Dead Songs in Depth

    
Loser
w: Hunter m: Garcia
AGDL: http://arts.ucsc.edu/gdead/agdl/lose.html
LASF: http://www.whitegum.com/songfile/LOSER.HTM
  

    
Loser 
Lyrics: Robert Hunter
Music: Jerry Garcia

Copyright Ice Nine Publishing; used by permission.

If I had a gun for every ace that I had drawn
I could arm a town the size of Abilene
Don't you push me baby, 'cause I'm moaning low
And you know I'm only in it for the gold

All that I am asking for is ten gold dollars
And I could pay you back with one good hand
You can look around at the wide world over
But you'll never find another honest man

Last fair deal in the country, sweet Susie
Last fair deal in the town
Put your gold dollars where your love is baby
Before you let my deal go down

Don't you push me baby, 'cause I'm moaning low
Well I know a little something you won't ever know
Don't you touch hard liquor, just a cup of cold coffee
Gonna get up in the morning and go

Everybody's bragging and drinking that wine
I can tell the Queen of Diamonds by the way she shines
Come to daddy on an inside straight
Well I got no chance of losing this time
Well I got no chance of losing this time
  

    
I have always heard it as:

"You could look around about the wide world over"

"Put your gold money where your mouth is, baby" (This seems more
consistent with the lyric being one side of a dialogue between the
gambler and his lover.)

"I know a little something you will never know"

Loser is is a defining song in the Grateful Dead archetype, with
another gambler facing defeat with (misguided) optimism. Eschewing the
Dionysian anarchist credo that "the road of excess leads to the palace
of wisdom", the protagonist counsels sobriety on the one hand and
reckless adventurism on the other (buying to an inside straight is a
losing strategy, as all but the most innocent of poker players know).

In fact, there is a pretty strong sense that this gambler is
protesting too much and that maybe the admonitions about hard liquor
and the disdain for the unruly wine drinkers is born of plenty of
personal mileage on that very road of excess.

Is this that same Wharf Rat earlier in his career? Is there a personal
history (whether imagined or otherwise) embedded in the Grateful Dead
songs?

Happy Trails
  

    
>>>I have always heard it as:

 "You could look around about the wide world over"

      Hunter's book "A Box of Rain" has it as "can look"

>> "Put your gold money where your mouth is, baby" 

         Hunter has it as "love is, baby"


>> "I know a little something you will never know"

       Hunter has it as "won't ever know"
  

    
Thanks, I think that is definitive, should have got my copy out.

Is someone getting the corrections identified in these discussions to
Ice Nine?

Happy Trails
  

    
I will certainly track them for the post-copyright-expiration edition of the
complete GD lyrics! Should be out in a couple hundred years...at the very
latest.
  

    
Yuck, n''yunk... Will Mickey Mouse be sticking the Ice Cream Cone in
his kisser on the front cover of that edition?
  

    
Bezackly.
  

    

Last week a fellow musician heard me sing "Loser" and asked me if I was sure
about "moanin' low."  He was sure that line was

Don't you push me, baby,
Because I'm on a loan
  

    
I always thought it was Because I'm all alone.  I'm so glad he brought this
up to you or I may never have learned that line.  I've only been singing
that song about 30 years.
  

    
I always thought it was "all alone" too, until I saw it in print.
"Moanin' low" is a connection to the old version of Casey Jones, right?
Or something...I'll have to go read that book of annotated lyrics and
try to figger it out. 
  

    
I think it means, "Don't give me any shit just 'cause I'm in a weakened
state."
  

    
And the phrase is also used in "So Many Roads": "Thought I heard that
KC whistle moaning sweet and low / Howlin' wide or moaning low," which
refers in turn to KC Moan: "Well, I thought I had heard that K C when
she moan." FWIW.  
 
  

    
I interpreted the correct text (after all these years) the way David did
when I read it.
  

    
I'm another who sang "all alone" for decades.