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Brown-Eyed Woman Lyrics
Gone are the days when the ox fall down,
Take up the yoke and plow the fields around.
Gone are the days when the ladies said' "Please,
Gentle Jack Jones won't you come to me."
[Chorus]
Brown-eyed women and red grenadine,
The bottle was dusty but the liquor was clean.
Sound of the thunder with the rain pouring down,
And it looks like the old man's getting on.
1920 when he stepped to the bar, drank to the dregs of the whiskey jar.
1930 when the wall caved in, he made his way selling red-eyed gin.
[Chorus]
Delilah Jones was the mother of twins,
Two times over and the rest were sins.
Raised eight boys, only I turned bad,
Didn't get the lickin's that the other ones had.
[Chorus]
Tumble down shack in Big Foot county.
Snowed so hard that the roof caved in.
Delilah Jones went to meet her God,
And the old man never was the same again.
Daddy made whiskey and he made it well.
Cost two dollars and it burned like hell.
I cut hickory just to fire the still,
Drink down a bottle and be ready to kill.
[Chorus]
Gone are the days when the ox fall down,
Take up the yoke and plow the fields around.
Gone are the days when the ladies said' "Please,
Gentle Jack Jones won't you come to me."
Brown-eyed women and red grenadine,
The bottle was dusty but the liquor was clean.
Sound of the thunder with the rain pourin' down,
Take up the yoke and plow the fields around.
Gone are the days when the ladies said' "Please,
Gentle Jack Jones won't you come to me."
Brown-eyed women and red grenadine,
The bottle was dusty but the liquor was clean.
Sound of the thunder with the rain pouring down,
And it looks like the old man's getting on.
1930 when the wall caved in, he made his way selling red-eyed gin.
Two times over and the rest were sins.
Raised eight boys, only I turned bad,
Didn't get the lickin's that the other ones had.
Snowed so hard that the roof caved in.
Delilah Jones went to meet her God,
And the old man never was the same again.
Cost two dollars and it burned like hell.
I cut hickory just to fire the still,
Drink down a bottle and be ready to kill.
Take up the yoke and plow the fields around.
Gone are the days when the ladies said' "Please,
Gentle Jack Jones won't you come to me."
The bottle was dusty but the liquor was clean.
Sound of the thunder with the rain pourin' down,
Add your song meanings, interpretations, facts, memories & more to the community.
Yeah, definitely talking about prohibition, bootleggin' and all that. I'm aghast at the lack of passion in the comments about this song. This is a song that reminisces on a distinctly American tale in a bygone era (gone are the days when the ox fall down...). Today a Deere does all that nonsense for ya. Yay progress.
Jack Jones is at the center of the story in this song. He is a simple, hard working man (take up the yoke and plow the fields around). And in this simple context the man gets a little attention from the ladies (... the ladies said please, gentle Jack Jones won't you come to me) and starts a family. Though really, the "gentle Jack Jones won't you come to me line" also speaks to his youth. A youth that evaporated along with the bygone era, and you realize that the old man is moving from this life to the next (and it looks like the old man is getting on). That simpler time is dying with him, all respects....
And so this song becomes a retrospective of this American, early 20th-century everyman's life, told from his son's perspective. And as the son reflects on that life, it is impossible to segregate that life from the time and place in which it was lived. Prohibition, the Depression, America, the infancy of modern technology all play a role.
The beauty of this song is the simplicity of the life it describes. A man tills his land and sews seeds. He is a part of a large family - a necessity, as mortality rates are a bit higher back in the day (Delilah Jones was the mother of twins, two times over and the rest were sins). And a large family serves an agrarian purpose or lifestyle. Delilah enters the tale at this point, apparently a force of her own. She has the brood, half of it out of wedlock. Jones's brown-eyed woman passes when a cabin collapses under the weight of snow in the wilderness, and the song says that part of Jack Jones's essences leaves him that day. His imperfect love for an imperfect woman is that powerful. Plus this drives home the fact that hardship is never far away.
The son is taught the art of bootlegging (I cut hickory just to fire the still, drink down a bottle and be ready to kill). This is another romanticized aspect of Americana. Alcohol is legal today, but it's in all of us Americans to bristle at authority, and we love to do things our own way. A whiskey still is thus a damn fine thing. Some things never change.
The son registers all this as he looks backwards, some time in the future when Jack Jones is on the brink of succumbing to old age, and it impossible to look back on his life without remembering the time that that life spanned, and all that took place in and around it.
Early twentieth-century America is a place that would be largely foreign to us today. Both It's simplicity and our "advancement" are a blessing and a curse. This song, in my opinion, touches on all that and is about more elemental humanism and our agrarian roots. It is a very distinctly American folk song.
I'd love to see affirmation or contention of my assertions. Feel free to comment!!!
@bmwdotde I have recently started singing dead songs for others, solo with my acoustic guitar, and am constantly amazed at what happens once I start to practice and sing a song by myself a few times. Though I know the lyrics and have sung along with the songs for decades, something else happens when I have to sing them alone, I guess I do fall into a storyteller role, without exactly knowing the story when I start.
@bmwdotde I have recently started singing dead songs for others, solo with my acoustic guitar, and am constantly amazed at what happens once I start to practice and sing a song by myself a few times. Though I know the lyrics and have sung along with the songs for decades, something else happens when I have to sing them alone, I guess I do fall into a storyteller role, without exactly knowing the story when I start.
Most of my singing is in front of others who are not dead fans and I loved that band, so it is important...
Most of my singing is in front of others who are not dead fans and I loved that band, so it is important to me to really try to convey the evocative magic that is in the Hunter/ Garcia legacy and the Dead’s life work. Somehow, for me, learning to play the songs seems to transfer some kind of wisdom/knowledge to me and that is the closest thing to magic I know of.
Anyhow, today I was learning to play this song, after a few times singing it, the complete story formed out of the many images and evocative feelings that I have always known as separate images. Hunter is so good at painting pictures with words.
This has happened before with other songs and I am always blown away at how all of a sudden the song comes together to a complete story. When it happens I always come here to see if anyone else hears the story I hear.
So, in this longwinded answer, yeahh ! this is pretty much what I got today and I am here to affirm completely, one year later, neat-o, happy new year, we are everywhere and all !
Though I did not make the connection about bristling at authority, love it, agree, and it’s probably another reason so many of us love this song.
@bmwdotde
@bmwdotde
@bmwdotde
@bmwdotde
@bmwdotde I concur with the original comment and the first reply. Couldn't of said it any better myself
@bmwdotde I concur with the original comment and the first reply. Couldn't of said it any better myself
@bmwdotde You nailed it, brother.
@bmwdotde You nailed it, brother.
@bmwdotde You nailed it, brother.
@bmwdotde You nailed it, brother.
@bmwdotde Thank you so much for this! I have been listening to this song over and over again lately. Robert Hunter was such an incredible lyricist! I have been wondering what its meaning was. My thoughts were very in line with yours, but the way you broke it down analyzed it was excellent and filled in so many gaps for me! Thanks again!
@bmwdotde Thank you so much for this! I have been listening to this song over and over again lately. Robert Hunter was such an incredible lyricist! I have been wondering what its meaning was. My thoughts were very in line with yours, but the way you broke it down analyzed it was excellent and filled in so many gaps for me! Thanks again!
Definitely side with nanukrbsit, but I'm a little biased (I have a dancing bear tattoo).
Maybe I'm wrong here, but I think there are 3 main characters; father, mother and child. I think that the song is about inheriting his fathers fate. Father drinks a lot, has some kids but isn't "there" for them(father is never mentioned in the same verse as his children), mom dies and the kids grow up with a father who couldn't be a positive role model ("never was the same again"). He teaches his kids to "fire the stills," simultaneously teaching them how to make his drug of choice (which they drink) while at the same time warping their respect for law. The last verse is the same as the first, making me think the kid will retrace his fathers steps..... I know that many other Dead songs also have a theme of cycles, things move in circles.....
..... but I could be wrong. Personal interpretation, right?
You are partly right - we hear about Jack Jones, a womanizer in his young days ("Gentle Jack Jones wont you come to me?") and his wife Delilah, who was not a very faithful partner - as half of her eight boys were "sins". The couple makes a living as small scale producers of illegal liqour at desolate places ("Bigfoot county" is hardly a reference to a precise location) - simple, rugged,(Jack Jones would take up the yoke, if the ox collapsed), american folks with a certain contempt for authorities.
You are partly right - we hear about Jack Jones, a womanizer in his young days ("Gentle Jack Jones wont you come to me?") and his wife Delilah, who was not a very faithful partner - as half of her eight boys were "sins". The couple makes a living as small scale producers of illegal liqour at desolate places ("Bigfoot county" is hardly a reference to a precise location) - simple, rugged,(Jack Jones would take up the yoke, if the ox collapsed), american folks with a certain contempt for authorities.
But I definitly...
But I definitly think you are wrong about the father as a role model. Rather the fact, that he "never was the same again" after Deliah's dead suggests, that even if he was fond of other women, and his wife had other men, they were deeply attached to each other - and this ambiguity is very human, even touching.
A note of caution or even irony creeps in, when we are told, that only one of the Jones' eight boys - the narrator of the story -"turned bad", because he wasn't licked. This is the wisdom of the good ol' days, which of course also had a darker side.
The lines "The bottle was dusty, but the liqour was clean" tell us not to look at the surface but at the contents of things. Countless poets have of course offered this piece of advice,but it may be more relevant nowadays than ever. In connection with this song the lines may suggest that we should acknowledge the rugged qualities of the characters: "It looks like the old man's gettin on" - in spite of all.
Its talking about the roaring 20's and the Depression of the 30's. Its a metaphor for the High of taking drugs and the down that follows it.
hey, I saw that movie too
around the fire? mmmaybe im crazy.
I think this song might be about the prohibition of alcohol in the 1920's...
"1920 when he stepped to the bar, drank to the dregs of the whiskey jar.".....dregs of the whiskey jar meaning lack of liquor.
"1930 when the wall caved in, he paved his way selling red-eyed gin. ".....meaning the end of the prohibition.
I dont know, just my thoughts.
Awesome song no matter what it means!
@rage-fan2002 1930 was the Depression. That was the wall caving in. He could still make money because Prohibition didn't end till 1933.
@rage-fan2002 1930 was the Depression. That was the wall caving in. He could still make money because Prohibition didn't end till 1933.
red eyed gin was a form of whisky made during prohibition. it tasted like crap but was all they had. it sometimes contained embaulming fluid
When I first heard this song years ago, I thought they were saying "brown eyed women in red leather jeans". Just thought I'd confess...
When I first heard this song years ago, I thought they were saying "brown eyed women in red leather jeans". Just thought I'd confess...
I don't know what this song means. I don't know what most Grateful Dead songs mean, but they're still awesome.