It Must Have Been The Roses

can't believe no one has even tried to show what it means, this song. let me start with it is a intimate and personal angle song, the delivery of the singing is very... crucial to what the feeling of the song is... since otherwise it may seem vague... but to me, Annie is dead and she is laid down in a bed of roses and her hair is dressed up with crimson ribbons. well chances are, you won't lay your head down in roses unless your dead since their thorns would hurt and it would be too frivolous to roll around in roses... however, while alive certainly, Annie must have expressed a vivid image that she should like to be covered in roses till she couldn't see... meaning, that is an awful lot of roses, a lot of expense, a lot of feeling being loved, a beautiful fantasy, you know, what with the lovely smell and decadence... well she looks so beautiful, the image is never going to leave...(and i assume she died some unfortunate early death, still with her beauty) nor the bond between the two... there was a vision shared between the two of them that is no longer possible with our man left alone... there may be good company from ten years out to sea, since the locals already know and dread the state of his, one pane left and neglect in his home... he is haunted with the vision of his Annie... he tells the story to new sympathetic ears, but it really is a beautiful but sad tale that doesn't ask for repeat visits... he is alone with the vision she left him with. something like that... I think it is like a mantra that is reflective of pain and the beauty of love lost.

Have no idea what this is about. Death and the loss of a loved one apparently, but I don't know. This is one of the few songs Robert Hunter wrote for the Dead which do not have at least one of the members of the performing ban (usually Garcia, Weir, and/or Lesh) as a co-author, meaning it's completely a Hunter opus. Has a definite melancholy C & W feel to it. Even the Annotated Dead Lyrics project started by David Dodd out of U.C. Santa Cruz has no annotations on this one. Has Hunter ever discussed what the song means to him? If not, why has no one ever asked him?

My interpretation is that this song is set during the civil war. Someone comes across the body of a woman killed while tending a rose garden. As other people pointed out, no one alive would choose to lie down in a rose bed. This kind of story telling through hints and allusions is typical of GD lyrics. The body has been there long enough for the ribbons to be faded but presumably not long enough to spoil the woman's beauty - perhaps it was late fall and she was bringing in the last of the season's roses and the cold preserved her body.

The narrator seems to be explaining why he is taking the time and effort to bury presumably an enemy woman - likely a rebel soldier burying a union woman as the Dead seem to favour southern and western stories. Again, between the lines this is in a war zone where burying the enemy dead would not be a priority.

I cant believe no ones commented on this song! Its so beautiful! There best in my opinion.

it is a beautiful song by the dead, the persuasions with their cover cd "might as well..." does an awesome acappella version of this song, too

This is about a man who shared some secret with a woman. Were they having an affair or had she pledged to marry him?

He went off to sea for 10 years.

When he returned she had already died and was placed in a mausoleum.

In old days since there was no embalming caskets were frequently made with a small pane of glass in them so people could see the dead but not smell them.

This fellow came back from the sea to find his love, dead.

There is one pane of glass in the window of the casket, but nobody is complaining and he tells whomever in the song has come upon him to come in and shut the door.

He then remarks that the ribbons and flowers in her hair are faded with time, and that she has been dead so long nobody comes around to view her anymore.

As the previous poster said laying her head in the roses was saying she died just like in the song he says that he would lay his head in the roses rather than reveal whatever she told him

This is probably one of my favorite Dead songs. The Dead were "Americana" before it was a genre, and Jerry truly loved a sad sweet song and Hunter wrote them for him.

How traditional, a man who lost his love and lingers at her casket even though she died years ago and her body has been corrupted.

This is a song about a man who lost his wife, but couldn't bear to leave her at the funeral parlor so he brought her home. Ten years on and his house is in ill repair and nobody from town visits the old man and his sun bleached corpse of a wife.

This song seems to have a very dark meaning hidden behind one of the most beautiful refrains ever produced. As already speculated; Why would Annie lay her head down in the roses? She was dead. A rosebush would be uncomfortable (painful), same for a rosegarden. If he couldn't leave her there, then where could be have left her? He moved the body and buried her somewhere (more suitable?) else. Away from the killing ground. Where she could rest comfortably/peacefully (undisturbed)? Ten years have passed. While at sea? What may blow in all good company? Hot air (gossip). When friends get together and the topic always comes around to, "What could have happened to Annie?". If I tell another what your own lips told to me...Let me pay 'neath the roses till my eyes no longer see He is acknowledging (in the song) who he is speaking to. He would rather die than divulge a secret? NO! HE WOULD RATHER DIE THAN ACCEPT ANOTHER'S PERCEPTION OF
REALITY! IT WOULD REQUIRE ACKNOWLEDGING THAT HE KNEW! REPEATING
THAT! THAT HE WAS NOT COERCED AND THAT HE WAS GUILTY! Remember, David Berkowitz / SON OF SAM blamed a neighborhood dog for commanding his murder spree. One pane of glass in the window... Only observation windows have "one pane of glass". No one is complaining...Come in and shut the door He's (I'm) not complaining. Come in and shut the door (the door with the
observation window). The door is kept shut. HE acknowledges his situation. Faded is the crimson from the ribbons that she wore... HIS TROPHY? Remember it has been ten years. And it's strange how no one comes round anymore... Until most everyone convinced themselves, the various individuals (detectives, attorneys, psychiatrists,...family) made efforts to get solution, information, justification, cure...resoulition.

Is there something that he still holding onto? What justifies the visit? Is the body still in the wind? Did he bury her at sea? His he protecting Annnie? Is he protecting himself from the hangman? What is his justification (excuse)? What supports his reality? Before the visit, during and after. IT MUST HAVE BEEN THE ROSES... Who is he saying it to?!!! HIMSELF!

I love this song. For years I heard a song of a seaman that married his love rather than leave her stranded and knocked up. Then one day I wondered what a one pained window was. That took me down a rabbit hole to "Madman Across The Water" (American Style). This fits right in with the Grateful Dead themes of death and crime, not to mention roses. It's shame that I can never see this as a love song again. Now I feel sorry for you.