"Goin' where the wind don't blow so strange..."

The Annotated "He's Gone"

An installment in The Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics.
By David Dodd
"He's Gone"
Words by Robert Hunter; music by Jerry Garcia
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.

"He's Gone"

 Hunter has posted the manuscript for the song.

Musical details:

Recorded on

First performance: April 17, 1972, at the Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen, Denmark. "He's Gone" appeared in the first set, between "Jack Straw" and "Next Time You See Me."

He's gone

"He's Gone," as originally written, referred to the disappearance of Mickey Hart's father, Lenny Hart, who was acting as the band's manager, with a good deal of money. (See interview in Relix, vol. 5, #2, p. 24.) Since then, the song has become riddled with meaning, played often quite tenderly when someone close to the band dies.

steam locomotive

A reference to the disappearance of steam as a means of locomotion for trains. Take a look at Ken Rattenne's essay, The Railroad as Metaphor, for more on this.

The web site Steam Trains--Harris Mountaintop has some excellent information and images of steam locomotives.

Steal your face

This line was lifted out as the title of the ill-fated album issued under duress. Since the cover of the album featured the logo designed by Stanley Owsley with the grinning skull and lightning bolt inside the circle, that logo has since been identified primarily as the "steal your face" logo, perhaps incorrectly.

See Owsley's web site for more information on the logo and its design.

Cat on a tin roof

An old English proverbial saying, first collected in 1670 by John Ray in his English Proverbs. Originally it referred to "[like a] cat on hot bricks..." or "[like a] cat upon a hot bake stone."

American listeners will probably be reminded of the title of the Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) play, "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," (1955) the final line of which, at least in some versions, is:

"Nothing's more determined than a cat on a tin roof--is there? Is there, baby?"
The line is spoken by the character Maggie the Cat. (Not actually a cat...)

smile smile smile

This note from a reader:
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 1996 11:09:46 -0500
From: Lepok@aol.com
Subject: He's Gone

Hi David!

A small fact you might want to add to the "He's Gone" page:

"Smile, smile, smile" (as in "Nothing left to do but smile, smile, smile) was a campaign slogan of William Howard Taft, the successful Republican candidate for President in 1908. Taft was known as the most jovial man in politics. Source: Fay M. Blake & H. Morton Newman, Verbis Non Factis: Words Meant to Influence Political Choice in the United States, 1800-1980, p. 60 (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Pr., 1984), citing James Barber, The Pulse of Politics, p. 223.

Best wishes,

Dave Kopel

Thanks, Dave!

Keywords: @trains, @animals
DeadBase code: [GONE]
First posted: September 9, 1995
Last updated: April 17, 1997