Help On The Way

This song meaning is so simple and can only be assessed broadly as an abstraction. It about love. Love is they key but love is ephemeral.

That's is. Deconstructing this song further is about yourself. Want to know why? Read on...

First, the people who turn Robert Hunter's lyrics into bible preaching are almost always wrong. Hunter draws on a vast array of literary references, the bible included, for inspiration and meaning. Because he likes to draw on the bible that is the only thing certain people want to hear. Not the Shakespeare. Not the TS Elliot. Not Ben Franklin rolling the dew off his bells with cotton sheets.

Second, Hunter has specifically pointed out that any meaning found in Help On The Way is scatter shot, as he composed multiple versus on the fly, in the studio and Garcia picked some and discarded others mostly based on cadence.

To quote David Dodd, who approached Grateful Dead lyrics as a true scholar he wrote specifically of this song, "Hunter paints a picture that might resonate in a thousand brains differently."

To quote Robert Hunter himself regarding the meaning and/or lack of meaning in Franklin's Tower which is loosely tied to this song (via Slipknot), "My allusions are, admittedly, often not immediately accessible to those whose literary resources are broadly different than my own, but I wouldn't want my listeners' trust to be shaken by an acceptance of the category "meaningless" attached to a bundle of justified signifiers whose sources happen to escape the scope of simplistic reference.”

This quote from Hunter uses the language of semiotics to agree with Dodd's statement above. His words are generally meant to resonate broadly and differently with different people. This is why so many listeners are able to assign biblical prophecy to his lyrics. His lyrics serve as vessels to project your own meaning.

[Edit: typo]

first, i love thi song. it is one of my favorite dead songs. when i listened to the lyrics, i think thaT EVERYONE HAS had a dream like this. he is in a dream and sees a beautiful angel girl and falls in love with her. He wil pay any price to be with her. When it is almost time to wake up, he doesnt want to cuz he wants to be with her.

I absolutely LOVE this song. Still cannot figure out what it is about though. I can appreciate the interpretation of falling in love in a dream (more likely a trip)- but tbh it still makes no sense...

Regardless, I cannot get enough of this song!

About these 2 lines:

Tell me the cost; I can pay, let me go, tell me love is not lost. Sell everything; without love day to day insanity's king.

At time I hear the following:

Tell me the cost; I can bear any load, tell me love isn't lost. Sell everything; without love every day insanity's king.

I'm pretty sure about the 2nd line. The first line I'm probably hearing wrong, and is probably correct in the original lyrics.

I'll just leave this opinion here for a year or so, and keep listening to this song. If there are no other comments, I may edit the lyrics.

Paradise waits, on the crest of a wave, her angels in flames. She has no pain, like a child she is pure, she is not to blame. Poised for flight, wings spread bright, spring from night into the sun. Don't stop to run, she can fly like a lie, she can't be outdone.

-The song begins after Eve has eaten from the tree of knowledge. Satan is the voice and is speaking to Adam prior to him having eaten from the tree himself. Satan refers to Adam’s lover Eve as ‘paradise’, for to him, she is more important than the physical garden of eden. Satan states that Eve is now in a different state of mind, in a new world that Adam, in his current mindset, cannot understand and that she is lost to him now.

Tell me the cost; I can pay, let me go, tell me love is not lost. Sell everything; without love day to day insanity's king. I will pay day by day, anyway, lock, bolt and key.

-The voice shifts to Adam’s now and he offers to pay anything, to ‘sell everything’ to be with Eve.

Crippled but free, I was blind all the time I was learning to see. Help on the way, well, I know only this, I've got you today. Don't fly away, cause I love what I love and I want it that way.

-This verse takes place after Adam eats from the tree of knowledge to be with Eve. He is now mortal but is ‘free’. Adam begs Eve to stay with him one final day. This is contrary to the biblical story of Adam and Eve in that Adam seems to sold everything for just one more day with Eve.

I will stay one more day, like I say, honey it's you. Making it too, without love in a dream it will never come true.

-Eve agrees to spend one last day with Adam in the garden of eden, knowing that tomorrow, they may never see each other again. -I don't know the meaning of the final line.