When My Heart Is Ready I Will Love Again Jerry Hunter

"Let there exist songs to make full the air"

The Annotated "Ripple"

An installment in The Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics.
By David Dodd
1997-98 Enquiry Associate, Music Dept., University of California, Santa Cruz

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Copyright notice

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Ii analyses of the lyric are available:

• David Dodd's essay
• William C. Dowling's "Ripple": A Pocket-sized Excursus

Besides, a sermon, "No Elementary Highway," by Elizabeth Greene, is available.

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"Ripple"

Words by Robert Hunter; music past Jerry Garcia.
("Ripple" composed and written past Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter. Reproduced by arrangement with Ice 9 Publishing Co., Inc. (ASCAP))

If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine
And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung
Would you hear my phonation come through the music
Would you concur it near as information technology were your own?

It's a paw-me-downwardly, the thoughts are broken
Maybe they're better left unsung
I don't know, don't really care
Let there exist songs to make full the air

(Chorus)

Ripple in still water
When there is no pebble tossed
Nor wind to blow

Attain out your manus if your cup be empty
If your loving cup is full may it exist again
Allow information technology be known at that place is a fountain
That was not fabricated by the hands of men

There is a road, no simple highway
Between the dawn and the nighttime of night
And if you get no one may follow
That path is for your steps alone

(Chorus)

Y'all who choose to lead must follow
But if you autumn you autumn alone
If y'all should stand then who's to guide you?
If I knew the style I would take you home

Hunter has posted the manuscript of an early draft of the vocal in his archives.

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Analysis

"Ripple" is a song lyric by Robert Hunter. Its genre, therefore, is song. A true song is meant to be sung, and then its words must be easy to think, unless it is an experimental or art vocal. But Hunter wrote "Ripple" in the folk song tradition during the late 1960'south, with overtones of that Haight-Ashbury era, such as a sense of cosmic oneness, and of Due east meeting Due west.

Hunter, in choosing the folk lyric format, has infused it with something new. The first verse, addressing the listener, is virtually song, nearly listening to the song and making information technology your own. Hunter begins the verse by invoking the elements of song: words and melody, and so that the listener is prepared to recall nigh the vocal. The poet expresses business concern that the vocal exist sung past other people, opening upwards a discussion of the relationship between the singer and the listener, who will as well, it is hoped, come to be the singer, in turn.

So the relationship between poet and reader is unity; they are both the poet. In this fashion, the original poet breaks out of mortality, since his thoughts will continue to generate new thoughts.

The adjacent verse continues this theme, just points out that the identification betwixt singer and listener tin never exist total, since it is questionable whether any of the original poet's thoughts will actually occur to the person who is at present singing the song. But the poet concludes that fifty-fifty though 'the thoughts are broken,' it is worthwhile to take songs.

The chorus is the main puzzle of the song, every bit highlighted by the championship. It is prepare autonomously formally from the rest of the vocal, being a seventeen-syllable haiku. Following the commencement two verses, it suggests that thought is similar a ripple, not caused by annihilation, and doomed to be fleeting, not to be held. Hunter chose an Asian poem to express this idea, which is contrary to Western civilisation'due south principle of logical, rational thought. Hunter poses a counter-argument. Information technology is not worthwhile to believe that reason can be imposed on thinking, or that anything reasonable can come from thinking, since advice of idea will always be flawed. It is possible that Hunter's thoughts were built-in from the experience of altered states, and the frustration that goes with whatever effort to describe experience in an contradistinct country. His selection of a pool of water being momentarily disturbed by a ripple is in accordance with Samuel Taylor Coleridge'due south imagery in describing the fleetingness of the altered state in "Kubla Khan":

Then all the charm
Is broken--all that phantom-world and so off-white
Vanishes, and a k circlets spread,
And each mis-shape the other. Stay awhile,
Poor youth! who scarcely dar'st lift up thine eyes--
The stream volition presently renew its smoothness, before long
The visions volition render! And lo, he stays,
And shortly the fragments dim of lovely forms
Come trembling back, unite, and now again
The pool becomes a mirror."

(Echoes there of "Dark Star," as well. Hmmm.)

The next two verses introduce new themes. The commencement contains a benediction, wishing the listener a "full cup," or a happy life. This cup, moreover, tin be refilled at a fountain which, since information technology was non made by human being hands, represents a cosmic or universal level of existence. The side by side verse takes the song from the universal back to the individual. The path between dawn (birth) and night (death) is a metaphor for life, each life being individual. (For an alternate accept, see electronic mail from Linda Gershon)

The chorus follows, and in this context the ripple has become a symbol of an individual life, acquired by nothing a disappearing back into withal water, dorsum into the fountain non made by people. A life is a ripple. All life is nevertheless water. The chorus, so, is interpreted differently each fourth dimension. The start time a ripple is a idea in an individual mind; the second time a ripple is an private life in the pool of universal life.

The last poetry conveys optimistic hopelessness. The poet is compassionate, every bit shown by the last line, but wants u.s.a. to realize that there are no guarantees about life.

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"Ripple"

Lyric written in London, 1970. According to an interview with Hunter in a documentary film by Jeremy Marre, "Ripple," "Brokedown Palace" and "To Lay Me Downwards" were all equanimous in one afternoon, over a one-half-bottle of retsina. (The moving-picture show aired on VH-i on April xvi, 1997.)

Musical details:

• Key: M
• Fourth dimension signature: 4/4
• Chords used: Thou, D, C, A, F#, G7, Am
• Songbook availability:
  • Grateful Dead
  • Grateful Dead: Guitar Superstar Series
  • Grateful Dead Anthology: Guitar
  • Classic Grateful Dead: Selections From "American Beauty"
  • Anthology, vol. 2

First performed on Baronial 18, 1970, at the Fillmore West in San Francisco. "Ripple" appeared in the middle of the start prepare, an acoustic fix, between "Nighttime Hollow" and "Brokedown Palace." The "Brokedown Palace" was besides a premiere, as was the evidence's "Operator," and "Truckin'".

Recorded on:

• American Beauty
  • This version included on What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been
• Reckoning
• Garcia'due south Almost Acoustic
• Robert Hunter on his A Box of Rain

Covers:

1. Chris Hillman (formerly of the Byrds) on Morning Heaven
2. Jane's Addiction on Deadicated
3. Perry Farrell's album Rev
4. The New Riders of the Purple Sage on Live in Nihon
5. Jimmie Dale Gilmore on his One Endless Night

Information technology has found a permanent place in the Expressionless'due south live repertoire, but was reprised on special occasions, such as the 15th Ceremony shows in San Francisco and New York, which included acoustic sets.

This note from a reader:

Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2002 09:07:54 +1100
From: John Low

Hi David,

Greetings once once again from the Blue Mountains in Australia (maybe y'all'll call back me and my Dire Wolf story sent last year!) and many thanks for your contempo newsletter! As it happens, I ordered a copy of the "Grateful Expressionless Reader" through my local bookshop before Christmas and it arrived in January. I am enjoying it immensely ... so much good writing that (not surprisingly) I've never seen earlier! Sincere thanks to yous, and your married woman Diana, for putting it all together!

Being an admirer of the wonderful though tragic Richard Brautigan, I was pleased to discover that y'all published his quirky little poem well-nigh the Dead getting busted. This prompts me to ask if you lot are aware of an chestnut regarding Brautigan and the Expressionless's American Beauty album, recounted by his friend Keith Abbott in "Downstream From Trout Angling in America" (Santa Barbara: Capra Printing, 1989)? In this memoir Abbott recalls a dinner political party at Brautigan'south Bolinas residence in the early 1970s at which the poet Robert Creeley was a invitee.

"Just before dinner was served, Richard fabricated a big show of putting on a Grateful Dead record. He said that he had been saving the tape equally a surprise for Creeley. Bob nodded his thanks. When the starting time cutting started Creeley brought his head up abruptly "This is my favourite cut on that record" he announced. Richard beamed happily. As Creeley listened to the vocal Richard told a story of all the obstacles that he had encountered during the twenty-four hours in his attempt to find this item record for Bob. Content that he had fabricated Creeley happy, Richard went dorsum to the kitchen to attend to dinner. When the song was over, Creeley got up, went over to the stereo and, trying to play the cut again, raked the needle across the record, ruining information technology. "Uh-oh" he said. Then he went back to the couch and resumed his discussion. At the sound of the record's existence ruined, Richard came rushing out of the kitchen and stood at that place, watching the whole 'uh-oh' performance past Creeley. Going over to the stereo he brought out a 2d copy of the album from the stack aslope it. In his ain funny , precise way, Richard congratulated himself. "I'm, ready for Bob this time" he boasted. Then he went on to relate how Creeley had wrecked the very aforementioned anthology on a previous visit."

For ages I wondered which album it was that Brautigan played and which song was Creeley'southward "favourite cut". Fortunately Robert Creeley has a presence on the web so recently, I plucked up the courage to electronic mail him with my trivial question. Inside days I had a very generous and friendly reply:

Dearest John Low,

That was one drunken evening, similar they say -- of probably all too many. Richard knew my failings, call them, and then had backed up the record he expected me witlessly to scratch with some other, which I seem so to take x'd equally well. Ah eagerness -- and potable. Nosotros were neighbors at that time in Bolinas, with him merely down the road from the states headed into town.

Anyway the terrific song, every bit I remember at least, is Robert Hunter's "Ripple" and i of my prized possessions is Robert Hunter's collected lyrics, A Box of Rain, which he generously sent me some years afterwards. Anyhow I honey that echoing "Ripple in even so water..."

So onward... You lot must know Bob Adamson is my quondam friend indeed -- and a neat poet. You take dynamite writers out there!

Best to y'all,
Robert Creeley

A bit of trivia, yes, but isn't it prissy to observe these links between people yous admire and whose work you lot relish? Forgive me, though, if yous are already familiar with it.

With very best wishes from down under,

John Depression
Blue Mountains City Library

And another note from a reader:

Date: Fri, 01 Sep 2006 03:07:18 -0500
From: Patrick J. Volkerding
Subject: There is a road. :-)

Greetings, my friend. It is an laurels to finally take an alibi to write to you.

I accept enjoyed your work immensely, so thank you very much. I note that yous're even so doing quite well on Google! I have a bookmark somewhere, but it's and so much easier to just Google for "annotated". :-) Information technology's yet the 2d striking for that keyword, and the offset bodily annotation. You were great on "Dead to the World"! We were expecting our daughter Briah at the time, and got a big kick out of "What's Become of the Baby-O".

I take a couple of comments that I hope may be of some value to you.

[...] This adjacent one I considered a existent jewel of a discover, and it made me wonder if Hunter was familiar with this particular text because the similarities between it and Ripple seemed beyond coincidence. Lately though, I've been less surprised past coincidence -- the control center seems to have turned it upwards to xi.

I've been studying Eastern ideas of many kinds, and recently my attention was drawn to Kabir, the Indian mystic said to take lived from 1398 to 1518. The Wikipedia commodity on Kabir is quite interesting, and after reading ane of his songs (in Wikipedia's "Satguru" article), I went looking for more Kabir. I got to one item vocal and was stunned by the density of Ripple motifs in it, particularly in the second of the three paragraphs. Pointing them out is not necessary, simply like Hunter'south lyrics and Kabir'due south songs, reading between the lines will always be required to get the total effect.

Here's a link to Sacred Texts where I found Kabir's song, III. 48. t� surat nain nih�r: http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/sok/sok77.htm

Open up your optics of honey, and see Him who pervades this world I consider it well, and know that this is your own country.
When y'all come across the true Guru, He will awaken your middle;
He volition tell you the secret of dear and detachment, and so you will know indeed that He transcends this universe.
This world is the City of Truth, its maze of paths enchants the heart:
We tin can reach the goal without crossing the road, such is the sport unending.
Where the ring of manifold joys ever dances almost Him, at that place is the sport of Eternal Bliss.
When we know this, and then all our receiving and renouncing is over;
Thenceforth the heat of having shall never scorch us more.

He is the Ultimate Remainder unbounded:
He has spread His form of honey throughout all the globe.
From that Ray which is Truth, streams of new forms are perpetually springing: and He pervades those forms.
All the gardens and groves and bowers are abounding with blossom; and the air breaks forth into ripples of joy.
In that location the swan plays a wonderful game,
There the Unstruck Music eddies around the Space One;
There in the midst the Throne of the Unheld is shining, whereon the corking Being sits--
Millions of suns are shamed by the radiance of a single hair of His body.
On the harp of the road what true melodies are existence sounded! and its notes pierce the heart:
At that place the Eternal Fountain is playing its endless life-streams of birth and death.
They call Him Emptiness who is the Truth of truths, in Whom all truths are stored!

In that location within Him creation goes forwards, which is beyond all philosophy; for philosophy cannot attain to Him:
There is an endless globe, O my Brother! and at that place is the Nameless Existence, of whom naught tin can be said.
Only he knows it who has reached that region: it is other than all that is heard and said.
No form, no body, no length, no breadth is seen there: how tin can I tell y'all that which it is?
He comes to the Path of the Infinite on whom the grace of the Lord descends: he is freed from births and deaths who attains to Him.
Kab�r says: "It cannot be told by the words of the mouth, it cannot be written on newspaper:
Information technology is like a impaired person who tastes a sweetness thing--how shall it be explained?"

I promise you savor this small contribution as much as I've enjoyed reading the many observations online and in your outset edition. May you have many more happy editions. Andrea (my married woman) and I were theorizing this afternoon that a couple of dozen revisions from now your volume will finally manage to tie together all world philosophies and religions, volition be virtually a foot thick, and will more or less complete the Dandy Work past revealing every esoteric "secret" to those who can hear. Mayhap your book and the Grateful Dead will play a disquisitional role in helping unite mankind. Even more. :-)

All the best,

Patrick Volkerding

PS: I hereby place this email in the public domain.

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On the harp unstrung...

Chris Hillman, in his recording of "Ripple," sang the line equally "...on the heart of a strum."

This note from a reader:

Date: Thu, 26 October 95 06:31:38 0500
From: David Gold

David--

Overnice work on "Ripple."

"the harp unstrung" recalls [William Butler] Yeat'south "The Madness of King Goll":

(An analogy of W.B. Yeats as King Goll by his father, John Butler Yeats, which accompanied the publication of the verse form.)

Speaking of the tympan [in earlier versions, a "harp all songless"] that he has found:

"When my hand passed from wire to wire
Information technology quenched, with a sound like falling dew
The whirling and the wandering burn down
Simply lift a mornful ulalu
For the kind wires are torn and all the same
And I must wander woods and hill
Through summer's heat and winters cold
They will non hush..."etc.

Perhaps not consciously, of course, but the thought of the unstrung harp being able to produce music is, in this calorie-free, much more poigniant.

This tip led me on a hunt for information about this King Goll, who was an Irish male monarch of legend, having lived in the third century. Oddly, this is besides the fourth dimension when King Cole (close assonance) of United kingdom was supposed to have reigned. Come across the note in The Annotated "Alligator" regarding Old Male monarch Cole.

And I take always wondered about an episode in Chris Van Allsburg's wonderful book, The Mysteries of Harris Burdick (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984), entitled "The Harp." (This book is a collection of drawings, with titles and first lines for each, presented equally a source of inspiration for children to write their ain stories to get with the drawings.) The first line given is "So it'south truthful, he thought, it'south actually true." And the drawing shows a male child peering at a stream-fed pond, beside which sits a harp; and there is an expanding set of ripples abreast the harp. Hmmmm. Wish I could reproduce the movie here--mayhap I'll write to Mr. Van Allsburg for permission.

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"Still Water" and "If your loving cup exist empty..."

Several lines in this lyric conjure upward the 23rd Psalm, which for many listeners will be an evocation of peace and reassurance. In particular, the lines referring to "still water," the filling of an empty cup, and the walking on a path in the shadow of the nighttime of night are potent references.

Hunter invokes the psalm associations in the commencement verse, with his mention of the traditional psalmist'due south accessory, the harp.

The Psalm:

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want
He maketh me to lie down in dark-green pastures
He leadeth me beside the still waters
He restoreth my soul
He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
I will fearfulness no evil, for chiliad fine art with me
Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me
G preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies
Yard annointest my head with oil, my cup runneth over
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life
And I will dwell in the firm of the Lord forever

In some ways, the song could be viewed every bit an updating, or as a humanizing, of the Psalm. The Interpreter'south Bible states that "psalms are also notable as existence the literary record of a reproducible religious feel. ... Later generations can...stand up, as it were, on their shoulders; they can think their thoughts after them and grab some of their religion and vision." (five. 4, p. 4)

This is a remarkable passage, in that it can be seen as shedding directly light on Hunter'due south line "information technology's a paw-me-downwardly, the thoughts are broken..." Just the poet does accept a psalmist'southward duty to hand down his version of the religious experience through his poetry. In this instance, the psalmist admits, and even celebrates, his humanity: "If I knew the manner, I would take you dwelling." "If I knew." Merely of course, he doesn't know, considering he is homo.

See the note in "Comes A Time" regarding Yeats' poem, "The Empty Cup."

And the 23rd Psalm plays a part in two other Hunter lyrics: "Alabama Getaway;" and the unrecorded vocal from the Eagle Mall Suite, "John Silver," both of which mention the Valley of the Shadow.

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You who choose to lead must follow

Cf. Marker, Chapter 10, vv. 43 and 44: "...and whosoever would exist outset among you lot must exist slave of all."

This addition from a reader:

From pubblan@amber.indstate.edu
Appointment: 20 Mar 1995 10:29:x EST

Regarding the line in Ripple:
"Y'all who choose to lead must follow"

In that location is this passage from the Tao te Ching:

"Therefore, desiring to rule over the people,
I must in one'due south words humble oneself before them
And, desiring to lead the people,
1 must, in 1's person, follow behind them."

vic flick

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fountain

Cirlot, in A Dictionary of Symbols:

"Fountain (or Source) In the epitome of the terrestrial Paradise, four rivers are shown emerging from the heart, that is, from the human foot of the Tree of Life itself, to branch out in the four directions of the Primal Points. They well up, in other words, from a common source, which therefore becomes symbolic of the 'Center' and of the 'Origin' in activity. Traditions has it that this fount is the fons juventutis whose waters can be equated with the 'draught of immortality'-- amrita in Hindu mythology. Hence information technology is said that h2o gushing forth is a symbol of the life-strength of Man and of all things. For this reason, artistic iconography very oft uses the motif of the mystic fount." (pp. 112-113)

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That was non made by the hands of men

Compare the lines in the Merle Travis song "I am a Pilgrim":

"There is a abode in that yonder metropolis
That was not made by hand."

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I would take you dwelling house

This line presages the Barlow/Mydland vocal, "I Will Have Y'all Home".

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Between the dawn and the nighttime of night

This annotation from a reader:

Subject: New Expressionless Fans; Some Thoughts on Ripple
Date: Wednesday, 21 Jun 2000 02:57:xiv -0700 (PDT)
From: Linda Gershon
David,

I'm pleased to study a recent example of something I'm sure you already know -- namely, that the Dead live on non simply in their longtime fans but in gaining new converts every day; and not just kids getting their first exposure, but also boomers who should have, merely didn't, go into them before. While my devotion is coming up on thirty years (a source of both pride and abject terror), my sister, two years older, first heard Ripple played at a wedding recently in lieu of Here Comes the Bride. (What an excellent replacement!) Apparently, this was the first time she had ever really listened to a Grateful Dead song (you can tell how influential I was) and promptly went out and bought American Beauty, report- ing that several other nuptials guests had been simi- larly impressed.

And then this news, along with the fact that Ripple is often my favorite Dead song and always on the leader board, prompted me to revisit the Ripple section of your lyrics site. I'm guessing I haven't read fifty-fifty a meaning fraction of everything that's been writ- ten well-nigh this poem set to music; but, from what I have read, in that location seems to exist pretty much a consensus concerning the lyric "There is a route, no unproblematic highway, betwixt the dawn and the nighttime of night," the prevailing view being that the dawn and the dark represent birth and decease, respectively, and that the fact that there'southward a road instead of a loftier- way between them means that life is challenging, takes a lot of turns, is not a straight or simple or obvious path, etc.

But my have on these words has always been somewhat dissimilar. To me, the dark represents despair, bleakness, unhappiness, confusion, cluelessness, etc., while the dawn means contentment, clarity, revela- tion, light, optimism, etc. Again, what's betwixt them is arduous, difficult to navigate and must be discovered on one's ain, and non easy or obvious or spelled out anywhere -- but it's to get from dark to dawn, not the other fashion effectually. Yeah, I know the lyric refers to dawn first, but this plain serves the prosody, plus it would not be so unusual to speak of the road between there (the destination) and hither (the starting point), rather than the 1 between here and there.

At first, I thought I must either exist totally off base of operations or the but 1 right; but, lately it occurs to me (sorry -- I couldn't resist) that my long- time take doesn't really disharmonize with the nascence and decease interpretation, only may be just comple- mentary. I'm sure Hunter wouldn't tell us -- the sly bastard -- but I merely idea I would throw this in the fountain.

By the way, the grossly over-used term "awesome" truly does employ to your web site. It'southward an heroic ongoing achievement. Thank you.

Linda

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That path is for your steps lonely

This note from a reader:

Subject: ripple stuff
Appointment: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 xv:39:53 -0600 (CST)
From: Jack Straw

"that path is for your steps lone"

compare to this quote from [Walt] Whitman's "Song of Myself"(46):

"Not I--not anyone else, tin travel that road for you,
You lot must travel it for yourself."

from "Song of Myself" in Walt Whitman, selected and with notes by Mark van Doren (New York: Viking Printing, 1945), p. 127.

Aaron Bibb

And from another reader:

Subject: Thoughts on Ripple
Date: Thu, xxx Jan 97 12:55 EST
From: Dick Katz <0002020180@mcimail.com>

I was only wandering through your site and the notes on "Ripple" in detail. The lines "...and if y'all become, no 1 may follow, that path is for your steps alone" always remind me of the tertiary verse of "Eyes of the World" that begin "Sometimes we live no particular way but our own" which to me gets to the very essence of the Dead experience which is to just be who you are.

Just random thoughts. Promise all is well with the new family unit. The site is notwithstanding one of the best things on the net.

And even so some other:

Subject: ripple Appointment: Sun, 13 April 1997 xix:26:06 -0700 From: Tony Kullen

David,

I was just reading Nietzsche's preface to his piece of work , and was reminded of the line "that path is for your steps alone" in Ripple. Nietzsche's text is referring to the search for solitude. He says:

"For he who gain on his own path in this fashion encounters no i: this is inherent in 'proceeding on ane's own path.' No one comes along to help him: all the perils, accidents, malice and bad weather which assail him he has to tackle by himself. For his path is his alone."

When I read that terminal line, i had to bank check the Ripple notation (which, of form, interrupted my homework, but who cares.) and, when I saw other references for that line but not this one, I felt compelled to write. i hope it is a help.

Peace,
Tony Kullen

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Keywords: @harp, @music, @water, @home, @haiku
DeadBase lawmaking: [RIPP]

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First posted: February, 1995
Last updated: September ane, 2006

burnswatchn1952.blogspot.com

Source: http://artsites.ucsc.edu/gdead/agdl/ripple.html

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