What Does "Black Peter" (Hunter/Garcia) Mean To You?

It's about all of us, tomorrow, someday, yesterday...who's to say?

 

I have nothing constructive to add to the many intelligent posts here, so I'll post this minor observation. I'm not a Deadhead even though I have a few of the classic albums and I do regret not seeing them in their prime (oh, the stories I've heard just from the Austin shows!) since it was suggested to me at the time. (I have become a decent Bob Weir fan and loved his shows with the National a while back but I digress). So... I know this mournful song mainly from the Patti Smith cover on "Stolen Roses", one of the many Dead tribute albums and one that's a little looser than the more famous "Deadicated" album I would assume.

It's a ragged cover, done fairly impromptu from what I've read, when Patti Smith and band were recording their comeback album "Gone Again" - their version of Black Peter was recorded on the day Jerry died, which makes it heartfelt and sincere. It wouldn't make a best of Patti album, but it's interesting certainly and I'm glad that they recorded their effort for posterity. It's a great song. Thanks for making me think about it.

 

“Just like any other day that’s ever been.”
So damn true.
I remember leaving the hospital after watching my Dad die and seeing people moving about on their way to work and school.
I stared at them and thought, “How can these people be doing this? Don’t they know what’s happened?”

 

I never took the lyrics any deeper than "a man's self realization of impending death". So this thread is extremely intriguing to me. I am now hearing those lyrics in a different way...

Robert Hunter is one of my all-time favorite lyricists.

Not to get too far off topic, but as others have mentioned songs such as "Stella Blue", I have to say, while I appreciate many of the 'slow' Garcia/Hunter songs as compositions, they are usually a bit of a low point for me. - I think "Stella Blue", as an example, is a wonderful song, lyrically, musically and dynamically, but most of the time can be performed in such a way to leaving me feel deflated or missing the whole beauty of the tune. Other Deadheads will point out a "great" version, that to me is a very plodding rendition that only has one 'high' point... not enough for me to care.

And there are several songs like that for me. My wife and I sometimes laugh over the comedown of the "slow Jerry songs".

But unlike many others here, "Black Peter" was not often one of those. It's one I liked fairly instantly. (live that is, I don't think I cared too much for studio version the first time around, or the acoustic Bear's Choice version). And it may be because I didn't run into it as much as "Stella Blue" or "Ship of Fools", etc that it often seemed fresh. And it was sometimes a little more uptempo than some of the Jerry tunes. - I haven't heard it in awhile, but I remember the version from Dozin' in the Knick, being an example that surprised me as how I felt the song usually came off very well.

I'm a huge fan of the late 71-Europe '72 versions. Because the slow mellow electric guitar slide into A7 quiet start, makes it feel like we're going to be in for a bit of a slow boring ride, but quickly gets a passionate Jerry vocal and as always interesting Weir counter part, Keith (who was always phenomenal in this period) colours it beautifully with his piano, but it's really Pigpen's organ that fills all of that frontline out. I love Pig playing organ against Keith's piano and here is a song where it really works. (Incidentally, the first "Stella Blue" was played at Pig's last show and though it is only an audience recording, his organ is loud and just lays a bed of organ under the song and it just MAKES it for me... it's not the BEST version, but it makes me want to hear more with organ!)

Anyway, Since I mentioned everyone else, I should also mention that of course Phil & Billy were both monsters in that period of the band... so I didn't mean to leave them out.

I suppose I have heard bad versions of "Black Peter", but I still usually think very positively of it. It's a well written song and I always thought that lyrics were pretty straight to the point, usually Hunter takes me on a weird journey lyrically and I'm not always sure where I went or why I went there, but "Black Peter" always made me think of a man in a hospital bed with friends coming and going and I'm a little surprised I never took it much further...

 

I may be alone in feeling this, but I take “Easy Wind” to be much more lighthearted than “Black Peter”. The gravitas in the song comes, to me, from the knowledge that the man singing it would do himself in with liquor. Without that context, the references to hidden bottles are more comical than anything else.

 

You're not alone! My sentiments exactly.

 

Right - WAY more light hearted in tone and style. For me, the yang next to the yin of Black Peter - but some of the same general themes I hear about dying, people not hearing the same thing, friend/lovers misunderstandings. Seems interesting to me how it immediately follows Peter on the album

Know that the path towards death - though filled with sorrow, sadness and grief - is not always without a sense of calamity, humor and elements of all forms of passion.
With Bayou reference, some parts of New Orleans style music and attitude seem present to me, hence the levity contained in the song.

 

Thanks, I have the CD, I was pretty sure it was the live, you saved me having to go find it and confirm.

 

I am not convinced that the narrator in that last verse ("The people may know...") is the same person as the narrator in the rest of the song. I take Peter to be the narrator in the rest of the song (the one "lying in pain"), so the narrator of that last verse is someone else. This ambiguity regarding the narrator reminds me of Wharf Rat. In Wharf Rat, though, I think there could be only one narrator with some sort of split personality. I haven't fully developed this theory yet.

Perhaps the narrator of the last verse of Black Peter is one of the friends who came to see Peter. That friend is so self-centered that he, despite Peter "lying in pain" and dying right there, laments that the other friends don't seem to care at all about the last verse narrator's problems, i.e., how poor he is. This makes Peter's story even more tragic. He wants to have a friend or two at hand while he's dying, and at least one of the people who is supposedly his friend is instead so self-absorbed as to think the attention should be on his financial troubles. Maybe this could be seen as some kind of commentary about how self-centered we all ultimately are, and how friendships can be much less than they appear to be on the surface.

I don't have a theory for the "run and see" part, just like I don't have a theory for the two different women in Wharf Rat.

 

I take easy wind as an exhilarating ride fueled on booze, testosterone and braggadocio. The narrator is a working class self-satisfied force of nature who works harder than anyone, drinks as much as his old lady will let him-maybe get rid of her and get another rider who will not hide his booze and he knows more than anyone because he listens to what the River has to say-he is doing what comes naturally unlike a lot of others who are fenced in by...

 

I believe that in "Wharf Rat" the first verse and the last portion of the song from "I said to him ... " onward are sung by the younger narrator, and all the verses in between are from the perspective of the old man. The younger man sees what his future might be in the old man's experience (the younger man is already poor, already saddled with time to kill, and has a girl whom he suspects hasn't been true to him - the denial in both men gives that away). He is faced with seeing how his own life may end up.

 

Good pick.

 

I think you've captured it quite well. His is not to wonder why (if a broken back is his fate, so be it), his is to have a good time.

 

Correct. Bonnie Lee is the narrator's girl and Pearly Baker was the old man's.

 

Should I go into my Wharf Rat theory here or in the regular GD thread? Since this one is pretty limited in scope I'll let you, the thread starter, make the call.

 

Are you kidding? Bring it on!

 

"Black Peter" took a while to grow on me. It was my least favorite of the three "standard" post-drums ballads for a while and I definitely recall it being knocked somewhat by some Deadheads back in the day (what song wasn't?). I think the way the band sometimes played it in the 80s didn't do it any favors, either, i.e. kind of rushing it when that shuffle feel needs to be really relaxed.

At some point, though, I just saw enough killer versions of it that I started to appreciate it on its own merits. Plus, it was heavy as hell to hear Garcia sing this after he came back from his coma in 1986. It was truly amazing how many songs Hunter wrote in his 20s that became far more relevant and emotionally resonant 20 years later.

Someone told me that Jerry once said this was his favorite ballad for when he just wanted to rip it up on the solo, but I don't think I've ever seen this anecdote or quote in print. There's no question that Jerry could absolutely kill on this song when he felt like it.

 

Okay here goes. And let me preface this by saying that this theory is not without holes, and I certainly am not trying to say that this is Hunter's intended meaning or anything like that. So first the lyrics:

Wharf rat down [sung as Old man down]

way down
down, down by the docks of the city,

Blind and dirty

asked me for a dime--

dime for a cup of coffee

I got no dime but

I got time to hear his story:


My name is August West

and I love my Pearly Baker best

more than my wine

...more than My wine

more than my maker

though he's no friend of mine


Everyone said

I'd come to no good

I knew I would

Pearly believed them


Half of my life

I spent doin' time for

some other ****er's crime

Other half found me stumbling around

drunk on burgundy wine

But I'll get back

on my feet someday

The good Lord willing

if He says I may

'cause I know the life I'm

livin's no good

I'll get a new start

live the life I should



I'll get up and fly away

I'll get up and

fly away...

...fly away


Pearly's been true

true to me, true to my dying day he said

I said to him:

I'm sure she's been

I said to him:

I'm sure she's been true to you

I got up and wandered

Wandered downtown

nowhere to go

just to hang around

I got a girl

named Bonny Lee

I know that girl's been true to me

I know she's been

I'm sure she's been

true to me

So on the surface we've got two different characters: the narrator, and August West (the Wharf Rat). Both of them find themselves down by the docks of the city. August West asks the narrator for a dime, but the narrator doesn't have a dime. The Wharf Rat later says he's spent half of his life "stumbling around drunk on burgundy wine." Similarly, the narrator says at the end that he has nowhere to go so he wandered downtown, just to hang around. (And let's be honest, just hanging around downtown with nothing to do often leads to drinking...burgundy wine?)

When the Wharf Rat says he spent half of his life in prison, he says it's because of "some other ****er's crime." One explanation for this is that the Wharf Rat and the narrator are the same person with some sort of split personality disorder (I'm no expert on that stuff so I may be using the wrong terminology). But they aren't really aware that they're the same person. So the narrator did the crime, and when the Wharf Rat part of him wakes up in prison he thinks it's because of something someone else did, because the Wharf Rat part didn't do the crime.

It's interesting that in the first verse the narrator says that the Wharf Rat is blind. If they're really the same person, then the Wharf Rat part is blind to the narrator part. That is also reflected in the fact that the Wharf Rat, in describing who was the cause of him being in jail, just says "some other ****er" rather than something more specific/descriptive. If the Wharf Rat was aware of the split personality issue, he'd at least be able to blame the crime on his other personality, rather than just a vague reference to "some other ****er." Also, and this is a small point, both the narrator and the Wharf Rat don't have a dime. That's because they're the same person, in the same clothes, both with not even a dime in their pockets.

What I haven't worked out yet is why there are two different girls' names. Maybe each personality lives a life independent of the other, and the same person actually does have two different girlfriends. It's not impossible...some people do it consciously after all. Because the two personalities are unaware of the fact that they're the same person, the part at the end about the narrator and Bonny Lee just shows that he's doomed to the same fate as the Wharf Rat part. The Wharf Rat was ultimately let down by Pearly (she believed the people who said he'd come to no good), and the narrator is about to relive the same scenario with Bonny. That includes wandering around and getting drunk...after all, he's got "nowhere to go, just to hang around." So the narrator is doomed to the same fate that he sees played out in the Wharf Rat, but the narrator mistakenly thinks it'll turn out different for him because he doesn't know that he is the Wharf Rat.

Anyway, I might be able to ramble a bit more about this, but that's enough for now. I love "Wharf Rat," and if nothing else this stupid theory gave me an excuse to listen to the song more.

PS: A new idea came to while writing this. Maybe they are the same person, but stuck in some sort of "time is a flat circle" loop. The narrator is meeting his future self, the Wharf Rat, and at the end of the encounter the narrator wanders off to start his descent into becoming the Wharf Rat. Then, later on the new Wharf Rat meets the narrator, etc etc etc.

 

Box of Rain is about letting go of pain, specifically written for Phil after his Mom died. It tries to present the pain as something you choose to hold onto or let go. Interesting but a bit cold in my opinion. It's actually a simple message with beautiful imagery. Black Peter also seems straight forward to me. It;s about a guy on his death bed.

 

While I don't think Hunter had this in mind (but who am I to know?), I think your theory, if nothing else, breathes some fresh life into a very familiar song. I'd suggest trying to avoid making things too concrete or too specific - it's just not Hunter's style. (It doesn't have to all hold together down to the last detail, IMO.) After having been my own worst enemy for a period in my life, I listened to "Jack Straw" one day and said to myself, "You know what? - Shannon might just be PART of Jack. Shannon is the id - he gets in all the trouble, and then Jack, the ego, has to deal with the consequences. Jack has to "kill" the Shannon inside him if he ever wants to settle down to a normal life." I don't think Hunter had anything so complex in mind, but as long as I don't peddle it as THE interpretation of the song, who does it hurt?

 

It was Phil's father who was dying when he wrote and recorded Box of Rain.

 

Just to toss the immortal "left-handed monkey wrench" onto your train of thought (or at least the tracks, upon which one should not stop), what if the lyric is:

I spent doing time, for some mother****er's crime...

 

We grew up with a character named Black Peter who gave out lumps of coal at Christmas time, and supposedly if you were 'bad' he would take you away in his sack. It's a Nederlandse (Dutch) thing.
Zwarte Piet - Wikipedia

It's on one of my favorite Dead albums but not my favorite track.

 

My introduction of Easy Wind into the Black Peter discussion was to point out that despite some related themes- the spirit and tone was way different, which I found interesting since they are back to back on the album.

Also of note - is that the cautionary tale that is the song “Casey Jones” - immediately follows the hell bent attitude of the character in Easy Wind.

Lots of tales of characters, life situations and places are present in the lyrics of the album, Workingman’s Dead. That’s probably why I often think of it’s songs in context of the whole album.