Cassidy

Lyrics: John Barlow
Music: Bob Weir

Played frequently by Bob Weir with the Grateful Dead and more recently with Ratdog and other bands. . Also with Phil Lesh & Friends. Introduced by Bob Weir in Europe '72 as "Time for a crying song".

I have seen where the wolf has slept by the silver stream
I can tell by the mark he left, you were in his dream
Ah child of countless trees
Ah child of boundless seas
What you are, what you're meant to be
Speaks his name, though you were born to me
Born to me, Cassidy

Lost now on the country miles in his Cadillac
I can tell by the way you smile, he is rolling back
Come wash the night-time clean
Come grow the scorched ground green
Blow the horn, tap the tambourine
Close the gap of the dark years in between
You and me, Cassidy

Quick beats in an icy heart
Catch colt draws a coffin cart
There he goes and now here she starts
Hear her cry

Flight of the seabirds
Scattered like lost words
Wheel to the storm and fly

Faring thee well now
Let your life proceed by its own designs
Nothing to tell now
Let the words be yours, I'm done with mine

Faring thee well now
Let your life proceed by its own designs
Nothing to tell now
Let the words be yours, I'm done with mine

Flight of the seabirds (note a)
Scattered like lost words
Wheel to the storm and fly

Weir ... rejected Barlow's first take, written the previous fall. Barlow had been in a dark mood, born of, among other things, the war in Vietnam, and an experience he'd had in a cafe in Rawlins, Wyoming, where as a longhair he'd asked for lamb chops and been served a skinned lamb's head, eyes intact, in a pool of blood. His first version of "Cassidy" included lines like "ten pound rat in a trashcan, nuclear war neanderthal man". "I thought it was a little heavy-handed for the melody", observed Weir. [p415]