The WELL: deadsongs.vue.35: Casey Jones

#21: from MANACAT SUNFLOWER (tnf) Tue 18 Oct 05 08:44

Tue, 18 Oct 2005 08:44:00 PDT

Manacat Sunflower writes:

Hi David,

I had heard that in street drug slang "White Horse" refers to heroin and "White Lady" refers to cocaine. Since the Dead song Casey Jones makes direct reference to cocaine, I had always interpreted "Lady in red, you'd be better off dead" to mean "using cocaine intravenously is not recomended".

Thanks for all the work on the Annotated Dead. It is a great resource.

Aloha,

Manacat [Read entire topic]

#20: Robin Russell (rrussell8) Tue 24 Feb 04 12:55

Tue, 24 Feb 2004 12:55:00 PST

I was fifteen years old when Workingman's Dead came out. My school handed out Saturday morning detentions for crimes like hair over the collar, not wearing your hat outside the school grounds etc.

One Saturday afternoon I was sitting on a railway platform waiting for a train. The only other person on the platform was a shaggy sort of guy with a back pack and guitar.

With an hour or more until the train's scheduled departure, it was inevitable that he noticed I was reading High Times magazine (for the record reviews, of course). So we started talking.

He was heading for north Queensland (where the climate suited his clothes). Had I heard of the Grateful Dead? Then he showed me the lead intro and chord changes for Casey Jones.

It is a great song to sing and play, and we always had the "sniff" in there, right at the start, instead of counting in.

Happy Trails [Read entire topic]

#19: Brian Penney (bpenney) Sun 26 Oct 03 07:40

Sun, 26 Oct 2003 07:40:00 PST

that "sniff" followed by the tune made this tune something different after i'd done coke. there was alot more, too, but that sniff is definately naive. [Read entire topic]

#18: Brian Penney (bpenney) Sun 26 Oct 03 07:30

Sun, 26 Oct 2003 07:30:00 PST

the big sniff is naively sarcastic. [Read entire topic]

#17: Christian Crumlish (xian) Wed 24 Sep 03 11:13

Wed, 24 Sep 2003 11:13:00 PDT

I meant the beginning. Some strange mental lapse or spatio-conceptual dyslexia intefered.

Melinda, put on the LP, turn up the volume loud, listen to the very beginning of the track... [Read entire topic]

#16: Melinda Belleville (mellobelle) Wed 24 Sep 03 09:40

Wed, 24 Sep 2003 09:40:00 PDT

There's a sniff? I don't think I've ever heard the sniff. [Read entire topic]

#15: David Gans (tnf) Wed 24 Sep 03 09:39

Wed, 24 Sep 2003 09:39:00 PDT

Uh, the big sniff is before the first drum hit. [Read entire topic]

#14: Christian Crumlish (xian) Wed 24 Sep 03 09:32

Wed, 24 Sep 2003 09:32:00 PDT

Then again, there is the big sniff at the end, and like "Born in the USA" the exuberance of the singing can be easily mistaken for enthusiasm. [Read entire topic]

#13: David Dodd (ddodd) Mon 22 Sep 03 10:40

Mon, 22 Sep 2003 10:40:00 PDT

Well put. [Read entire topic]

#12: Geraldo (comet) Fri 19 Sep 03 21:00

Fri, 19 Sep 2003 21:00:00 PDT

A dead song being "anti-drug" runs counter to the whole GD storyline, and thus has neither purpose nor validity in the media.

[Read entire topic]