Lyrics omitted. The annotations below are reproduced by permission of David Dodd; the song lyrics themselves are copyrighted and are not reproduced here. Read them at the official source: dead.net/songs.
Musical details:
According to DeadBase VIII, "Alligator" was played 53 times between January 1967 and April, 1971. Statistics are sketchy, but it seems to have been almost always a second set song, and often preceded "Caution (Do Not Stop on Tracks)", also a Pigpen tune.
This note on performance practice from a reader:
Subject: "Alligator"
Date: 08 Apr 97 16:37:16 PDT
From: Scott.Hyatt@directory.Reed.EDU (Scott Hyatt)Hi David:
This isn't really an item referring to the lyrics so maybe it's inapplicable -- maybe you can use it in your general info section on "Alligator" overall. It may also be ridiculously common knowledge, I don't know... Anyway, here goes nothin':
I recently saw in Scott Freeman's book Midnight Riders: The Story of the Allman Brothers Band that Duane first played "Mountain Jam" one night while sitting in with the Grateful Dead (p. 123). The melodic strains of Donovan's "There Is a Mountain" can clearly be heard right at the 09:00 minute mark on the Anthem of the Sun version of "Alligator". Ironic: that one of the ABB's most famous pieces was originally employed as an improvosational springboard by the Dead...
Old King Cole
Was a merry old soul
And a merry old soul was he;
He called for his pipe
And he called for his bowl,
And he called for fiddlers three.Every fiddler, he had a fiddle,
And a very fine fiddle had he;
Twee tweedle dee, tweedle dee, went the fiddlers.
Oh there's none so rare
As can compare
With King Cole and his fiddlers three."
The rhyme first appeared in print in 1708, according to The Annotated Mother Goose, p. 143. The annotation for the rhyme also states that the King Cole being referred to in the rhyme is most likely to have been a third century British ruler.
kurzon@ucsu.colorado.edu (Andy Kurzon) wrote:
>Now this caught me by surprise on 2/14/68:
>>During Alligator, listen closely and you hear Bobby:
>"Burn down the Fillmore and gas the Avalon"
>Anyone else?Absolutely, though the line didn't make it to Anthem of the Sun. This show was towards the beginning of the Carousel's existence, I believe, the Carousel being a venue owned(?) and operated by a few SF bands, the Dead and Airplane among them. The Avalon and Fillmore were relegated to competitor status, and, Weir being Weir, he couldn't resist getting in a little dig at them. Great show, with a really nice early Spanish Jam.
Chris [Perkins]