The Annotated "Easy Wind"

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.

• Workingman's Dead
• Fallout From the Phil Zone
• Live '85, by Robert Hunter

First known performance: September 1, 1969, at the Baton Rouge International Speedway in Prairieville, Louisiana. It was played steadily through April of 1971.

great highway

However, this "Great Highway" seems unlikely to be the one referred to by the protagonist of this song, as other geographical clues ("across the Bayou") seem to indicated a Louisiana setting.

Ballin' that jack

-----Original Message----- From: Ken Johnson [mailto:ken.johnson@Seattle.Gov]
Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2003 1:44 PM
Subject: Easy Wind and the dance hall?

Since I got the itch to look through revisions of your Annotations in a slow day, on jury duty, waiting for a pager to go off...
I was surprised to not see a link to the phrase "Balling the Jack," on your "Easy Wind" annotation. Aside from the delightful double entendres inherent in a Pigpen vocalization of those words and their relation to other forms of drilling, this is an old Dixieland song, though other roots sprout when one Google-izes...
Check out: http://www.rienzihills.com/SING/ballinthejack.htm
for some words to a fox trot that is the predecessor of the jazz version of this song. And on that page is a wonderfully Peter Max-ian treatment of black-and-red diamonds on the sheet music.
The link that follows here traces the dance and song's history and performances. http://www.streetswing.com/histmain/z3balin.htm
Also on that link is a tie to the trainman's use of the word "ballin'".
Just some 411 on the 9/11,
Ken

my rider

How wonderful that there is a page like this to answer the questions that plague us, like this one: in the song "I Know You Rider," who or what is rider? Someone who herself is on a "Northbound Train" maybe?

Thanks - keep up the good work!

I replied to Kelley that this seems like a standard phrase meaning "main squeeze", as Pigpen uses it in "Operator" [and "Easy Wind"]. She then replied:

> Thanks, David.  I had forgotten about the rider reference in Operator.  The

> main squeeze definition makes perfect sense.  But how did it come to mean

> that?  I'm going to start referring to my old boyfriend as my Ex-Rider.

> 

> Appreciate your work -

> 

> Kelley

I answered as follows:
Kelley--

Well, I broke down and went and looked up the word in some dictionaries of slang. Only found it in one: Eric Partridge's Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English. He says:

"An--esp. customary--actively amorous man: low coll. Ex *ride* --compare Riding St. George."

Yes, it's low colloquial--ie down and dirty. Under his entry for "ride", Partridge says:

"To mount a woman in copulation." And under "Riding St. George": (The position of) the woman being on top in the sexual act."

So. There you have it. Thanks for sending me on this most interesting errand.

Another comment:

Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 11:03:29 GMT-5
From: PUBBLAN@amber.indstate.edu
Subject: riders

david --

re: Easy Wind

don't forget Gregg Allman's "Midnight Rider" and the classic "C.C. Rider" and "Jenny Take a Ride."

marty

in red on the streets today