

Blues” and “It Must Have Been the Roses.” It remained fairly steadily in the rotation from then on, with 227 performances, and had its final performance on June 25, 1995, at Robert F. “Ship of Fools” was first played on February 22, 1974, at Winterland Arena in San Francisco. In Hunter’s hands, as in Porter’s, the metaphor broadens, and makes itself available for a multiplicity of uses, depending on state of mind, state of the world, or stage of life surrounding the listener at any given point. The metaphor has been taken up again and again by a variety of artists through the centuries, ranging from Hieronymus Bosch to Katherine Anne Porter. But they have no pilot, and their journey is ill-fated. We have the medieval satire by Sebastian Brant, published in 1494, which uses the Ship of Fools as a metaphorical voyage of an entire fleet of ships populated by fools of various stripes, all sailing, supposedly, to the Paradise of Fools. The Ship of Fools is a literary archetype, of course, dating back as far as there have been ships, probably. Is the topic, really, a relation-“ship”? That would account for some of the ambiguity in the second verse-especially that wonderful line about being all of 30 years old.
#Slaves drowning in my addiction lyrics how to#
But then again, this captain has been noted to be “the strangest I could find.” So perhaps hiring someone on to learn how to sabotage one’s own ship would be within reason…Īs usual, right away, there are twists in the tale when it comes to Hunter’s narratives. On the face of it, the narrator doesn’t seem to be offering much of a bargain to said captain. I didn’t name it…) There’s a first-person narrator, who seems to be a prospective crew member on the ship, who confronts the captain of the vessel with a proposition. (I’m beginning to think that all the songs are stories-that maybe this blog is better-named than I might have thought at first. The song, to no one’s surprise, is a story. But as always, Robert Hunter’s lyrics don’t allow for a simple or narrow interpretation this song isn’t just about the failures of the US government, although I do think it could be partly about that. Blues,” and that has never struck me as an accident. “Ship of Fools” closes the album that opens with “U.S. Fools come in many guises, and the fact that everything comes down to human potential for error (or for greatness) means that anything we lend our hand to raise a flag atop can prove to be unworthy of those efforts.

“Ship of Fools.” Haven’t we all had some time in our lives when we’ve been disappointed in the direction of our efforts? It may have been some strongly-held belief, or a church, or a cause of some kind, or even a nation that has not lived up to our expectations.

I became disillusioned with the organization itself, which shall remain nameless, and later wrote a novel about the experience which I titled Though I Could Not Caution All (which shall remain unpublished).

It was intense work, and I gave everything I had to it, working 18-hour days and establishing some excellent networks of members and organizers. When I finished college, I spent several years immediately thereafter working as a full-time volunteer organizer with a group doing work among the working poor, the disabled, and marginalized communities around California. (I’ll consider requests for particular songs-just private message me!)
#Slaves drowning in my addiction lyrics free#
Therefore, the best part, I would hope, would not be anything in particular that I might have to say, but rather, the conversation that may happen via the comments over the course of time-and since all the posts will stay up, you can feel free to weigh in any time on any of the songs! With Grateful Dead lyrics, there’s always a new and different take on what they bring up for each listener, it seems. Here’s the plan-each week, I will blog about a different song, focusing, usually, on the lyrics, but also on some other aspects of the song, including its overall impact-a truly subjective thing.
