Grateful Dead Music Forum

I was cruising down the road last night singing along to Rubin and Cherise, when I got to the lyric - "The truth of love an unsung song must tell". That line always trips me up, whether I'm singing and playing, or just plain singing along in the car. i think it's the unsung song part that's rough.

Another one that always gets me is the line "He's left his native country and his darling girl behind" from Jack-a-roe. I always get tounge-tied somewhere between left and native.

Any one get tripped up on these? Are there any other lyrics that you always mess up - like the chorus in eyes, whether the heart has beaches and homelands first, or seasons and evenings...

yeah those same parts of rubin and cherise and eyes mess me up as well. I also get confused in franklin's, whether it's wildflower seed in the sand and wind or sand and stone first.

but then i just listen to the music play and i'm cool

Start pushing my age and all the lyrics become a problem. I figure if Jerry can screw 'em up, so can I. Know what you mean tho'.
"Dance hall girls were the evenin' treat" from MTB 'Fire on the Mt.' always twists me up. "Dance gall hirls were what"?

I STILL get screwed up with the eyes chorus. I'm sure there are others but more often than not it's verse order that is always a bit of a challenge.

Songs where there are significant lyric similarities from verse to verse etc also trip me up - Other than the eyes chorus none are coming to mind at the moment but I know they're out there.

I agree with the Eyes chorus. I feel like I'm always singing seasons or evenings.

I also frequently mess up franklins . Just the order of which verse comes when, and of course Cassidy with "Catch colt draws a coffin cart"

sack the wack wrote:'Fire on the Mt.' always twists me up.

Fully agree with this one. I haven't played this for a while, but I remember always getting the verses wrong in this one.

first verse - holding out? get out of the door?
third verse - standing there? dash for the door?

I think I've only heard 1 or 2 live versions of this song where they actually got all the lyrics right.

I think a couple of guys named Jerry and Bob occasionaly had trouble with these lyrics as well.....

ebick wrote:I think a couple of guys named Jerry and Bob occasionaly had trouble with these lyrics as well.....

There's the rub eh? A lot of the time I find myself copping that Jerry mumble when I forget the lyrics.

....Caught in smnhmm...holdin' out for?

It also occurred to me that I sometimes forget the order of LWAF and sometimes coming out of the bridge of Scarlet gives me a bit of trouble. I always want to go into my solo and tend to stutter/mumble my way thru Well there ain't nothin'wrong...

I just printed out the lyrics to Samson & Delihla (from this sight).
Sang through it once while reading the lyrics.
Now I just finished re-writing the lyrics to the words and phrasing that I've been singing (along with) since the late 70's, which turns out to be a little different than the official lyrics.
No need to fight what's already ingrained!

Hey, how 'bout this for a band name...

"Dead Givaway" (sp?)

I woke up with that in my mind for some reason.

This might not be quite the same thing, but a lot of the time when I am playing ripple, when the second verse comes, I have a tendancy to sing "if you choose" instead of "reach out your hand"

well, speaking of misunderstood lyrics......


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4_MsrsKzMM

Coming out of the jam in scarlet. I always get the 2 verses backwards. The sky was yellow, then tea for two. Always fuck that one up. Im right with you guys about Eyes as well!!!

ebick wrote:well, speaking of misunderstood lyrics......


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4_MsrsKzMM

Ha Ha, that gave me a chuckle.

y´know I was wondering if so many heads that play and sing the tunes muff the lyrics ´cos we are so used to hearing the boys muff 'em up? I mean how many rippin' versions have you heard where the only real flaw was Jerry or Bobby flubbing the lyrics? And I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who inherited this deficiency...

One time when I saw the dead they were doing Uncle John's Band and Jerry and Bob didn't sing the same verse together the whole song until they got to 'how does this song go' and they looked at each other with surprise.

Black Throated Wind - 'The Highway, the Moon, the Clouds and the Stars'.

I started to use HOMEDICS as a nmenomic devise, (cause I saw a commercial or something) just to get the M C and S in a row. And of course the leading H just to remind me to think of it.

The Chorus of Midnight Moonlight always gets messed up. Because the title of the song is midnight moonlight but the start of the chorus goes

"In the moonlight, In the midnight, in the Moonlight, Midnight moonlight"

We have two people singing the chorus on that song and we never sync the words up correctly.