A pistol shot at five o’clock
The bells of heaven ring1
Tell me what you done it for
“No I won’t tell you a thing
“Yesterday I begged you
before I hit the ground–2
all I leave behind me
is only what I found
“If you can abide it
let the hurdy-gurdy play–3
Stranger ones have come by here
before they flew away
“I will not condemn you
nor yet would I deny . . .”
I would ask the same of you
but failing will not die . . .
Take up your china doll
it’s only fractured—
just a little nervous
from the fall
Words by Robert Hunter
Music by Jerry Garcia
The African American “judgment day song” “Didn’t You Hear” contains the line “Didn’t you hear the heaven bells ring?”
Also compare the 1866 hymn title “Ring the Bells of Heaven,” words by William O. Cushing, music by George F. Root:
Ring the bells of Heaven! There is joy today,
For a soul, returning from the wild!
See, the Father meets him out upon the way,
Welcoming his weary, wandering child.
Cirlot says of the bell as a symbol:
Its sound is a symbol of creative power. Since it is in a hanging position, it partakes of the mystic significance of all objects which are suspended between heaven and earth. It is related, by its shape, to the vault and, consequently, to the heavens. 56
William Camden, an antiquary and scholar who lived between 1551 and 1623, wrote in his Remains Concerning Britain: “Betwixt the stirrup and the ground, Mercy I ask’d; mercy I found.”
These lines express the Christian concept that, even in the split second as you fall dying from your horse, there is still time to repent, ask for mercy, and be given absolution.
The hurdy-gurdy is a stringed instrument in which the strings are rubbed by a rosined wheel instead of a bow. The wheel is turned by the player’s right hand, while the left hand plays the tune on the keys of the key box. Two of the strings (usually), called the chanters or the melody strings, run though the key box, and their vibrating length is shortened by the key pressing against it. Several drone strings are outside the key box, and so sound the same note all the time. For this reason, the hurdy-gurdy sounds similar to a bagpipe. A small movable bridge on one of the drones can be made to vibrate rhythmically by cranking the wheel harder, and this buzzing is used for a rhythmic accompaniment to the tune.
The line may bring up a resonance with the Donovan song “Hurdy Gurdy Man” (1968, words and music by Harold Levey).
Often depicted in late medieval/early Renaissance art as being played by a skeleton (ha!) at the side of a dying man. Most famously it can be seen in Pieter Brueghel’s majestic Triumph of Death played by a skeleton watching the enormous rampant destruction of Life by Death passing before his eyes.
Studio recording: Grateful Dead from the Mars Hotel (June 27, 1974).
First live performance: February 9, 1973, at Roscoe Maples Pavilion, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California.
Originally titled “The Suicide Song.”
Erstwhile band member Bruce Hornsby included a song of his own composition titled “China Doll” on his Harbor Lights album.