Dead Songs in Depth

    
The Eleven
w: Hunter m: Lesh
AGDL: http://arts.ucsc.edu/gdead/agdl/eleven.html
LASF: http://www.whitegum.com/songfile/ELEVEN.HTM
  

    
The Eleven 
Lyrics: Robert Hunter
Music: Phil Lesh

Copyright Ice Nine Publishing; used by permission.

No more time to tell how
This is the season of what
Now is the time of returning
With our thought jewels polished and gleaming

Now is the time past believing
The child has relinquished the reign
Now is the test of the boomerang
Tossed in the night of redeeming

Eight-sided whispering hallelujah hatrack
Seven-faced marble eye transitory dream doll
Six proud walkers on jingle-bell rainbow
Five men writing in fingers of gold
Four men tracking the great white sperm whale
Three girls wait in a foreign dominion
Ride in the whalebelly
Fade away in moonlight
Sink beneath the waters
To the coral sands below
Now is the time of returning
  

    
Fwiw, my favourite lyric in a particular way... beyond fully fathoming
thanks to its' mirror-hall structure of references to references to
reference... well, I guess that was the point.

"Paging Mssrs Joyce, Elliot, Melville, all contirbutors to the various
Bibles of Human-kind, to the Saffron Buddha-phone. Please walk in step
and wait your turn.. Your call is waiting."
  

    
plus, now really is the test of the boomerang
  

    
...Tossed in the night of redeeming...
  

    
where else?
  

    
Furthur ;-)
  

    
from my old studies of Schubert Leider, I must know this, as it will
be essential to analysing the song: What came first? the riff in 11:
3-3-3-2, or the words? 

Didn't the guys have a jam in 11, and Hunter came up with words later?
  

    
Always a good question! Almost impossible to get it answered, except by
chance luck. I'd say it's extremely likely that they had the jam, and Hunter
came up with the words. But who knows?
  

    
only the shadow do
  

    
I like how Weir altered the lyric, specifically in the version thats
on the "Strange Remain" Other Ones live album. I think the altered
version really showed that "the Eleven" is a wonderful song on its own
and not just a transition, as Garcia so humbly called it interviews
when asked why they stopped playing it.
  

    
Posted on behalf of Joe Vanucci:

Hi David,

I wanted to offer the idea that perhaps there *is* unity in The
Eleven.  Hunter's counting starts at 8, not 11, but it could be
thought of like this:

8  7  6  |  5  4  3

or

8  7  6
3  4  5

where the sums of the columns each equal 11.  Like bookends.  Or, as
Hunter alludes "Now is the time of returning".  Returning to 3, the
closure for 8, if you will.
  

    
Nice@!
  

    
The Dead played The Eleven at Shoreline last night, and sang all the
words quite audibly. Wonderful to hear. 

The verse was sung more than once, and Weir came out with a new coda:
"This is the season of 'what now?'" Then he riffed for awhile on "What
now?" Fun!
  

    


David Klein writes:


I'm surprised that you don't reference the famous song lyric,
"Eleven are the stars in Yosef's dream"
from the Pesach song,
"One is HaShem"

David Klein, Southfield, Michigan
  

    
No one has mentioned Hunter's little book of poems "Idiot's Delight",
which has 11 sections of 11 poems each of 11 lines.

XI,3
A wandering
device--I've
said my piece
& wish to 
shut up &
repaint the sky
but this work
requires exact
count of verses.
Eight more
to be precise.
  

    
Ha!