Wasn't That A Time

Lyrics: Seeger, Hayes
Music: Seeger, Hayes

Played by Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia ("Bob and Jerry") at Brigid Meier's Sixteenth Birthday Party, Menlo Park, CA, May 26 1961. No recording circulates, though Jesse Jarnow played an excerpt in Season 10, Episode 7 of the Good Ol' Grateful Deadcast on Robert Hunter's book "The Silver Snarling Trumpet".

See also Jesse Jarnow's book "Wasn't That a Time: The Weavers, the Blacklist, and the Battle for the American Soul".

Wasn't that a time, wasn't that a time
A time to try the soul of man
Wasn't that a terrible time

Brave men who died at Gettysburg
Now lie in soldier's graves
But there they stemmed the slavery tide
And there the faith was saved

Wasn't that a time, wasn't that a time
A time to try the soul of man
Wasn't that a terrible time

The fascists came with chains and war
To prison us in hate
And many a good man fought and died
To save the stricken faith

Wasn't that a time, wasn't that a time
A time to try the soul of man
Wasn't that a terrible time