All I know is something like a bird
within her sang1
All I know, she sang a little while
and then flew on
Tell me all that you know
I’ll show you
Snow and rain
If you hear that same sweet song again
will you know why?
Anyone who sings a tune so sweet
is passing by
Laugh in the sunshine
sing
cry in the dark
fly
through the night
Don’t cry now
Don’t you cry
Don’t you cry
anymore
la-la-la-la
Sleep
in the stars
don’t you cry
dry your eyes on the wind
la-la-la-la
la . . .
All I know is something like a bird
within her sang
All I know, she sang a little while
and then flew on
Tell me all that you know
I’ll show you
Snow and rain
Words by Robert Hunter
Music by Jerry Garcia
Lesh began to sing “within him” in homage to Garcia, after his death in 1995.
Studio recording: Garcia (January 1972).
First performance: February 19, 1971, at the Capitol Theater in Port Chester, New York. The song remained in the repertoire steadily through September 1973, then was dropped until September 1980, after which it remained in steady rotation.
Hunter includes the dedication “. . . for Janis” with the lyric as it appears in A Box of Rain. He also lists the title as “Birdsong.” In his notes for the All Good Things box set, he wrote:
Don’t remember where I wrote the words for “Bird Song.” Probably when we were all living in Larkspur (where we wrote Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty) because it’s intended as a tribute to Janis [Joplin], after her death, and she lived down the block from us in Madrone Canyon. The birdsong image came from a beautiful collage someone had constructed and hung on the wall when I was a waiter at St. Michael’s Alley on University Avenue in Palo Alto. . . . The collage had a picture of a bird and a quote: “All I know is something in me sang that in me sings no more.” I don’t know whose quote that is, but it stuck with me over the years and finally found its expression in “Bird Song.” 45