"Let the words be yours, I'm done with mine"

The Annotated "Cassidy"

An installment in The Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics.
By David Dodd
Research Associate, Music Dept., University of California at Santa Cruz
Copyright notice
"Cassidy"
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.

"Cassidy"

Written in Cora, Wyoming, February, 1972.

Recorded on

Covered by

First performed on March 23, 1974 at the Cow Palace in Daly City, California. Appeared in the first set between "Deal" and "China Cat Sunflower". The other first in the show was "Scarlet Begonias".

Blow the horn and tap the tambourine

Compare Psalm 81, with its lines about sounding the tambourine (aka timbour) and blowing the trumpet.

catch colt

According to The Dictionary of American Regional English:
"catch colt n ... chiefly West, Inland Nth See Maps
1 The offpsring of a mare bred accidentally.
1940-41 Cassidy [!] WI Atlas csWI,, Catch-- Colt that was unintentionally bred. 1958 AmSp 33.271, Ketch-colt. An offspring obviously not from the herd sire. ...

2 By ext: a child born out of wedlock."

First posted: May 23, 1995
Last revised: July 26, 2005