Baby, baby, tell me what's the matter
Why, why tell me, what's your why now?
Tell me why will you never come home?
Tell me what's your reason if you've got a good one

Everywhere I go
The people all know
Everyone's doin' that rag

Take my line, go fishin' for a Tuesday
Maybe take my supper, eat it down by the sea
Gave my baby twenty, forty good reasons
Couldn't find any better ones in the morning at three

The rain gonna come but the rain gonna go, you know
Stepping off sharply from the rank and file
Awful cold and dark like a dungeon
Maybe get a little bit darker 'fore the day

Hipsters, tripsters
real cool chicks, sir,
everyone's doin' that rag 

Don't neglect to pick up what your share is
All the winter birds are winging home now
Hey, Love, go and look around you
Nothing out there you haven't seen before now

But you can wade in the water
and never get wet
if you keep on doin' that rag

One-eyed jacks and the deuces are wild
And the aces are crawling up and down your sleeve
Come back here, Baby Louise,
and tell me the name
of the game that you play

Is it all fall down?
Is it all go under?
Is it all fall down, down, down
Is it all go under?

Everywhere I go
the people all know
everybody's doin' that rag

* Peter Grant heard this line as:
"Old like a nun drinking demon bad tea."

Well, baby, baby wants a gold diamond ring
Wants it more than most any old thing
Well, when I get those jelly-roll blues
Why, I'd go and get anything in this world for you

Down to the jewelry store packing a gun,
says, "Wrap it up. I think I'll take this one."
"A thousand dollars, please," the jewelry man said
Dupree, he said, "I'll pay this one off to you in lead"

Well, you know, son, you just can't figure,
first thing you know you're gonna pull that trigger
and it's no wonder your reason goes bad--
jelly roll will drive you stone-mad

Judge said, "Son, this gonna cost you some time"
Dupree said, "Judge, you know that crossed my mind"
Judge said, "Fact, it's gonna cost you your life"
Dupree said, "Judge, you know that seems to me to be about right"

Judge said, "Son, I know your baby well
but that's a secret I can't never tell"
Dupree said, "Judge, well, it's well understood,
and you got to admit that that sweet, sweet jelly's so good"

Well, you know, son, you just can't figure,
first thing you know you're gonna pull that trigger
and it's no wonder your reason goes bad--
jelly roll will drive you stone-mad.

Same old story and I know it's been told,
some like jelly-jelly--some like gold
Many a man's done a terrible thing
just to get baby that shiny diamond ring

Hi-ho the Carrion Crow
Folderolderiddle
Hi-ho the Carrion Crow
Bow and bend to me

Hey, Tom Banjo
Hey, a laurel
More than laurel 
You may sew
More than laurel 
You may sew

Hey, the laurel
Hey, the city
In the rain
Hey, hey
Hey, the white wheat
Wavin' in the wind

** Here is a feast of solitude
A fiddler grim and tall
Plays to dancing kings and wives
Assembled in the hall
Of lost, long, lonely times
Fairy Sybil flying
All along the all along the
Mountains of the Moon

Hey, Tom Banjo
It's time to matter
The Earth will see you 
on through this time
The Earth will see you on
through this time

Mountains of the Moon, Electra 
Mountains of the Moon
All along the 
All along the
Mountains of the moon

Hi-ho the Carrion Crow
Folderolderiddle
Hi-ho the Carrion Crow
Bow and bend to me
 

** The lines to this verse as originally recorded are: Twenty degrees of solitude
Twenty degrees in all
All the dancing kings and wives
assembled in the hall
Lost is a long and lonely time
Fairy Sybil flying
All along the 
All along the
Mountains of the Moon

Reason tatters
the forces tear loose
from the axis

Searchlight casting
for faults in the clouds
of delusion

Shall we go,
you and I 
while we can?
Through
the transitive nightfall
of diamonds

Mirror shatters
in formless reflections
of matter

Glass hand dissolving
to ice-petal flowers
revolving

Shall we go,
you and I
while we can?
Through
the transitive nightfall
of diamonds

spinning a set the stars through which the tattered tales
of axis roll
about the waxen wind of never set to motion in the
unbecoming
round about the reason hardly matters nor the wise
through which
the stars were set in spin

"Though they arranged 'Alligator', 'China Cat Sunflower', and 'Saint Stephen' to lyrics I mailed Garcia from New Mexico, this is the first lyric I wrote with the Grateful Dead." - Robert Hunter

Stephen prospered in his time
Well he may and he may decline
Did it matter? Does it now?
Stephen would answer if he only knew how

Wishing well with a golden bell
Bucket hanging clear to Hell
Hell halfway 'twixt now and then
Stephen fill it up and lower down 
and lower down again

Ladyfinger dipped in moonlight
Writing "What for?" across the morning sky
Sunlight splatters dawn with answers
Darkness shrugs and bids the day good-bye

Speeding arrow, sharp and narrow
What a lot of fleeting matters you have spurned
Several seasons with their treasons
Wrap the babe in scarlet covers, call it your own

Did he doubt or did he try?
Answers aplenty in the bye and bye
Talk about your plenty, talk about your ills
One man gathers what another man spills

Fortune comes acrawling, Calliope woman
Spinning that curious sense of your own
Can you answer? Yes I can
But what would be the answer to the answer man?

High green chilly winds and windy vines in loops around the 
twisted shafts of lavender, they're crawling to the sun

Underfoot the ground is patched with climbing arms of ivy 
wrapped around the manzanita, stark and shiny in the breeze

Wonder who will water all the children of the garden when they 
sigh about the barren lack of rain and droop so hungry 'neath the sky. . . .

William Tell has stretched his bow till it won't stretch no
furthermore and/or it may require a change that hasn't come before

Now is the time past believing
The child has relinquished the reign
Now is the test of the boomerang
Tossed in the night of redeeming