When I was hoppin’ freights and makin’ payments on the farm1, 2
Here between the angels and the deep blue sea3
You were runnin’, laughin’, growin’ sheltered from the storm4
Dreamin’ of the day the moon would set you free
Yeah, to sing your siren song so sweet and warm
River run deep
River run slow
Get a little restless
Wanna see some whales blow
River run cold5
River run clear
That feeling always gets to me
’Round about this time of year
Scoutin’ unknown borders under multi-colored moons
In the wildest flights of cosmic mystery
Rang a single soarin’ tone that strung the sky in tune
As the silence in my heart rose from the sea
Aaah, to greet you in the dawn with a pale harpoon
River run restless
River run high
Runnin’ thru a hailstorm
Try to catch a star on the fly
River run muddy
River flow like tears
Cocoon of life surroundin’ us
Holdin’ all our hopes and fears
Reach behind the wind
Search beyond the stars
We’re the life on Mars
When the day grows dark and scary scatterin’ the light
All the colors run away and hide behind your knees
The same sweet thunder tumbles rollin’ down the night
Like a mothership that calls for you and me
Come on, and drift along that sky river bright
River run swiftly
River run wide
Feel like sailin’
On the morning tide
River run golden
River run true
Set a course and follow
Ooooh, the star that leads to you
Words and music by Phil Lesh
This led to one of Phil’s greatest early adventures: hitchhiking to Calgary, Alberta, Canada to work in the oil fields. He only made it as far as Spokane before learning that the job in Alberta didn’t exist. So he rode in a boxcar from Spokane to Seattle—thirty-six hours—and borrowed money from some friends of his parents to take a Greyhound back to the Bay Area: “My parents picked me up, and boy, did I catch shit then! They made me get a job in a bank and I worked there just long enough for school to be starting again in San Mateo.” (Jackson and Gans, unpublished material for Garcia: An American Life) 90
The phrase “bought the farm” is slang for dying suddenly. Its origin is undetermined, though there are a number of theories floating around, including the idea that a soldier killed in combat will bring enough of a death benefit to his family back home that they can finally purchase the farm.
A new take on the old expression “between the devil and the deep blue sea,” which carries the meaning, roughly, of “between a rock and a hard place.”
The first recorded use of the expression, according to The Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs (3rd ed.), was in Bartholemew Robinson’s 1621 work Adagia in Latine and English: “Betwixt the Deuill and the dead sea.” This version of the saying was modified over the years into the familiar expression.
Perhaps the best-known use of the phrase in popular song is in Gram Parsons’ “Return of the Grievous Angel” (1974):
And I saw my devil,
And I saw my deep blue sea
Compare the Bob Dylan song “Shelter from the Storm.”
Reminiscent of the first line of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake:
riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.
No official recordings.
First performance: July 20, 1994, at Deer Creek Music Center in Noblesville, Indiana.
The song’s title is reminiscent of the 1953 Arthur C. Clarke novel, though Lesh stated, “It has nothing to do with that.” It was also the title of a song by Pink Floyd, recorded on their soundtrack album for the 1972 film La Vallée, released as Obscured by Clouds.