Dead Songs in Depth

    
Pride Of Cucamonga
w: Petersen m: Lesh
AGDL: http://arts.ucsc.edu/gdead/agdl/pride.html
LASF: http://www.whitegum.com/songfile/PRIDECUC.HTM
  

    
Pride Of Cucamonga 
Lyrics: Bobby Petersen
Music: Phil Lesh

Copyright Ice Nine Publishing; used by permission.

Out on the edge of the empty highway
Howling at the blood on the moon
Big diesel Mack rolling down my way
Can't hit that border too soon

Running hard out of Muskrat Flats
It was sixty days or double life
Hail at my back like a shotgun blast
High wind chimes in the night

Oh, oh, pride of Cucamonga
Oh, oh, bitter olives in the sun
Oh, oh, I had me some loving
And I done some time

Since I came down from Oregon
There's a lesson or two I've learned
By standing in the road alone
Standing watching the fires burn

The northern sky it stinks with greed
You can smell it for miles around
Good old boys in the Greystone Hotel
Sitting doing that git-on-down

Oh, oh, pride of Cucamonga
Oh, oh, silver apples in the sun
Oh, oh, I had me some loving
And I done some time

I see your silver shining town
But I know I can't go there
Your streets run deep with poisoned wine
Your doorways crawl with fear

So I think I'll drift for old where it's at
Where the weed grows green and fine
And wrap myself around a bush
Of that bright whoa, oh, Oaxaca vine

Yes it's me, I'm the pride of Cucamonga
I can see golden forests in the sun
Oh, oh, I had me some loving
And I done some time
And I done some time
And I done some time
  

    
Does anyone have a pointer for an online copy of the original Pride of
Cucamonga poem written by Robert Peterson?
  

    


A reader named George says:


Tim,

His writings and paper are supposedly held at University of California Santa
Cruz

<http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt1199q2gs/>

On their website (the above link) they state nothing of his is online.

But fwiw there is this discussion about the song on the  Univ of California
Santa Cruz website):

<http://artsites.ucsc.edu/GDead/agdl/pride.html>
  

    
Some confusion here due to the existence of a poet named Robert
Peterson (note the "o" in the last name), who is not the same as the
lyricist Robert Petersen. 

Tim--not sure what you mean by "the original Pride of Cucamonga poem."
What have you heard about?
  

    
I visited the Archive this past weekend and noticed they had a
typewritten copy of Pride of Cucamonga on display which had different
verses than the song.  I wasn't sure if it was written as a poem or as
the original lyrics pre-edit.
  

    
Well, that is wonderful to hear! I'll have to get on Nick's case to
send me a transcript. 
  

    
Here are the lyrics I was talking about above...

http://picpaste.com/pics/Pride-3vLmLU7F.1354215354.jpg
  

    
Wow! Thanks for that. Probably worth transcribing....one of these
days.
  

    
Talk to <xian>.  If memory serves, he transcribed them some years ago,
though I could be wrong about that.
  

    
Nah, I attempted to transcribe the one and only performance of
"Revolutionary Hamstrung Blues," for which Trist tells me no typescript
exists in the Ice Nine files.
  

    
Yes, and thank you for your heroic efforts on that one, Christian!
  

    
the problem is they only sang it once, so there's nothing to
cross-check. can't tell verbal slips from intentional weirdness, etc.
  

    
Right. And the lyrics went through the laundry in someone's back
pocket... Oh well!