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.
(as transcribed from a tape of 3-27-86, Cumberland County Civic Center, Portland, Maine, the only performance of this song-more dubious guesswork in italics)
Halfway past cool, clear Monday to the side of the room,
Rolling down Wild Hair Boulevard with the rising of the poon.
Hot damn! It's Mother's Day. Don't you all look fine?
Promenading down the long carwash, passing snipes and sniffin' wine.
We got poets, shuckers, and godzillas
Ground by the sweep, little frozen, no soup.
We got Speed Racer and His Arcade Androids,
Revolutionary hamstrung blues.
Say, now mama may I tighten your cap?
Now honey may I loosen your load?
You hold on to this hand grenade, while I...
I remember some chicks from the shit club,
Coming on to Silly, squeeze toe.
Silly says, "I'll say it once.
For you it's cold steel, and slow."
I'm standing by the rupture,
'Mid chairs and flying glass.
Silly smack dab in the soma,
Shouting verse and kicking ass.
Back then, the sweep-you hopped the 90,
Don't make the six o'clock news.
Speed Racer and the band kept playing...
[instrumental break]
As I recall I went for the window
But I never did get clear
Henry Hawkins' hickory stick
Was the last thing I saw that year
Drag me down to the tangle, you carry the charges, if you please.
Hey, 30-day up on my shelf or a feeling we meant to be
Mama may I tighten your cap?
Your honor let me loosen your load
You hold on to this grenade for me, while I...
The full moon irradiates Wild Hair Boulevard now.
Dumbshits talk so bold.
Reminds me of old Silly, and how we
Did it all over...
Did it all over...
Did it all over the road.
We got poets, shuckers, and godzillas
Ground by the sweep, little frozen bowl soup.
We got Speed Racer and His Arcade Androids
Revolutionary hamstrung blues.
[...and straight into Bertha]
I always heard that line in the chorus as "We got poets, shuckers, and Godzilla's grandmother/Sweet little frozen no soup," which is troubling. I'm not much more satisfied with my current reading, but it's based on some guesswork and perhaps my growing understanding of what the song is about. My surmise from some of the language is that it's from the point of a hobo in a sort of psychedelic barbary coast situation. References to what I hear as "the sweep," and hopping the 90, which I assume is a train. Of course I may be way off, but this fits with some of Petersen's life story and writings and the appeal to Brent would be easy to see. In a way, it prefigures Picasso moon with an almost cyberpunk macho feel.
No soup might also be "no suit."
Speed Racer and His Arcade Androids is clearly the name of a band.
"I remember some chicks" is sung as "I remember some ass" by one of the two vocalists, I believe.
Instead of "standing," possibly "stranded by the rupture."
I used to hear it as "Henry Hawkins' hickory stick," and now it honestly sounds more like "Anemone Hawk and his hickory stick" or "an enemy…." These phonetics of the recording could come from Phil and Brent singing out of synch? Is Henry Hawkins a figure from American literature or folklore?
The Japanese tinge to the lyrics brings to mind Buckaroo Banzai, Elvis Costello's Tokyo Storm Warning, even Godzilla's appearance in Pynchon's Vineland.
On the soundboard from the stage chatter you can hear someone yell "Have fun," and someone else say "Hey Weir Weir are you going to do that song?"
They teased the frst few bars of Revolutionary Hamstrung Blues at the show previous to the breakout before opting not to play it, as I mention in my review of that show in the upcoming third edition of the Deadhead Taping Compendium (Owl/Holt, 2000).
A 1970's cartoon character, still apparently alive in the strange world of anime. Another page dedicated to Speed Racer is here