Lyrics: Majordomo Billy Bojangles / Sit down and have a drink with me / What’s this about Alabama / Keeps comin’ back to me?ĭefinition: A man in charge of a great household, as that of a sovereign a chief steward. Lyrics: Brown-eyed women and red grenadine / The bottle was dusty but the liquor was clean / Sound of the thunder with the rain pouring down / And it looks like the old man’s getting on.ĭefinition: A syrup made from pomegranate juice, used as a sweetening and colouring agent in various drinks. an object the name of which is unknown or forgotten.
Lyrics: Truckin’, got my chips cashed in / Keep truckin’, like the doodah man / Together, more or less in line / Just keep truckin’ on.ĭefinition: An unnamed thing, esp. Lyrics: I had a steady job / Hauling items for the mob / Y’know the pay was pathetic / It’s a shame those boys couldn’t be more copacetic.ĭefinition: Very good excellent completely satisfactory. Lyrics: Commissars and pin-stripe bosses / Roll the dice / Any way they fall / Guess who gets to pay the price / Money green or proletarian gray / Selling guns ‘stead of food today.ĭefinition: An official in any communist government whose duties include political indoctrination, detection of political deviation, etc. Lyrics: Looking for a chateau / Twenty-one rooms but one will do / I don’t want to buy it / I just want to rent it for an hour or two.ĭefinition: A stately residence imitating a distinctively French castle. Lyrics: Fortune comes a crawlin’, 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?ĭefinition: A musical instrument consisting of a set of harsh-sounding steam whistles that are activated by a keyboard. Lyrics: Look for awhile at the China cat sunflower / Proud-walking jingle in the midnight sun / Copper-dome bodhi drip a silver kimono / Like a crazy-quilt stargown / Through a dream night wind.ĭefinition: Supreme knowledge or enlightenment. Lyrics: She had rings on her fingers and bells on her shoes / And I knew without asking she was into the blues / She wore scarlet begonias, tucked into her curls / I knew right away she was not like other girls / Other girls.ĭefinition: Any tropical plant belonging to the genus Begonia, including species cultivated for the handsome, succulent leaves and waxy flowers. Lyrics: Bebop baby, how can this be / I know you’ve been out a cheating on me / Round and round and round and round / Don’t take much to get the word around / Cross my heart and hope to die / I was just hanging out with the other guys.ĭefinition: Early modern jazz developed in the early 1940s and characterized by often dissonant triadic and chromatic chords, fast tempos and eccentric rhythms, intricate melodic lines punctuated by pop-tune phrases, and emphasizing the inventiveness of soloists. Lyrics: I know the rent is in arrears / The dog has not been fed in years / It’s even worse than it appears / but it’s all right.ĭefinition: Something overdue in payment a debt that remains unpaid.
Maybe you could even find a chance to more often slip one or three into your vocabulary. Hope you like them and their accompanying lyrics, too. In recognition of this imaginative, rousing, expressive songwriting, here are 25 of my favorite offbeat word choices from the Dead. These themes, atypical to popular music, lend themselves to daring lyrics and, more specifically, uncommon word choices. The Dead’s songs take us through a variety of adventures - life on the road, enjoying the outdoors, a dystopian future, drug-fueled hallucinations, the ways and troubles of the workingman, and navigating death and dying. Other contributions came from a variety of musicians and writers out of and in the band, including Bob Weir and John Perry Barlow, whose partnership generated many Dead staples. Garcia was the main musical composer, while the primary lyricist was Robert Hunter, the only non-performer inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. The Grateful Dead composed many dozens of original songs over their 30-year career, from “The Golden Road,” the first track on their self-titled debut album in the mid-’60s, to a few in the early to mid-’90s that didn’t make it onto an album before Jerry Garcia passed away.
The current incarnation of the Grateful Dead, Dead & Company, playing in Charlotte in 2016.