Grateful Dead Music Forum

this was originally called "the suicide song"...very cool song


Peace

to be honest, im kinda glad they decided on china doll lol

What does China Doll mean?

I feel that it means a human...fragile and delicate when looked at...the song sounds like a person having a conversation with his creator (God) at heaven's gate...just what comes to my mind...anything anyone else thinks?? peace

thats my reply ^^^^...i forgot to put my name...packfoolp

I read that it was written after the suicide of one of Hunter's closest friends and that he doesn't like to talk about it.

This song was about an archival revelation that would make oldivai like KFC......should the people show interest in perserving this?....3000 years too late .......losers

nedcat wrote:This song was about an archival revelation that would make oldivai like KFC......should the people show interest in perserving this?....3000 years too late .......losers

Not sure what you mean here.....


I guess i always looked at it like a repentant person praying and finding out he received mercy for the human race due to their own destructive ways but realized this after his death.

Pistol = destructive ways
Rang the bells of heaven = great self induced destruction
Death = hit the ground

Then think of the ending, maybe in God's hands where the China Doll is fragile humanity and the "FALL" is symbolic of the fall from grace. But we are okay, just fractured, nervous....

yet another strange day in a string of them, and these lyrics ring true, without hearing them sung for quite some time


"Take up your china doll
it's only fractured -
and just a little nervous
from the fall"

"make Oldivai like KFC" - huh? What, for dogs??? Bunch of fidos munching on the bones?

CMC, did I miss a piece of news today?

Bone chilling song. Check the 6/20/74... ultra-nasty fuzz solo, which may have come from a Morley wah-fuzz that was recently spotted in a 7/31/74 pic.

7/15/89 was a little different IIRC, w/ two solos, after the 2nd and 3rd verses. Preceded by an amazing Close Encounters Space(1 of only 2, the more well-known one being 1/22/78,) perhaps a nod to the nearby Richmond, Indiana setting of the movie.

[quote="tigerstrat"]
CMC, did I miss a piece of news today?
quote]

Nah, just I was just referring to life in general. Driving home last night in a quiet car and these lyrics kept rolling in my head

farrlito wrote: ↑Tue May 11, 2004 3:34 pmWhat does China Doll mean?

This song isn't about a suicide, but rather an attempted suicide.

The key line is the last one from the verses:
"I would ask the same of you, but failing, will not die."

They did shoot themselves and hit the ground...

But the beautiful coda - with the major chords shining like sunlight after dark clouds pass - comes like redemption; Hope remains:

"Take up your China Doll...
It's only fractured;
Just a little nervous from the fall."

Hunter's use of a China Doll as a metaphor for the suicide-attempter and to embody the fragility of life is a tremendous example of his genius.
I wonder if he came up with the coda first and then wrote the main body of lyrics. Using the "China Doll" metaphor, the coda says so much, so wonderfully, using so few words. It's like a haiku.

For me it might be the most beautiful Grateful Dead song.

"China dolls" generally speaking have painted heads and hands made of porcelain while the bodies are cloth. The word "china" referred to the porcelain.