Dead Songs in Depth

    
The first one into the pool after the Angel's ripple was cured, so the
story goes.
  

    
Posted on behalf of Martin Aboitiz:

Here are a couple of notes on "Ripple" for you or your text as you see
fit.

The ripple is observed "When there is no pebble tossed / Nor wind to
blow", so what causes the ripple?.  It expresses the same sentiment as
the Zen koan, "what is the sound of one hand clapping"  Very fitting in
the structure of a haiku as you point out.

"And if you go no one may follow", yet  "You who choose to lead must
follow", so do we follow or not?, is there or is there not a ripple?.  
Is there actually a path?  The path might be the ripple, just as
ephemeral and hard to follow.


Martin Aboitiz
  

    
Great! That thought provoking post led me to reflect a bit more on
"You who choose to lead must follow" and the first legibile thought
that came into my head was Dylan's "You're gonna have to serve
somebody".

I see the verses making two different points: Verse 4 that every
individual has a different path to enlightenment; Verse 5 that the
journey is through paradox and illusion, "it's got no signs or dividing
lines and very few rules to guide".

One thing is for sure, that rippled water runs deep.
  

    

"You who choose to lead must follow" is excellent advice to an
improvisational musician, too, come to think of it.
  

    
Posted on behalf of Rich Binell:

David,
I've been fascinated by your annotations of Dead songs.
My favorite is Ripple.
So I've thought about it quite a bit.

I'm wondering if you've considered these two things:

"And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung."
Don't you think that the "harp unstrung" is a harmonica?

And

"Let it be known, there is a fountain, that was not made by the hands
of men"'

Now what's weird about this is that your Ripple page mentions
Coleridge's Kubla Khan.
However.
You ignore the fountain in the Coleridge poem.
And it seems to be the same fountain as the one in the song.

Compare

As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing
A mighty fountain momently was forced:

and

"Let it be known, there is a fountain,
that was not made by the hands of men"'


This is the poem:

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea

So twice 5 miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran
Then reached the caverns measureless to man
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves
It was a miracle of rare device
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid
And on her dulcimer she played
Singing of Mount Abora
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song
To such a deep delight 'twould win me
That with music loud and long
I would build that dome in air
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice
And close your eyes with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed
And drunk the milk of Paradise

(After reading Samuel Purchas’s Pilgrimage; Coleridge’s masterpiece
arrived to him suddenly in an opium dream. )

I'm not sure of all the images in Kubla Khan, or what all of it means,
but I hope this stirs some thought.
Kind regards,
rich

--
Rich Binell
  

    

> Don't you think that the "harp unstrung" is a harmonica?

Least poetic interpretation EVER!   :^)
  

    
> "When there is no pebble tossed / Nor wind to blow", so what causes
the ripple?.

Earthquake? Or some other source, subterranean or otherwise, that
makes the ground shake.
  

    
Transcendence.
  

    
Right, and the ripple indicates that the pool is activated.
  

    
No causation 
  

    
Right--"no causation." That's my take, too. Or the same causation as
caused everything, caused the universe, caused the "fountain, that was
not made by the hands of men."
  

    
Everything is connected to everything else, and we are made of
stardust.
  

    
Posted on behalf of Tim McCreight:

[...]

As the subject line says, my topic is 'Ripple.' More specifically, it'
s that line about 'between the dawn and the dark of night.' As with so
many of the notes included on the page, it's probably my favorite Dead
song because I find it at once both humble and inspirational in a
comforting sort of way. I suppose that means any of us can read
whatever we want to into it. There's a whole post-modern thing about
'the text' that could be gone into here but  I'll leave that to a
professional.

Because, really, I'm just a professional stumbler and when things
cross my path I see and make connections. And so this line leapt out at
me when it came as the epigram to, of all things, an investment
newsletter:"And the choice goes by forever, ’twixt that darkness and
that light.."

The line, it turns out, comes from a poem by James Lowell (of those
Boston Lowells who talk only to God) entitled 'The Present Crisis"
which served as the basis for a hymn, "Once to Every Man and Nation."
Wikipedia says that none other than Martin Luther King, Jr. would quote
it (t's a little vague as to whether he quoted the poem or the hymn).

So the thought was out there in the collective, poetic unconscious.
And it suddenly strikes me that none of this may be news to you. You
may know Robert Hunter personally. You may know enough about him to
make an informed guess as to whether the hymn or MLK was bouncing
around his brain. 

As I said, my path is to wander and connect. And sometimes I take a
chance and share a connection with someone I think might get it. You
are no doubt pestered by legions of the Band's acolytes. I have my own
history with the Dead. Let's just say that  in stumbling it's possible
to reconcile a lot of disparate strands and that punk may no be that
different from psychedelia.

[...]

Sláinte,

Tim McCreight