In and out of the garden he goes
Country garland in the wind and the rain
Wherever he goes the people all complain
Stephen prosper in his time
Well he may and he may decline
Did it matter? Does it now?
Stephen would answer if he only knew how
Wishing well with a golden bell
Bucket hanging clear to Hell3
Hell halfway ’twixt now and then
Stephen fill it up and lower down and lower down again
Ladyfinger dipped in moonlight4
Writing “What for?” across the morning sky
Sunlight splatters dawn with answers
Darkness shrugs and bids the day good-bye
Speeding arrow, sharp and narrow
What a lot of fleeting matters you have spurned
Several seasons with their treasons
Wrap the babe in scarlet covers, call it your own5
Did he doubt or did he try?
Answers aplenty in the bye and bye
Talk about your plenty, talk about your ills
One man gathers what another man spills6
Saint Stephen will remain
All he’s lost he shall regain
Seashore washed by the suds and the foam
Been here so long he’s got to calling it home
Fortune comes a-crawling, Calliope woman7
Spinning that curious sense of your own
Can you answer? Yes I can
But what would be the answer to the answer man?8
High green chilly winds and windy vines in
loops around the
twining shafts of lavender, they’re crawling to the sun
Underfoot the ground is patched with climbing arms of ivy
wrapped around the manzanita, stark and shiny in the breeze9
Wonder who will water all the children of the garden when they
sigh about the barren lack of rain and droop so hungry ’neath the sky . . .
William Tell has stretched his bow till it won’t stretch no10
furthermore and/or it may require a change that hasn’t come
before
Words by Robert Hunter
Music by Jerry Garcia; coda music by Phil Lesh
In an interview published in Relix, the following exchange took place:
Relix: Was St. Stephen anyone specific?
Hunter: No, it was just St. Stephen.
Relix: You weren’t writing about someone, you were writing about something?
Hunter: Yea. That was a great song to write.
From the New Catholic Encyclopedia: “First deacon and apologist for the Christian faith . . . Stephen (from the Greek for ‘crown’) was a Hellenist, one of the Greek-speaking Jews of the Diaspora.” He was the first ordained by the apostles as one of seven deacons. His story may be found in Acts 6–8. He was stoned to death for preaching that Israel had become more progressively opposed to God’s word. He died ca. 34 A.D. and his feast day is December 26.
According to The Dictionary of Christian Art, “When held by a martyr, the red rose signified ‘red martyrdom,’ or the loss of life.” However, paintings of St. Stephen usually depict him holding a palm, a censer, or a stone.
There are quite a number of other Saint Stephens. Most notable is Stephen I, King of Hungary (997–August 15, 1038). This Stephen is generally considered the real founder of the state of Hungary. Again, according to the New Catholic Encyclopedia: “Stephen was aware that his seminomadic people could survive only if they embraced Christianity. He eliminated all the pagan representatives of the old order with grim determination and quite ruthless methods to achieve this integration into the Christian commonwealth.” His feast day is September 2.
Other Saint Stephens:
Stephen I, Pope (ca. 250)
Stephen of Die (1150–1208)
Stephen Harding (died 1134)
Stephen of Muret (ca. 1045–1124)
Stephen of Narbonne (died 1242)
Saint Stephen’s Episcopal Church on Belvedere Island, Marin County, California was the site of the memorial service for Jerry Garcia, which was conducted by Matthew Fox. The Grateful Dead also played there in the late 1960s, according to the the Reverand Kathleen Patton, who served at Saint Stephens in the early 1990s. The performance is not documented in DeadBase.
See note under “That’s It for the Other One.” The rose, as noted in that entry, takes on special significance when held by a martyr such as Saint Stephen.
A version of the ballad “The False Knight upon the Road” (Sharp, #2) contains the line: “I think I hear a bell. Yes, and it’s ringing you to hell.”
Compare also “Hell in a Bucket.”
This has two associations (at least):
1. Simply a woman’s finger.
2. A pastry called a ladyfinger. Here’s a recipe:
LADY FINGERS
About 30 small cakes
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Have ingredients at about 75 degrees. Sift before measuring:
1/3 cup cake flour
Resift it 3 times. Sift:
1/3 cup confectioners’ sugar
Beat until thick and lemon colored:
1 whole egg
2 egg yolks
Whip until stiff, but not dry:
2 egg whites
Fold the sugar gradually into the egg whites. Beat the mixture until it thickens again. Fold in the egg yolk mixture and:
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
Fold in the flour. Shape the dough into oblongs with a paper tube, on ungreased paper placed in a pan; or pour it into greased ladyfinger or small muffin tins. Bake for about 12 minutes. (The Joy of Cooking)
Also the British word for okra, the vegetable (Abelmoschus esculentus). Hmm.
A version of the ballad “The Cruel Mother” (Sharp, #10, version D) contains the line “O baby, O baby, if you were mine, . . . I would dress you in the scarlet so fine.”
The line was used as the title of a 1998 CD by Lambchop.
Calliope is “the Muse of epic poetry, and chief of the Muses. She was the mother of Orpheus by Apollo or King Oeagrus.” (Benet) 22 She was also the muse of playing on stringed instruments.
A calliope is also a keyboard instrument, usually associated with the sound of circuses and carousels. The calliope is an American invention, attributed to Joshua C. Stoddard of Worcester, Massachusetts, who filed a patent to produce the instrument in 1855. Calliopes were also extensively mounted on showboats. The number of whistles on a calliope ranges from as few as 13 to as many as 588, and can be heard as far away as eight miles. The musical instrument is also mentioned in “Cosmic Charlie” and “The Music Never Stopped.”
The name of a radio show that went on the air in 1937. Listeners wrote in with their questions, and the “Answer Man,” played by Albert Mitchell, with help from up to forty researchers, answered their questions on the air for over fifteen years. The show’s headquarters was right across the street from the New York Public Library, a perfect location for finding the answer to virtually any question.
Aractostaphylos, shrub native to California with about forty-three species. Its bark is just as described in the song, with a deep reddish hue. Its berry fruit was prized by indigenous Californians and used for a variety of purposes ranging from cider and lotion (to treat poison oak) to a drink for headache.
The story of the Swiss peasant who defied authority by refusing to remove his hat in the presence of the Austrian king supposedly dates from the early fourteenth century. He was forced, as punishment for his insubordination, to shoot an apple from his son’s head. His subsequent escape from prison and assassination of the governor incited the Swiss people to rise up against Austrian rule.
Studio recording: Aoxomoxoa (June 20, 1969).
First documented performance: May 24, 1968, at the National Guard Armory in St. Louis. In the repertoire steadily through 1971; reappeared from 1976 to 1979, then dropped again and brought back for three performances in 1983.