When they come to take you down
When they bring that wagon ’round
When they come to call on you
and drag your poor body down
Chorus:
Just one thing I ask of you
Just one thing for me
Please forget you knew my name
My darling Sugaree
Shake it, shake it, Sugaree2
Just don’t tell them that you know me
You thought you was the cool fool
Never could do no wrong
Had everything sewed up tight
How come you lay awake all night long?
(Chorus)
Shake it, shake it, Sugaree
Just don’t tell them that you know me
You know in spite of all you gained
you still have to stand out in the pouring rain
One last voice is calling you
and I guess it’s time you go
(Chorus)
Shake it, shake it, Sugaree
Just don’t tell them that you know me
Shake it up now, Sugaree
I’ll meet you at the Jubilee3
If that Jubilee don’t come4
Maybe I’ll meet you on the run
(Chorus)
Shake it, shake it, Sugaree
just don’t tell them that you know me
Shake it, shake it, Sugaree
Just don’t tell ’em that you know me
Words by Robert Hunter
Music by Jerry Garcia
The title is reminiscent of the Elizabeth Cotten song “I’ve Got a Secret (Shake Sugaree).” Fred Neil recorded the tune in a version in which he reworked the melody somewhat.
From Hunter’s liner notes for the reissue of Garcia in the box set All Good Things:
Sugaree was written soon after I moved from the Garcia household to China Camp. People assume the idea was cadged from Elizabeth Cotten’s “Sugaree,” but, in fact, the song was originally titled “Stingaree,” which is a poisonous South Sea manta. The phrase “Just don’t tell them that you know me” was prompted by something said by an associate in my pre-Dead days, when my destitute circumstances found me fraternizing with a gang of minor criminals. What he said when departing was: “Hold your mud and don’t mention my name.”
Why change the title to “Sugaree”? Just thought it sounded better that way, made the addressee seem more hard-bitten to bear a sugarcoated name. The song, as I imagined it, is addressed to a pimp. And yes, I knew Libba’s song and did indeed borrow the new name from her, suggested by the “Shake it” refrain.
It has further been suggested that the use of “Sugaree” by Cotten was derived ultimately from shivaree:
shivaree n. Midwestern & Western U.S. A noisy mock serenade for newlyweds. Also called regionally charivari, belling, horning, serenade.
[Alteration of charivari.]
Regional Note: Shivaree is the most common American regional form of charivari, a French word meaning “a noisy mock serenade for newlyweds” and probably deriving in turn from a Late Latin word meaning “headache.” The term, most likely borrowed from French traders and settlers along the Mississippi River, was well established in the United States by 1805; an account dating from that year describes a shivaree in New Orleans: “The house is mobbed by thousands of the people of the town, vociferating and shouting with loud acclaim. . . . [M]any [are] in disguises and masks; and all have some kind of discordant and noisy music, such as old kettles, and shovels, and tongs. . . . All civil authority and rule seems laid aside” (John F. Watson). The word shivaree is especially common along and west of the Mississippi River. Its use thus forms a dialect boundary running north-south, dividing western usage from eastern. This is unusual in that most dialect boundaries run east-west, dividing the country into Northern and Southern dialect regions. Some regional equivalents are belling, used in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan; horning, from upstate New York, northern Pennsylvania, and western New England; and serenade, a term used chiefly in the South Atlantic states. (American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language) 46
Sugaree was also the name of a town in Liberia. A map in Mitchell’s School Atlas: Comprising the Maps and Tables Designed to Accompany Mitchell’s School and Family Geography (Thomas, Cowperthwait & Co, 1853) shows Sugaree on the northern coast, in the region called Ohio.
Shake it! interj. (1900s–1990s) a cry of encouragement to a dancer, usually a dancing woman.
Shake n., v. (1900s–1930s) an Oriental dance style done in sensuous jazz terms; to dance erotically; shaking added to Oriental dance motions. (Major)
In ancient Jewish times, Jubilee held every forty-nine years, was a ritualized way of giving everyone a clean slate. The tradition is outlined in the Bible in Leviticus 25:10:
And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.
The basic tenet of Jubilee is that all debts should be forgiven. This included indenture and mortgage of person and property. Thus the concept was readily embraced by America’s slave population and entered our folklore.
A formulation commonly known from “The Mocking Bird Song” (Sharp, #234): “If that mocking bird don’t sing. . . .”
Studio recording: Garcia (January 1972).
First performance: July 31, 1971, at the Yale Bowl, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. The song remained in the repertoire thereafter.