Cosmic Charlie, how do you do?
Truckin’ in style along the avenue1
Dumdeedumdee doodley doo
Go on home, your mama’s calling you
Calico Kahlia, come tell me the news2
Calamity’s waiting for a way to get to her
Rosy red and electric blue
I bought you a paddle for your paper canoe
Say you’ll come back when you can
Whenever your airplane happens to land
Maybe I’ll be back here, too
It all depends on what’s with you
Hung up waiting for a windy day
Kite on ice since the first of February
Mama Bee saying that the wind might blow
But standin’ here I say I just don’t know
New ones comin’ as the old ones go
Everything’s movin’ here but much too slowly
Little bit quicker and we might have time to say, “How do you do?” before we’re left behind
Calliope wail like a seaside zoo3,4
The very last lately inquired about you
It’s really very one or two
The first you wanted, the last I knew
I just wonder if you shouldn’t feel
less concern about the deep unreal
The very first word is: How do you do?
The last: Go home, your mama’s calling you
Go on home
Your mama’s calling you
Calling you . . .
Words by Robert Hunter
Music by Jerry Garcia
A popular dance step of the 1920s and ’30s. Step It Down has a section on the Zudie-O, a dance which incorporated trucking:
You better say “strutting” instead of “trucking.” They’re about the same, but the old folks just didn’t like you to say it so raw.
and later, describing the step:
The step used in this dance also takes the same count and is a “strutting” two-step: Step forward with the right foot, bring the left foot up to a close, step in place with the right foot, and rest. Repeat with the opposite feet. (Jones, Bessie)
The Oxford English Dictionary cites many different meanings for truck and trucking. One shade has truck as rhyming slang for sexual intercourse, which may explain the statement above about trucking being too raw a word for the “old folks.” And regarding the dance:
5. To dance the truck. U.S. slang. 1937 Amer. Speech XII. 183/1 Only Negroes can really truck.
and
trucking 2. The action of dancing the truck. slang. 1944 C. CALLOWAY Hepster’s Dictionary in Of Minnie the Moocher (1976) 260 Trucking, a dance introduced at the Cotton Club in 1933.
The OED also recognizes the phrase “Keep on trucking”:
to persevere: a phrase of encouragement. 1972. Sat. Rev. (U.S.) 28 Oct. 12 One poster . . . shows the famous R. Crumb cartoon characters and bears the caption: “Let’s Keep on Truckin.”
The New Grove Dictionary of American Music describes “Truckin’ ” as a dance step that was incorporated into the “lively and strenuous circle dance” the Big Apple. It describes the truckin’ step, “with its shuffle step and waving index finger.”
Calico is one of the oldest textiles known. Originally, calico came from Calcutta, a seaport in southwest Madras, India, from whence it derives its name. It is known that Vasco da Gama brought calico, then called pintadores, to Europe from India about 1497.
Calico was executed in a plain weave of carded cotton, printed by the resist method. . . . Naturalistic motifs were a favorite, and were done with polychrome effects. The designs were usually very small. (Jerde)
The calico referred to by Hunter in this line, however, is much more likely to be a reference to a type of cat. Generally, calico, in relation to animals, refers to a pattern of colorization similar to that of printed calico cloth.
Calico, one of the original Hog Farmers (along with Wavy Gravy), has been with Grateful Dead Ticket Sales “forever.”
See note under “Saint Stephen.”
There is a “seaside zoo” in San Francisco, the San Francisco Zoo on Sloat Boulevard at 45th Avenue. The zoo has a carousel. There’s also an old carousel in Golden Gate Park, just north of Kezar Stadium; a very loud calliope plays while the carousel runs. The carousel in Golden Gate Park is big, old, and ornate, with many mirrors.
Studio recording: Aoxomoxoa (June 20, 1969).
First verified performance: October 19, 1968, at the Matrix in San Francisco. The Dead revived the song in the post-Garcia era. Hunter titles this song “Cosmic Charley” in A Box of Rain.