Well, I was drinking last night with a biker
And I showed him a picture of you
I said, “Pal, get to know her. You’ll like her”
Seemed like the least I could do . . .
’Cause when he’s driving his chopper
Up and down your carpeted halls,
You will think me by contrast quite proper
Never mind how I stumble and fall
Never mind how I stumble and fall
You imagine me sipping champagne from your boot
For a taste of your elegant pride
I may be going to hell in a bucket, babe,1
But at least I’m enjoying the ride2
At least I’m enjoying the ride
At least I’m enjoying the ride
Now miss sweet little soft-core pretender,
Somehow baby got hard as it gets
With her black leather chrome-spiked suspenders,
Her chair and her whip and her pets
Well we know you’re the reincarnation
Of the ravenous Catherine the Great3
And we know how you love your ovations
For the Z-rated scenes you create
The Z-rated scenes you create
You analyze me, pretend to despise me,
You laugh when I stumble and fall
There may come a day I will dance on your grave
If unable to dance, I will crawl across it
Unable to dance, I’ll still crawl
You must really consider the circus
’Cause it just might be your kind of zoo
I can’t think of a place that’s more perfect
For a person as perfect as you
And it’s not like I’m leaving you lonely
’Cause I wouldn’t know where to begin
But I know that you’ll think of me only
When the snakes come marching in4
When the snakes come marching in
Words by John Barlow
Music by Bob Weir
Conjures up the line from “Saint Stephen”: “Bucket hanging clear to Hell.”
The phrase in American colloquial speech is “going to hell in a handbasket.”
One of my favorite “mis-hearings” of a Grateful Dead lyric came when Alice Kahn, the Bay Area writer, wrote in a review in the East Bay Express that this song was “Police on a Joyride.”
A reference to the Empress of Russia, 1762–96, who was an intellectual and, as hinted at in the song, a famous libertine.
Hunter also uses her name in his song “Do Deny (Lying Man)”:
I who ate with Kate the Great
On Chinese silver plate . . .
A reference to the spiritual “When the Saints Go Marching In.”
Written in Cora, Wyoming, August through December 1982.
Studio recording: In the Dark (July 6, 1987).
First performance: May 13, 1983, at the Greek Theater, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California. It remained in the repertoire thereafter.