Bringing me down
I’m running aground
Blind in the light of the interstate cars
Passing me by
The buses and semis
Plunging like stones from a slingshot on Mars
But I’m here by the road
Bound to the load
That I picked up in ten thousand cafés and bars
Alone with the rush of the drivers who won’t pick me up
The highway, the moon, the clouds, and the stars
The black-throated wind keeps on pouring in1
With its words of a life where nothing is new
Ah, Mother American Night, I’m lost from the light2
Ohh, I’m drowning in you
I left St. Louis, the City of Blues3
In the midst of a storm I’d rather forget
I tried to pretend it came to an end
’Cause you weren’t the woman I thought I once met
But I can’t deny that times have gone by
When I never had doubts or thoughts of regret
And I was a man when all this began
Who wouldn’t think twice about being there yet
The black-throated wind keeps on pouring in
And it speaks of a life that passes like dew
It’s forced me to see that you’ve done better by me
Better by me than I’ve done by you
What’s to be found, racing around
You carry your pain wherever you go
Full of the blues and trying to lose
You ain’t gonna learn what you don’t want to know
So I give you my eyes, and all of their lies
Please help them to learn as well as to see
Capture a glance and make it a dance
Of looking at you looking at me
The black-throated wind keeps on pouring in
With its words of a lie that could almost be true
Ah, Mother American Night, here comes the light
I’m turning around, that’s what I’m gonna do
Goin back home that’s what I’m gonna do
Turnin’ around
That’s what I’m gonna do
’Cause you’ve done better by me
Than I’ve done by you . . .
Words by John Barlow
Music by Bob Weir
Chapter twenty-five of The Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law (Banno Kato’s 1930 translation):
If there be hundreds, thousands of kotis of beings who in search of gold, silver, lapis lazuli, moonstones, agate, corals, amber, pearls, and other treasures, go out on the ocean and if a black gale blows their ships to drift upon the land of the rakshasa-demons, and if amongst them there be even a single person who calls upon the name of the Bodhisattva Regarder-of-the-Cries-of-the-World, all those people will be delivered from the woes of the rakshasas.
On the same page, as a footnote, Kato defines the black gale as “a black wind. There are six kinds of wind, viz. black, red, blue, of heaven, of earth, and of fire.”
Or, this might just be a reference to vehicle exhaust, given that the protagonist is a hitchhiker.
Reminiscent of the title of the Kurt Vonnegut novel, Mother Night, which, in turn, brings up the James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938) poem “Mother Night”:
ETERNITIES before the first-born day,
Or ere the first sun fledged his wings of flame,
Calm Night, the everlasting and the same,
A brooding mother over chaos lay.
And whirling suns shall blaze and then decay,
Shall run their fiery courses and then claim
The haven of the darkness whence they came;
Back to Nirvanic peace shall grope their way.
So when my feeble sun of life burns out,
And sounded is the hour for my long sleep,
I shall, full weary of the feverish light,
Welcome the darkness without fear or doubt,
And heavy-lidded, I shall softly creep
Into the quiet bosom of the Night.
St. Louis was an early “major center of blues activity” (Brown), along with ragtime. W. C. Handy is known as the father of the blues, and he wrote the classic “St. Louis Blues” (1914).
Written in Cora, Wyoming and San Anselmo, California. February 1972.
Studio recording: Ace (May 1972).
First performance: March 5, 1972, at Winterland in San Francisco. It was played fairly regularly up until 1974, then dropped from the repertoire until March 16, 1990. It remained something of a concert rarity, as Weir and Barlow experimented with a new set of words for a while, eventually returning to the original lyrics.
Here are the alternate lyrics, used briefly in 1990:
[Verse 2]
Well, it’s me and the road, yeah, we’re lacking the code
That will lead us to some as yet unforseen bar
Alone with the rush of the drivers who won’t pick me up
The highway, the moon, the clouds, and the stars
But I’m here by the road, yea, unraveling the code
That will lead us to some as yet unforseen bar
The black-throated wind keeps on pouring in
Like a siren it promises everything new
Ah, Mother American Night, invisible light
Ohh, I’m flying in you
The black-throated wind keeps on pouring in
With its words of a life where everything’s new
I left St Louis, the City of Blues
On a screaming blue bender I’d rather forget
With no scars that show, the keys to the road
A couple of tens and some stale cigarettes
But I can’t deny that times have gone by
Nothing is left but thoughts of regret
When I was a man, with so much in hand
That a bird in the bush would be singing there yet
But I can’t deny that times have gone by
When being with her was as good as it gets
The black-throated wind, whispering sin
And speaking of life that passes like dew
It’s led me to see if you want to be free
Have your way with each day as its granted to you
What’s to be found, racing around
You carry your blues to the edge of the sky
Think a coyote could care about birds in the air?
Think a raven thinks coyotes should learn how to fly?
We drew lines all around us when I was down
So now mine turns out to go right to the sky
So I give you my eyes, they were just a disguise
Anyway, where I’m going it’s too dark to see
Yes, and toss me to Chance and watch me dance
Choreography certain as bats on the breeze
So I leave you my eyes . . .
The black-throated wind keeps on pouring in
With its words of a lie I think just might be true
Oh, Mother American Night, here comes the light
I’m going right on ahead, that’s what I’m gonna do
The black-throated wind keeps on pouring in
The prophet that promises everything new
Ah, Mother American Night, come wrong or come right
I will always go onward in you