Truckin' - got my chips cashed in
Keep truckin - like the doodah man
Together - more or less in line
Just keep truckin on

Arrows of neon and flashing marquees out on Main Street
Chicago, New York, Detroit it's all on the same street
Your typical city involved in a typical daydream
Hang it up and see what tomorrow brings

Dallas - got a soft machine
Houston - too close to New Orleans
New York - got the ways and means
but just won't let you be

Most of the cats you meet on the street speak of true love
Most of the time they're sittin and cryin at home
One of these days they know they gotta get goin'
out of the door and down to the street all alone

Truckin - like the doodah man
once told me you got to play your hand
sometime - the cards ain't worth a dime
if you don't lay em down

Sometimes the light's all shining on me
Other times I can barely see
Lately it occurs to me
What a long strange trip it's been

What in the world ever became of sweet Jane?
She lost her sparkle, you know she isn't the same
Living on reds, vitamin C and cocaine
all a friend can say is "ain't it a shame"

Truckin' -- up to Buffalo
Been thinkin - you got to mellow slow
Takes time - you pick a place to go
and just keep truckin on

Sitting and staring out of a hotel window
Got a tip they're gonna kick the door in again
I'd like to get some sleep before I travel
but if you got a warrant I guess you're gonna come in

Busted - down on Bourbon Street
Set up - like a bowling pin
Knocked down - it gets to wearing thin
They just won't let you be

You're sick of hanging around and you'd like to travel
Tired of travel, you want to settle down
I guess they can't revoke your soul for trying
Get out of the door - light out and look all around

Sometimes the light's all shining on me
Other times I can barely see
Lately it occurs to me
what a long strange trip it's been

Truckin - I'm goin home
Whoa-oh baby, back where I belong
Back home - sit down and patch my bones
and get back truckin on


Lyrics submitted by capitol76

Truckin' song meanings
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  • +2
    General Comment

    Alright. Honestly, I cannot believe that nobody has yet mentioned what this song is actually supposed to be about. In a way, it is about drugs, and it's also about traveling, but it's not the Dead alone who are doing the traveling, it's also Owsley "Bear" Stanley, the Dead's early sound guy who was arrested for manufacturing and attempting to transport LSD. They were all arrested for real in New Orleans, (which is where Bourbon St. is), but the charges were dropped for everyone but Owsley who already had past manufacturing charges against him. It's a great song, and plenty of the Dead's songs have little to do with drugs, but this is not one of them. It's also foolish to say that LSD did not have a massive influence on their music--it did. On the cover of Aoxomoxoa "The Greatful Dead" can also be read "WE ATE THE ACID."

    Also, the line with "reds, vitamin C, and cocaine" is very clearly about drugs. "Reds" (as anyone who were actually alive in the era, or an active drug user at any time, would know) are any drugs that are depressants and have sedative effects. This includes various barbiturates and opiates. The term originates from opium poppies, which are red. "Vitamin C and cocaine" is referring not to ketamine (known as vitamin K) which may not have even existed, and certainly was not yet popular, at the time this song was written (it certainly was not called vitamin K yet, as it was first called that in a book written in the early-mid eighties, where it was used as an altered states therapy drug, but not identified in order to prevent what the writer of the book considered to be "abuse"), but rather, it is referring to cut cocaine, more specifically cocaine that has been cut with vitamin C, a very common white-powder drug adulterant.

    Anyway, you guys should try to get your facts straight before you get all holier than now, and act like you know exactly what the song was about.

    shawxeon November 09, 2009   Link

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