"You analyze me, tend to despise me..."
The Annotated "Hell In a Bucket"
An installment in The Annotated
Grateful Dead Lyrics.
By David Dodd
Library, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs
"Hell In a Bucket"
Words by John Perry Barlow; music by Bob Weir
Copyright Ice Nine Publishing; used by permission.
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.
"Hell In a Bucket"
Written in Cora, Wyoming, August-December, 1982
Musical details:
Recorded on
First performance: May 13, 1983, at the Greek Theatre, U.C. Berkeley. The song appeared in
the first set, following "West L.A. Fadeaway", and preceding "Loser".
It remained in the repertoire thereafter.
Here's an interesting piece forwarded by a reader:
Subject: Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics : Hell in a Bucket : Variant Lyrics!
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 10:31:07 -0700 (PDT)
From: David Schwarm
Hi David,
Holy cow! You are not going to believe this exchange from rmgd:
---begin---
>From tnf@well.com Fri Apr 11 10:23:37 PDT 1997
Article: 371095 of rec.music.gdead
From: David Gans
Newsgroups: rec.music.gdead
Subject: Unused lyric
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 09:59:48 -0800
Steven Finney wrote:
> I posted this a few years ago, but it bears a repeat...I read an
> interview with Barlow (aka "the Barlitos"...to those who know the band)
> many years ago in an English music magazine, and the following was
> one of the original lyrics to "Hell in a Bucket" which Bobby chose
> not to sing...(hey! This could even be taken as an HS reference!)
>
> "And while you were saying your mantra
> I was humping your very best friend
> And comparing myself to Sinatra
> 'Cause I did it my way in her end".
It's true! I was hanging out at Weir's a bit in those days, and there
were some gnarly ideas batted around for that song. Gerrit Graham (who
wrote "Victim or the Crime" with Bobby) was around for some of these
sessions, too.
I was actually able to contribute a little to "Hell in a Bucket": I
suggested to Bob that he change "You imagine me kissing the toe of your
boot" to "You imagine me sipping champagne from your boot." Barlow
seemed slightly miffed about it, but I'm pretty sure he got over it.
---end---
Conjures up the line from "St.
Stephen":
"Bucket hanging clear to hell..."
The phrase in American colloquial speech is "going to hell in a
handbasket."
One of my favorite "mis-hearings" of a Grateful Dead lyrics came
when Alice Kahn, the Bay Area writer, wrote in a review in the
East Bay Express that this song was "Police on a Joy Ride."
A reference to the Empress of Russia, 1762-1796, who was an
intellectual and, as hinted at in the song, a famous libertine.
Hunter also uses her in one of his songs, "Do Deny (Lying Man)":
"I who ate with Kate the Great
On Chinese silver plate..."
A reference to the spiritual, "When the Saints Go Marching In."
First posted: January 30, 1996
Last revised: May 1, 1997