Grateful Dead Glass Be Full Again

"Let there be songs to fill the air"

The Annotated "Ripple"

An installment in The Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics.
Past David Dodd
1997-98 Research Acquaintance, Music Dept., University of California, Santa Cruz

---

Copyright notice

---

Two analyses of the lyric are available:

• David Dodd's essay
• William C. Dowling's "Ripple": A Small Excursus

Also, a sermon, "No Simple Highway," past Elizabeth Greene, is bachelor.

---

"Ripple"

Words past Robert Hunter; music by Jerry Garcia.
("Ripple" composed and written by Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter. Reproduced by arrangement with Ice Nine Publishing Co., Inc. (ASCAP))

If my words did glow with the aureate of sunshine
And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung
Would y'all hear my voice come through the music
Would you hold it well-nigh as it were your ain?

It's a hand-me-down, the thoughts are broken
Perhaps they're better left unsung
I don't know, don't really care
Let there be songs to make full the air

(Chorus)

Ripple in still water
When there is no pebble tossed
Nor wind to accident

Achieve out your paw if your cup be empty
If your cup is full may it be again
Let it be known in that location is a fountain
That was not made by the hands of men

There is a route, no simple highway
Betwixt the dawn and the night of nighttime
And if you go no one may follow
That path is for your steps alone

(Chorus)

You lot who cull to atomic number 82 must follow
Merely if you fall y'all autumn alone
If you should stand and then who'south to guide you lot?
If I knew the way I would take you dwelling

Hunter has posted the manuscript of an early typhoon of the song in his archives.

---

Analysis

"Ripple" is a song lyric past Robert Hunter. Its genre, therefore, is song. A true vocal is meant to be sung, and so its words must be easy to remember, unless it is an experimental or art vocal. But Hunter wrote "Ripple" in the folk vocal tradition during the late 1960'due south, with overtones of that Haight-Ashbury era, such as a sense of cosmic oneness, and of Due east meeting West.

Hunter, in choosing the folk lyric format, has infused it with something new. The kickoff verse, addressing the listener, is about vocal, about listening to the song and making it your own. Hunter begins the poesy by invoking the elements of song: words and tune, so that the listener is prepared to call up about the song. The poet expresses business that the vocal be sung by other people, opening up a give-and-take of the relationship between the singer and the listener, who will also, information technology is hoped, come to be the vocalist, in plough.

So the relationship betwixt poet and reader is unity; they are both the poet. In this way, the original poet breaks out of mortality, since his thoughts will go along to generate new thoughts.

The side by side verse continues this theme, but points out that the identification between vocalizer and listener can never be full, since it is questionable whether any of the original poet's thoughts volition really occur to the person who is at present singing the song. Just the poet concludes that even though 'the thoughts are broken,' it is worthwhile to have songs.

The chorus is the main puzzle of the song, as highlighted by the championship. Information technology is set apart formally from the rest of the song, being a seventeen-syllable haiku. Post-obit the offset two verses, it suggests that idea is like a ripple, non caused by anything, and doomed to be fleeting, not to be held. Hunter chose an Asian verse form to express this idea, which is reverse to Western civilization's principle of logical, rational thought. Hunter poses a counter-argument. Information technology is not worthwhile to believe that reason tin be imposed on thinking, or that annihilation reasonable tin can come from thinking, since advice of thought will always exist flawed. It is possible that Hunter's thoughts were born from the experience of altered states, and the frustration that goes with whatever try to describe feel in an altered state. His pick of a puddle of water being momentarily disturbed by a ripple is in accordance with Samuel Taylor Coleridge'due south imagery in describing the fleetingness of the altered state in "Kubla Khan":

Then all the charm
Is broken--all that phantom-world and so fair
Vanishes, and a k circlets spread,
And each mis-shape the other. Stay awhile,
Poor youth! who scarcely dar'st lift up thine optics--
The stream will soon renew its smoothness, soon
The visions will return! And lo, he stays,
And soon the fragments dim of lovely forms
Come up trembling back, unite, and now once more
The pool becomes a mirror."

(Echoes there of "Nighttime Star," as well. Hmmm.)

The side by side ii verses introduce new themes. The first contains a benediction, wishing the listener a "full cup," or a happy life. This loving cup, moreover, can be refilled at a fountain which, since it was not made past human hands, represents a cosmic or universal level of existence. The side by side poesy takes the song from the universal back to the individual. The path between dawn (birth) and night (death) is a metaphor for life, each life being individual. (For an alternate take, see email from Linda Gershon)

The chorus follows, and in this context the ripple has get a symbol of an individual life, caused by nothing a disappearing dorsum into however h2o, dorsum into the fountain non made past people. A life is a ripple. All life is still h2o. The chorus, then, is interpreted differently each time. The kickoff time a ripple is a thought in an individual mind; the second time a ripple is an individual life in the puddle of universal life.

The final verse conveys optimistic hopelessness. The poet is empathetic, as shown past the last line, but wants us to realize that there are no guarantees about life.

---

"Ripple"

Lyric written in London, 1970. Co-ordinate to an interview with Hunter in a documentary moving-picture show by Jeremy Marre, "Ripple," "Brokedown Palace" and "To Lay Me Down" were all composed in i afternoon, over a half-canteen of retsina. (The film aired on VH-1 on April 16, 1997.)

Musical details:

• Primal: Yard
• Fourth dimension signature: 4/4
• Chords used: Yard, D, C, A, F#, G7, Am
• Songbook availability:
  • Grateful Dead
  • Grateful Expressionless: Guitar Superstar Serial
  • Grateful Dead Anthology: Guitar
  • Classic Grateful Dead: Selections From "American Beauty"
  • Anthology, vol. II

Get-go performed on August 18, 1970, at the Fillmore Due west in San Francisco. "Ripple" appeared in the eye of the first set, an audio-visual set, between "Dark Hollow" and "Brokedown Palace." The "Brokedown Palace" was also a premiere, as was the show'southward "Operator," and "Truckin'".

Recorded on:

• American Dazzler
  • This version included on What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been
• Reckoning
• Garcia's Almost Acoustic
• Robert Hunter on his A Box of Rain

Covers:

1. Chris Hillman (formerly of the Byrds) on Morning Sky
2. Jane'due south Habit on Deadicated
3. Perry Farrell'south album Rev
4. The New Riders of the Imperial Sage on Alive in Nippon
5. Jimmie Dale Gilmore on his One Endless Night

It has found a permanent place in the Dead'due south live repertoire, but was reprised on special occasions, such as the 15th Anniversary shows in San Francisco and New York, which included acoustic sets.

This note from a reader:

Date: Wed, half-dozen Mar 2002 09:07:54 +1100
From: John Low

Hello David,

Greetings once once more from the Blue Mountains in Australia (maybe y'all'll call up me and my Dire Wolf story sent terminal yr!) and many thank you for your recent newsletter! As it happens, I ordered a re-create of the "Grateful Dead Reader" through my local bookshop before Christmas and information technology arrived in January. I am enjoying it immensely ... so much good writing that (not surprisingly) I've never seen earlier! Sincere thank you to y'all, and your wife Diana, for putting it all together!

Being an admirer of the wonderful though tragic Richard Brautigan, I was pleased to discover that you lot published his quirky little poem about the Dead getting busted. This prompts me to inquire if you are enlightened of an anecdote regarding Brautigan and the Dead's American Dazzler album, recounted past his friend Keith Abbott in "Downstream From Trout Fishing in America" (Santa Barbara: Capra Press, 1989)? In this memoir Abbott recalls a dinner party at Brautigan'due south Bolinas residence in the early 1970s at which the poet Robert Creeley was a guest.

"Just before dinner was served, Richard fabricated a large show of putting on a Grateful Dead record. He said that he had been saving the record every bit a surprise for Creeley. Bob nodded his thanks. When the first cut started Creeley brought his head up abruptly "This is my favourite cutting on that record" he announced. Richard beamed happily. As Creeley listened to the song Richard told a story of all the obstacles that he had encountered during the twenty-four hours in his attempt to find this particular record for Bob. Content that he had made Creeley happy, Richard went dorsum to the kitchen to nourish to dinner. When the song was over, Creeley got upwardly, went over to the stereo and, trying to play the cut again, raked the needle beyond the tape, ruining it. "Uh-oh" he said. And then he went back to the burrow and resumed his give-and-take. At the sound of the record's existence ruined, Richard came rushing out of the kitchen and stood there, watching the whole 'uh-oh' operation by Creeley. Going over to the stereo he brought out a second re-create of the album from the stack alongside it. In his own funny , precise style, Richard congratulated himself. "I'grand, fix for Bob this fourth dimension" he boasted. Then he went on to chronicle how Creeley had wrecked the very same album on a previous visit."

For ages I wondered which anthology it was that Brautigan played and which song was Creeley's "favourite cutting". Fortunately Robert Creeley has a presence on the spider web so recently, I plucked up the courage to email him with my trivial question. Within days I had a very generous and friendly reply:

Dear John Low,

That was one drunken evening, like they say -- of probably all too many. Richard knew my failings, call them, and then had backed upward the record he expected me witlessly to scratch with another, which I seem and so to have x'd equally well. Ah eagerness -- and potable. We were neighbors at that time in Bolinas, with him only down the route from us headed into boondocks.

Anyhow the terrific song, as I recall at to the lowest degree, is Robert Hunter's "Ripple" and one of my prized possessions is Robert Hunter'due south collected lyrics, A Box of Rain, which he generously sent me some years subsequently. Anyhow I beloved that echoing "Ripple in withal water..."

And then onward... You must know Bob Adamson is my old friend indeed -- and a great poet. Y'all have dynamite writers out there!

All-time to you lot,
Robert Creeley

A bit of trivia, yeah, but isn't it squeamish to notice these links between people you lot admire and whose work you savor? Forgive me, though, if you lot are already familiar with information technology.

With very best wishes from downward under,

John Low
Blue Mountains Urban center Library

And another note from a reader:

Appointment: Fri, 01 Sep 2006 03:07:18 -0500
From: Patrick J. Volkerding
Subject field: There is a road. :-)

Greetings, my friend. Information technology is an honor to finally have an excuse to write to you.

I have enjoyed your work immensely, and then thank you very much. I annotation that you're nonetheless doing quite well on Google! I have a bookmark somewhere, just it's so much easier to but Google for "annotated". :-) Information technology's nonetheless the second hitting for that keyword, and the first actual annotation. You were great on "Dead to the World"! We were expecting our girl Briah at the time, and got a big kicking out of "What'south Get of the Baby-O".

I accept a couple of comments that I hope may be of some value to you.

[...] This next one I considered a existent gem of a find, and information technology made me wonder if Hunter was familiar with this detail text because the similarities between information technology and Ripple seemed across coincidence. Lately though, I've been less surprised by coincidence -- the command center seems to have turned it upward to 11.

I've been studying Eastern ideas of many kinds, and recently my attention was fatigued to Kabir, the Indian mystic said to have lived from 1398 to 1518. The Wikipedia article on Kabir is quite interesting, and after reading one of his songs (in Wikipedia's "Satguru" commodity), I went looking for more Kabir. I got to one detail song and was stunned by the density of Ripple motifs in it, particularly in the 2nd of the three paragraphs. Pointing them out is not necessary, merely like Hunter's lyrics and Kabir's songs, reading between the lines volition ever be required to become the full consequence.

Here's a link to Sacred Texts where I institute Kabir's song, III. 48. t� surat nain nih�r: http://world wide web.sacred-texts.com/hin/sok/sok77.htm

OPEN your optics of dear, and run across Him who pervades this world I consider information technology well, and know that this is your own country.
When y'all see the true Guru, He volition awaken your heart;
He will tell you the underground of dearest and detachment, so you will know indeed that He transcends this universe.
This world is the Urban center of Truth, its maze of paths enchants the middle:
We tin reach the goal without crossing the road, such is the sport unending.
Where the ring of manifold joys always dances well-nigh Him, there is the sport of Eternal Bliss.
When we know this, and then all our receiving and renouncing is over;
Thenceforth the heat of having shall never scorch united states of america more.

He is the Ultimate Rest unbounded:
He has spread His class of love throughout all the world.
From that Ray which is Truth, streams of new forms are perpetually springing: and He pervades those forms.
All the gardens and groves and bowers are abounding with blossom; and the air breaks along into ripples of joy.
At that place the swan plays a wonderful game,
There the Unstruck Music eddies around the Infinite I;
In that location in the midst the Throne of the Unheld is shining, whereon the great Being sits--
Millions of suns are shamed by the radiance of a single hair of His trunk.
On the harp of the road what true melodies are existence sounded! and its notes pierce the heart:
In that location the Eternal Fountain is playing its endless life-streams of birth and death.
They telephone call Him Emptiness who is the Truth of truths, in Whom all truths are stored!

There within Him creation goes forrard, which is across all philosophy; for philosophy cannot attain to Him:
There is an endless world, O my Brother! and there is the Nameless Beingness, of whom zero can be said.
Merely he knows it who has reached that region: information technology is other than all that is heard and said.
No form, no body, no length, no breadth is seen there: how can I tell yous that which it is?
He comes to the Path of the Infinite on whom the grace of the Lord descends: he is freed from births and deaths who attains to Him.
Kab�r says: "It cannot be told past the words of the mouth, information technology cannot exist written on paper:
Information technology is like a dumb person who tastes a sweet thing--how shall it be explained?"

I hope you lot enjoy this minor contribution as much as I've enjoyed reading the many observations online and in your first edition. May you have many more than happy editions. Andrea (my wife) and I were theorizing this afternoon that a couple of dozen revisions from now your book will finally manage to necktie together all world philosophies and religions, will be about a human foot thick, and will more or less complete the Great Work past revealing every esoteric "hole-and-corner" to those who tin can hear. Maybe your book and the Grateful Dead volition play a disquisitional role in helping unite mankind. Even more than. :-)

All the best,

Patrick Volkerding

PS: I hereby identify this electronic mail in the public domain.

---

On the harp unstrung...

Chris Hillman, in his recording of "Ripple," sang the line as "...on the center of a strum."

This note from a reader:

Date: Thu, 26 Oct 95 06:31:38 0500
From: David Gold

David--

Nice work on "Ripple."

"the harp unstrung" recalls [William Butler] Yeat's "The Madness of King Goll":

(An illustration of W.B. Yeats as King Goll by his father, John Butler Yeats, which accompanied the publication of the poem.)

Speaking of the tympan [in before versions, a "harp all songless"] that he has found:

"When my mitt passed from wire to wire
It quenched, with a sound like falling dew
The whirling and the wandering fire
But lift a mornful ulalu
For the kind wires are torn and still
And I must wander woods and loma
Through summertime's estrus and winters common cold
They will non hush..."etc.

Perhaps non consciously, of course, but the thought of the unstrung harp being able to produce music is, in this calorie-free, much more poigniant.

This tip led me on a chase for data virtually this King Goll, who was an Irish king of legend, having lived in the tertiary century. Oddly, this is also the time when King Cole (close assonance) of Britain was supposed to accept reigned. See the note in The Annotated "Alligator" regarding Former King Cole.

And I have always wondered nigh an episode in Chris Van Allsburg's wonderful book, The Mysteries of Harris Burdick (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984), entitled "The Harp." (This book is a collection of drawings, with titles and first lines for each, presented equally a source of inspiration for children to write their own stories to go with the drawings.) The beginning line given is "So information technology's true, he thought, it's actually true." And the drawing shows a boy peering at a stream-fed swimming, abreast which sits a harp; and in that location is an expanding set of ripples beside the harp. Hmmmm. Wish I could reproduce the pic here--maybe I'll write to Mr. Van Allsburg for permission.

---

"Still Water" and "If your cup be empty..."

Several lines in this lyric conjure upwardly the 23rd Psalm, which for many listeners will be an evocation of peace and reassurance. In item, the lines referring to "still water," the filling of an empty cup, and the walking on a path in the shadow of the dark of nighttime are stiff references.

Hunter invokes the psalm associations in the outset verse, with his mention of the traditional psalmist's accompaniment, the harp.

The Psalm:

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want
He maketh me to lie downward in green pastures
He leadeth me beside the still waters
He restoreth my soul
He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his proper name's sake
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
I will fearfulness no evil, for thou art with me
Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me
1000 preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies
Chiliad annointest my head with oil, my cup runneth over
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life
And I volition dwell in the firm of the Lord forever

In some ways, the song could be viewed as an updating, or as a humanizing, of the Psalm. The Interpreter'south Bible states that "psalms are besides notable as existence the literary record of a reproducible religious experience. ... Later generations can...stand up, every bit it were, on their shoulders; they can retrieve their thoughts after them and catch some of their faith and vision." (v. four, p. 4)

This is a remarkable passage, in that it tin can be seen equally shedding direct light on Hunter's line "it's a manus-me-downward, the thoughts are broken..." But the poet does have a psalmist's duty to mitt down his version of the religious experience through his poetry. In this case, the psalmist admits, and even celebrates, his humanity: "If I knew the mode, I would take you lot dwelling house." "If I knew." Just of grade, he doesn't know, because he is human.

See the note in "Comes A Time" regarding Yeats' poem, "The Empty Cup."

And the 23rd Psalm plays a role in two other Hunter lyrics: "Alabama Getaway;" and the unrecorded vocal from the Eagle Mall Suite, "John Silverish," both of which mention the Valley of the Shadow.

---

You who choose to pb must follow

Cf. Mark, Affiliate x, vv. 43 and 44: "...and whosoever would be outset amid you must be slave of all."

This addition from a reader:

From pubblan@amber.indstate.edu
Date: 20 Mar 1995 ten:29:10 EST

Regarding the line in Ripple:
"You who cull to lead must follow"

There is this passage from the Tao te Ching:

"Therefore, desiring to rule over the people,
Ane must in ane'south words humble oneself before them
And, desiring to atomic number 82 the people,
One must, in i'south person, follow behind them."

vic flick

---

fountain

Cirlot, in A Lexicon of Symbols:

"Fountain (or Source) In the image of the terrestrial Paradise, four rivers are shown emerging from the middle, that is, from the human foot of the Tree of Life itself, to branch out in the four directions of the Cardinal Points. They well up, in other words, from a mutual source, which therefore becomes symbolic of the 'Centre' and of the 'Origin' in action. Traditions has it that this fount is the fons juventutis whose waters can be equated with the 'draught of immortality'-- amrita in Hindu mythology. Hence information technology is said that water gushing forth is a symbol of the life-force of Homo and of all things. For this reason, artistic iconography very ofttimes uses the motif of the mystic fount." (pp. 112-113)

---

That was not fabricated past the hands of men

Compare the lines in the Merle Travis song "I am a Pilgrim":

"There is a abode in that yonder city
That was non made by paw."

---

I would take you home

This line presages the Barlow/Mydland song, "I Will Accept You lot Abode".

---

Between the dawn and the dark of night

This annotation from a reader:

Subject: New Dead Fans; Some Thoughts on Ripple
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 02:57:14 -0700 (PDT)
From: Linda Gershon
David,

I'k pleased to report a recent example of something I'm certain you lot already know -- namely, that the Dead live on not simply in their longtime fans but in gaining new converts every solar day; and non merely kids getting their first exposure, but also boomers who should have, simply didn't, get into them earlier. While my devotion is coming upwards on 30 years (a source of both pride and abject terror), my sister, two years older, first heard Ripple played at a nuptials recently in lieu of Here Comes the Bride. (What an excellent replacement!) Apparently, this was the outset time she had always really listened to a Grateful Dead song (you tin tell how influential I was) and promptly went out and bought American Beauty, written report- ing that several other hymeneals guests had been simi- larly impressed.

So this news, along with the fact that Ripple is often my favorite Dead vocal and ever on the leader board, prompted me to revisit the Ripple section of your lyrics site. I'thou guessing I haven't read even a significant fraction of everything that'due south been writ- ten near this poem set to music; but, from what I take read, there seems to be pretty much a consensus apropos the lyric "In that location is a route, no simple highway, betwixt the dawn and the night of night," the prevailing view being that the dawn and the night represent nascency and death, respectively, and that the fact that there's a road instead of a high- style between them means that life is challenging, takes a lot of turns, is not a direct or unproblematic or obvious path, etc.

Merely my take on these words has always been somewhat different. To me, the dark represents despair, bleakness, unhappiness, confusion, cluelessness, etc., while the dawn means delectation, clarity, revela- tion, light, optimism, etc. Again, what's between them is arduous, difficult to navigate and must be discovered on ane's own, and not easy or obvious or spelled out anywhere -- only information technology'due south to get from dark to dawn, not the other style around. Yeah, I know the lyric refers to dawn start, just this manifestly serves the prosody, plus it would non be so unusual to speak of the road between at that place (the destination) and hither (the starting betoken), rather than the one between hither and there.

At first, I thought I must either be totally off base of operations or the only one right; but, lately it occurs to me (sorry -- I couldn't resist) that my long- fourth dimension accept doesn't really conflict with the birth and death interpretation, but may be simply comple- mentary. I'm sure Hunter wouldn't tell us -- the sly bastard -- only I but thought I would throw this in the fountain.

Past the fashion, the grossly over-used term "crawly" truly does use to your web site. It's an heroic ongoing accomplishment. Thanks.

Linda

---

That path is for your steps alone

This note from a reader:

Subject: ripple stuff
Date: Fri, xiii December 1996 15:39:53 -0600 (CST)
From: Jack Straw

"that path is for your steps alone"

compare to this quote from [Walt] Whitman's "Song of Myself"(46):

"Not I--not anyone else, can travel that road for yous,
You must travel it for yourself."

from "Song of Myself" in Walt Whitman, selected and with notes past Marker van Doren (New York: Viking Press, 1945), p. 127.

Aaron Bibb

And from another reader:

Subject: Thoughts on Ripple
Date: Thu, xxx Jan 97 12:55 EST
From: Dick Katz <0002020180@mcimail.com>

I was merely wandering through your site and the notes on "Ripple" in item. The lines "...and if y'all get, no i may follow, that path is for your steps alone" e'er remind me of the third poetry of "Eyes of the Earth" that brainstorm "Sometimes we live no particular mode but our own" which to me gets to the very essence of the Dead experience which is to simply be who you are.

Only random thoughts. Promise all is well with the new family. The site is yet 1 of the best things on the net.

And yet another:

Subject field: ripple Appointment: Sun, 13 April 1997 xix:26:06 -0700 From: Tony Kullen

David,

I was just reading Nietzsche's preface to his work , and was reminded of the line "that path is for your steps alone" in Ripple. Nietzsche's text is referring to the search for confinement. He says:

"For he who proceeds on his own path in this fashion encounters no i: this is inherent in 'proceeding on one's own path.' No one comes along to help him: all the perils, accidents, malice and bad weather which assail him he has to tackle by himself. For his path is his alone."

When I read that last line, i had to cheque the Ripple notation (which, of class, interrupted my homework, just who cares.) and, when I saw other references for that line merely not this i, I felt compelled to write. i hope information technology is a assistance.

Peace,
Tony Kullen

---

Keywords: @harp, @music, @water, @habitation, @haiku
DeadBase code: [RIPP]

---

First posted: February, 1995
Last updated: September 1, 2006

humphreydithemethen.blogspot.com

Source: http://artsites.ucsc.edu/GDead/AGDL/ripple.html

Share this post