Chorus:
Baba Jingo, Baba Jingo, voices in the wind1, 2
Run the circle to the end and roll it back again
Run it ’round the midnight ’til the bell of morning peals
Seven miles to the step with wings upon your heels
Seven miles to the step with wings upon your heels
Burn the water, freeze the fire, spin the molten silk
Squeeze the butter from the stone and rubies from the milk
In the land of amber skies where the sun shines from the ground
You draw a circle in the sand and you pass that cup around
Now pass that cup from lip to lip but never spill a drop
Sip the foam and lick the brine from the bottom to the top
Ask the lizard on the stone the way to No-man’s Land
Right by night and left by day, just as the wind commands
Up the mountain, down the pass beside the waterfall
If you’re thirsty fill your flask but do not drink it all
Save a healthy swallow for the blue wind of the vale
To take you home by midnight on wings that never fail
To take you home by midnight on wings that never fail
Baba Jingo, king of mustard, pepper corns and salt
Add your spices to the brew beneath the starry vault
(Chorus)
Run it ’round the midnight ’till the bell of morning peals
Seven miles to the step with wings upon your heels
Seven miles to the step with wings upon your heels
(Chorus)
Run it ’round the midnight ’til the bell of morning peals
Seven miles to the step with wings upon your heels
Seven miles to the step with wings upon your heels
(Chorus)
Words by Robert Hunter
Music by Mickey Hart
The Oxford English Dictionary defines this as “an infantile variant of papa.”
Also, in the intersecting world of rock music and Eastern spirituality, the song by the Who, “Baba O’Reilly” comes to mind—a song by Pete Townshend that referred at least obliquely to Townshend’s own spiritual guru, Meher Baba. Baba in this context is an honorific, from the Persian for “father” or “grandfather.” So the root is the same, but the meaning expanded to include all human gurus.
According to the OED:
Appears first circa 1670 as a piece of conjuror’s gibberish, usually Iheyl or high jingo! prob. a mere piece of sonorous nonsense with an appearance of mysterious meaning. In 1694 by jingo occurs in Motteux’s transl. of Rabelais, where the Fr. has par Dieu: this, being contemporary with the conjuror’s terms, may be presumed (though not proved) to be the same word, substituted, as in many other cases, for a sacred name: cf. by Golly, Gock, Gom, Gosh, Jabers, etc. In Scotland, by jing has long been in common use.
And another meaning given by the OED:
one who brags of his country’s preparedness for fight and generally advocates or favors a bellicose policy in dealing with foreign powers: a blustering or blatant “patriot”; a chauvinist.
Played by the Other Ones in 1998. First performance by The Dead: June 20, 2003, at SPAC in Saratoga Springs, New York.
When the song was being developed, this was sung as the first verse:
Baba Jingo fly by night, break those bones in two
Suck the marrow, chew the gristle, boil ’em down to glue
Raggle Daggle, king of mustard, peppercorns and salt
Add your spices to the brew beneath the starry vault