Dont You Know That Its Time to Get on Up What These Dreams Keep on Riding Are You

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"...got to brand it somehow on the dreams you still believe"

The Annotated "Comes a Fourth dimension"

An installment in The Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics.
Past David Dodd
Research Associate, Music Dept., University of California, Santa Cruz

"Comes a Time"
Words by Robert Hunter; music by Jerry Garcia
Copyright Ice Nine Publishing; used by permission.

Comes a fourth dimension
when the bullheaded man takes your hand
says: don't yous see?
got to make it somehow
on the dreams yous still believe
Don't give it up
you've got an empty cup
only love can make full
merely love can fill
Been walking all forenoon
Went walking all night
I tin't meet much difference between the dark and the light
And I experience the wind
And I gustation the rain
Never in my listen
to cause and so much pain

Comes a time
when the blind human being
takes your hand
says: don't you see?
got to make it somehow
on the dreams you all the same believe
Don't give it upwards
you've got an empty cup
only honey can fill up
but love can fill

From day to mean solar day
just letting it ride
you get and then far away
from how it feels inside
You can't permit go
cause you're afraid to fall
till the day may come up
when you tin't feel at all

Comes a time
when the blind human
takes your hand
says: don't you come across?
got to make information technology somehow
on the things you still believe
Don't requite it up
you've got an empty cup
only love tin can fill up
merely love can fill

[The post-obit poesy was sung in performance at least once, co-ordinate to Brett Heisler, at the Harding Theater on 11/7/71:]

When the words come out like an angry stream
You hear yourself say things you could never mean
[original line is: When yous cool downwardly you detect your mind]
sung equally When the estrus goes down and yous find your mind]
Yous got a lot of words yous've got to stand behind.

"Comes a Time"

Hunter has posted the manuscript of an early typhoon of the song in his archives.

Recorded on

Reflections
Hundred Year Hall

First performance: October 19, 1971, at Northrop Auditorium, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota. "Comes a Time" appeared in the first set, post-obit the first ever "Mexicali Dejection," and preceding "Playing In the Band." Other firsts in the evidence, which was Keith Godchaux's first, were "Tennessee Jed," "Jack Harbinger," "One More Sabbatum Night," and "Ramble On Rose." The song never fabricated it into a permanent rotation, only reappeared periodically over the years.

blind homo takes your paw...

This notation from rec.music.gdead, reprinted by permission of its author:

Appointment: Friday, ten Nov 1995 01:55:23 -0600
Subject: 'Comes a Time'<->"Cathedral" past Carver
Just listening to a 'Comes a Time' from '85 and got to thinking most the similarities between this song and a Raymond Carver story called "Cathedral" (or "The Cathedral"). Anyone else observe this? Is the idea of learning to see from the blind a theme that appears anywhere else?

BTW, the Carver story is EXCELLENT!

Peace,

Tom Zubal

And this note from a reader:

Date: xv May 1996 09:12:22 U
From: Rob Meador
Discipline: Comes A Time
Hullo David!
Recently, I idea about "Comes A Fourth dimension," in particular the line "blind human takes your hand, says don't yous come across?". It reminds me of a line from a Dylan Thomas poem chosen 'Was There A Time'. The line I'm referring to is the final line of the poem, simply it'southward short, and then hither's the whole thing:

Was in that location a time when dancers with their fiddles
In children'southward circuses could stay their troubles?
There was a fourth dimension they could cry over books,
But time has set its maggot on their track.
Nether the arc of the heaven they are unsafe.
What's never known is safest in this life.
Under the skysigns they who take no arms
Have cleanest easily, and, every bit the heartless ghost
Lonely's unhurt, so the bullheaded man sees best.

Thanks!

Rob

And still some other annotation from a reader:

Subject area: annotated grateful expressionless lyrics
Date: Wed, 20 May 1998 15:28:eleven -0500
From: "Shimer College" BBowen@shimer.edu
Greetings David!
First, I would like to thank and compliment you for your hardwork and inspiration regarding annotating the grateful expressionless lyrics. I recently graduated from a tiny (well-nigh 100 students), liberal arts, neat books college near Chicago. We like to brand jokes virtually how coincidental conversations at Shimer Higher are ever foot noted. All of our classes are based on original source readings, so nosotros are perfectly accustomed to integrating a variety of idea. Anyhow - as you can imagine - I've been a huge dead fan as long as I can remember breathing. Since I fancy myself a poet and something of a singer, i of the many aspects of their music I adore is their lyrics. I have always especially enjoyed noticing or guessing what their lyrics may insinuate to. Hence, I am manifestly enjoying the opportunity to see what you take come up up with... which leads to the real reason of this blathering note.
I of my favorite songs is (as if I didn't have thousands of "favorites") "Comes A Time". Yous asked if anyone was enlightened of other examples of the bullheaded homo leading or didactics. My instance strikes me equally and then obvious that I am kind of embarrased to mention it, but since you didn't mention it, possibly no one else has noticed yet. The "bullheaded human" allusion always reminds me of Sophocles' plays most Oedipus. Tiresias is the blind man, as well as the prophet. Although I don't think I have a very good translation, here is option quote: "If my eyes of flesh are airtight, it is and then that I tin can run across better with the eyes of the spirit."
I appreciate how you lot mentioned in your introduction that you lot wouldn't focus on which is the about accurate interpretation, as we all know where that kind of subjective mumbo colossal could lead. Nonetheless, if I were you lot, before giving my proposition too much though, I think you should bank check out the Oedipus plays yourself, just to make sure I'm non way off the marker. Thanks for inviting input. Keep up the good work. Accept care and have fun!
Smile - Grinning - Smiling,
Brandi Bowen
Banana Director of Admissions, Shimer College
bbowen@shimer.edu

This note from a reader:

Bailiwick: The Annotated "Comes A Time"
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 ten:20:46 PST
From: "Ed Watson"
David,

Like many emails you get, I'd like to outset past maxim how totally blown abroad I take been, and continue to be by the amazing work yous accept washed annotating the lyrics of the Grateful Dead. Your site has become a regular reference betoken for me every bit I report different songs and shows performed past the boys.

On that note, I am contacting you today concerning the song "Comes A Time". Yesterday, I was reading on your site about the first playing of this vocal on Oct xix, 1971. This was not only the showtime gig with Keith, but six dissimilar songs (all to become classics) had their first playing on this dark. What a prove it must have been.

I immediately set almost tracking down this bear witness through my contacts in the Sugarmegs community (maybe you've heard of Sugarmegs?). It's a truly astonishing grouping of people and FTP sites. As usual, they came through for me, and by the finish of the day I had a cracking sounding MP3 copy of the show. The first matter I listened to was "Comes a Time", and I immediately noticed two things. Get-go, that "extra" verse you mention on the site is present in this first playing of the song. I think it adds a lot to the power of the piece and am mystified why it would have disappeared. Secondly, throughout the song, Jerry sings "...when the bullheaded man takes your arm...", non "hand". My wife and I agree that "arm" works better in this context as a blind person usually takes hold of someone's arm, equally opposed to their mitt.

Thanks again for such a wonderful body of work. I also read your resume. If I e'er need to hire a librarian, I know exactly where to go.

Have a Grateful Day!

Peace,

Ed Watson
AOL IM - EdW1964

empty cup

Once more, every bit in "Ripple," Hunter invokes the image of an empty cup. In tarot, the cups represent the emotions, and indeed, "Comes a Time" seems to exist addressing that malaise of feeling goose egg--being so afraid to fall that y'all larn to plow off your feelings. "The day may come when you tin't feel at all."

The line echoes a poem past W.B. Yeats, "The Empty Cup":

"A crazy man that found a loving cup,
When all but dead of thirst,
Hardly dared to wet his mouth
Imagining, moon-accursed,
That another mouthful
And his beating center would burst.
Oct last I found it too
But found information technology dry as bone,
And for that reason am I crazed
And my slumber is gone."

tin't come across much divergence betwixt the dark and the low-cal

An interesting correspondance to the line in "Touch of Gray": "Every silverish lining'south got a touch of grayness" might be seen here. Run across the essay on Light and Night in Hunter's lyrics.

First posted: Oct 19, 1995 (24 years after starting time operation)
Terminal revised: November 24, 1999

baroneseellive.blogspot.com

Source: http://artsites.ucsc.edu/gdead/agdl/come.html