"Bigger than a drive-in movie, ooooo-eeee"
The Annotated "Picasso Moon"
An installment in The
Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics.
By Prof. Fred Lieberman's Muisc of the Dead course (Music 80N), Spring 1998, UCSC, and
David Dodd
Research Associate, Music Dept., University of California, Santa Cruz
IN PROGRESS!
Copyright notice
"Picasso Moon"
Words by John Perry Barlow, with Bob Weir and Bob Bralove; 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.
Written in Mill Valley, California, February -May, 1989.
Recorded on
First performance: April 28, 1989, at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, Irvine, CA. "Picasso Moon" appeared in the first set, in the penultimate position, following "Ramble On Rose" and preceding "Bird Song". It remained in the repertoire thereafter.
The area of San Francisco to the south of the main drag, Market Street. The area is notorious as a haven for junkies. The Mission District, immortalized in the Hunter/Garcia tune Mission In the Rain, is also south of Market, but there is little ambiguity here regarding the district sometimes known as SOMA.
An interview with Weir, included on a promotional CD for the Built to Last album, includes a hilarious retelling of the origin of this phrase, which just popped out of Phil Lesh's mouth one day while the band was sitting around in the studio: "Picasso moon. I don't know why I said that!" The phrase came back to haunt Weir, haunting him one day during a bike ride so that he nearly fell off his bike.
Deconstructing the little phrase allows almost too many references: to the famous artist himself, and to the moon, one of the band's favorite and oft-recurring symbols, in songs from "Terrapin Station" to "Standing on the Moon".
Resonates with the verse in "Dark Star":
"Mirror shatters
in formless
reflections of matter"
A reference to the surfing maneuver, in which a surfer is at the front of the board with all ten toes hanging over the front end.
Cf. the line in "(Walk Me Out In the) Morning Dew":
"I guess it doesn't matter anyway..."
Compare the lines (and their source) in "Estimated Prophet":
Fire wheel burnin' in the air
First posted: May 7, 1998
Last revised: May 11, 1998