, ’til the morning came around’. In Sugaree, Jerry tells an old friend not to tell the authorities that she knows him. In Bertha, Jerry’s on the run again. And most famously, the song Truckin’ describes the lifestyle of keeping one step ahead of the law.
Mississippi Half-Step is but another of this genre.
Words by Robert Hunter; music by Jerry Garcia
On the day that I was born
Daddy sat down and cried
I had the mark just as plain as day
which could not be denied
They say that Cain caught Abel
rolling loaded dice,
ace of spades behind his ear
and him not thinking twice
Half-step
Mississippi Uptown Toodleloo
Hello baby, I’m gone, goodbye
Half a cup of rock and rye
Farewell to you old southern sky
I’m on my way – on my way
If all you got to live for
is what you left behind
get yourself a powder charge
and seal that silver mine
I lost my boots in transit babe
A pile of smoking leather
Nailed a retread to my feet
and prayed for better weather
Half-step
Mississippi Uptown Toodleloo
Hello, baby, I’m gone, good-bye
Half a cup of rock and rye
Farewell to you old southern sky
I’m on my way – on my way
They say that when your ship comes in
the first man takes the sails
The second takes the afterdeck
The third the planks and rails
What’s the point to callin shots?
This cue ain’t straight in line
Cueball’s made of styrofoam
and no one’s got the time
Half-step
Mississippi Uptown Toodleloo
Hello baby, I’m gone, goodbye
Half a cup of rock and rye
Farewell to you old southern sky
I’m on my way – on my way
Across the Rio Grand-eo
Across the lazy river
Across the Rio Grand-eo
Across the lazy river
The song begins with a variation of the “born under a bad sign’ theme. The singer was born to be wild, marked from the beginning to be a sinner, a cheat, a betrayor of his brother. And this explains why he has ‘gone goodbye’.
For the next stanza, it’s helpful to know a bit of Jerry Garcia’s personal history. He narrowly survived an auto accident in 1960, and he found a new dedication and purpose in life afterwards. This helps explain the lines:
If all you got to live for
is what you left behind
get yourself a powder charge
and seal that silver mine
Lost my boots in transit, babe,
a pile of smoking leather…”
The car was crumpled like a cigarette pack…and inside it were my shoes. I’d been thrown completely out of my shoes and through the windshield. One guy did die in the group. It was like loosing the golden boy, the one who had the most to offer. For me it was crushing, but I had the feeling that my life had been spared to do something…not to take any bullshit, to either go whole hog or not at all…That was when my life began. Before that I had been living at less than capacity. That event was the slingshot for the rest of my life. It was my second chance, and I got serious.”
And yet, in typical Garcia fashion, even though he rededicated himself to the future and metaphorically sealed off his past, he doesn’t see the point in mapping out his future by ‘calling shots’. The world is too unpredictable for that.
When people picture Deadheads, they picture hippies. But most of their songs are about the Old West, gamblers, outlaws, charlatans, whores, and life on the run. Maybe I like the Grateful Dead for the same reason I like Deadwood.