Winter rain, now tell me why
Summers fade and roses die1
The answer came, the wind and rain
Golden hills now veiled in gray
Summer leaves have blown away
Now what remains, the wind and rain
And like a desert spring my lover comes and spreads her wings
(Knowing)
Like a song that’s born to soar the sky
(Flowing)
Till the waters all are dry
(Growing)
The loving in her eyes
Circle songs and sands of time
And seasons will end in tumbled rhyme
And little change, the wind and rain
And like a desert spring my lover comes and
spreads her wings
(Knowing)
Like a song that’s born to soar the sky
(Flowing)
Till the rivers all are dry
(Growing)
The loving in her eyes
Winter gray and falling rain
We’ll see summer come again
Darkness fall and seasons change
(Gonna happen every time)
Same old friends the wind and rain
(We’ll see summer by and by)
Winter gray and falling rain
(Summers fade and roses die)
We’ll see summer come again
(Like a song that’s born to soar the sky)
Words by Eric Andersen and Bob Weir
Music by Bob Weir
See note under “That’s It for the Other One.”
Studio recording: Wake of the Flood (November 15, 1973).
First performance: September 7, 1973, at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, New York. It was played throughout 1973 and 1974, then dropped from the repertoire, as was the suite’s instrumental “Prelude.”
Eric Andersen, born in Pittsburgh in 1943, is a singer-songwriter whose career spans decades. He began on the folk club circuit in San Francisco and New York, releasing his first recording, Today Is the Highway, in 1965. His best-known song “Thirsty Boots,” while his 1971 album, Blue River, is regarded as his best work. Stylistically, Andersen moved through a range of music, from country to pop. He moved to Norway in the 1980s and formed a trio with Rick Danko and Jonas Fjeld, captured on Danko/Fjeld/Andersen. Andersen was along for the ride on the 1970 Festival Express Tour with the Grateful Dead and other West Coast musicians of the period (he was the only solo acoustic act on the tour), memorialized in “Might As Well.”