Sleepy alligator in the noonday sun1
Sleepin’ by the river just like he usually done
Call for his whiskey
He can call for his tea2
Call all he wanta but he
can’t call me
Oh no
I been there before
and I’m not comin back around
there no more
Creepy alligator comin’ all around the bend
Talkin’ bout the times when we was mutual friends
I check my mem’ry
I check it quick yes I will
I check it runnin’
some old kind of trick
Oh no
Well I been there before
and I ain’t a comin’ back around
there no more
no I’m not
Hung up waitin’ for a windy day
Hung up waitin’ for a windy day3
Tear down the Fillmore,4
Gas the Avalon
Ridin’ down the river in an old canoe
a bunch of bugs and an old tennis shoe5
out of the river all ugly and green
The biggest old alligator that I’ve ever seen
Teeth big and pointed and his eyes were buggin out
Contact the union, put the beggars to rout
Screamin’ and yellin’ and lickin’ his chops
He never runs he just stumbles and hops
Just out of prison on six dollars bail
Mumblin’ at bitches and waggin’ his tail
Alligator runnin’ round my door (4x)
Alligator creepin’ ’round the corner of my cabin door
He’s comin’ ’round to bother me some more
Words by Robert Hunter and Ron McKernan
Music by Ron McKernan and Phil Lesh
When the Spaniards first saw this reptile in the New World, they called it el lagarto (“the lizard”). In American slang alligator has several figurative meanings, among them “a Mississippi River keel-boat sailor,” derived from the real or supposed battles of early boatmen with alligators; hence it is a symbol of manliness. (Brewer’s)
Alligator n. (1920s–1930s) a usually though not necessarily pejorative term probably coined by Louis Armstrong to describe white musicians who stole (“followed”) the ideas of black players. It’s a term used by black jazzmen, particularly in New Orleans, referring to white jazzmen and white jazz fans, jive black people, or jitterbugs. (Major)
A reference to the nursery rhyme “Old King Cole”:
Old King Cole
Was a merry old soul
And a merry old soul was he;
He called for his pipe
And he called for his bowl,
And he called for his fiddlers three.
Every fiddler, he had a fiddle,
And a very fine fiddle had he;
Twee tweedle-dee, tweedle-dee, went the fiddlers.
Oh there’s none so rare
As can compare
With King Cole and his fiddlers three.
The rhyme first appeared in print in 1708, according to The Annotated Mother Goose. The annotation for the rhyme also states that the King Cole being referred to in the rhyme is most likely to have been a third-century British ruler.
From this, Hunter’s first lyric for the band, to Barlow’s “Throwing Stones,” the ancient form of the nursery rhyme has provided both text and rhythm and seems to fit particularly well into the playful sound of the Dead.
Those age-old lines “Rain, rain, go away” and “Ashes, ashes, all fall down” come easily to Barlow. And Hunter: “Heigh, ho, the carrion crow, folderolderiddle” from “Mountains of the Moon”; “Is it all fall down, is it all go under?” from “Doin’ That Rag.” “Saint Stephen” and “Ramble on Rose” are good examples of nursery rhyme format.
Nursery rhymes have contributed to the lyrics of popular song since long before the Grateful Dead. “Mairzy Doats” is an example from the 1930s; “Good Golly, Miss Molly” is another example. Doubtless there are hundreds more such examples. The Beatles quite often used nursery rhymes, noticeably in the Abbey Road chant “One two three four five six seven / All good children go to heaven.”
For an excellent study of the use of nursery rhymes in popular music, see Popular Music Perspectives by B. Lee Cooper.
There are quite a large number of collections of nursery rhymes, and the best are Iona and Peter Opie’s The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes and The Annotated Mother Goose. So if these sketchy notes intrigue you at all, go find these books—they make surprisingly fun reading. Two things become clear as you read books about these rhymes. First, they cannot be dated. They are ancient and may have been collected as recently as a hundred years ago. Second, they are difficult to interpret. Scholars have over the years written lengthy conjectural articles on the possible meanings of just about every rhyme and can never seem to agree on any single interpretation.
Aside from the songs already noted, here are some more examples of lyrics showing evidence of nursery rhyme influence:
When I was a little boy,
My mammy kept me in,
But now I am a great big boy
Fit to serve the king
To which compare:
When I was a young man,
I needed good luck.
But I’m a little bit older now
And I know my stuff.
—“Let Me Sing Your Blues Away”
Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross
To see a fine lady upon a white horse
Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes
And she shall have music wherever she goes
To which compare:
Rings on her fingers and bells on her shoes And I knew without asking she was into the blues. —“Scarlet Begonias”
As an interesting footnote to this last rhyme, its source is apparently a children’s version of the May Ridings, a customary celebration of spring where two or three ride a horse simultaneously and which has been identified by folklorists as an outgrowth of fertility rites connected with the Teutonic goddess Hertha. So that lady in the rhyme is actually of divine descent, and her bells and attendant music are part of her worship.
“Blues for Allah,” “Althea,” “Throwing Stones,” and “The Eleven” all have nursery rhyme elements. See the notes for those songs for particular references.
This verse, according to Hunter, was written by the band as a whole. Hunter used this particular line in “Cosmic Charlie.”
Also part of the verse written by the band, according to Hunter. The Carousel was a performance venue owned and operated by a few San Francisco bands, the Dead and the Airplane among them. The Dead opened the ballroom on February 14, 1968. The Avalon (located at 1268 Sutter, at Van Ness, and operated by Chet Helms and his Family Dog) and the Fillmore (southwest corner of Fillmore and Geary, owned and operated by Bill Graham) were relegated to competitor status, hence this dig at the Carousel’s competition. Later in 1968, the Carousel was taken over by Graham, who renamed it the Fillmore West. It opened on August 5, with a show by Ornette Coleman.
This verse, according to Hunter, was by McKernan.
Studio recording: Anthem of the Sun (July 18, 1968).
Hunter says this was the first of his lyrics recorded by the band. Additional lyrics were added by Pigpen, and Hunter includes those in the published version in A Box of Rain.
“Alligator” was played sixty times between its debut, possibly on January 27, 1967, and April 29, 1971.
Duane Allman first played “Mountain Jam” one night while sitting in with the Grateful Dead. The melodic strains of Donovan’s “There Is a Mountain” can clearly be heard right at the 09:00-minute mark on the Anthem of the Sun version of “Alligator.”