"The truth of love an unsung song must tell"
The Annotated "Reuben and Cerise"
An installment in The
Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics.
By David Dodd
Research Associate, Music Dept., University of California, Santa Cruz
Copyright notice; © 1995, David Dodd
"Reuben and Cerise"
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.
Recorded on
(Note: On Cats Under the Stars the tune's title was spelled "Rubin and Cherise."
The title as spelled here is from Hunter's Box of Rain anthology of lyrics.)
First performance of only four total by the Dead: March 17, 1991, at the Capital
Centre, in Landover, Maryland. "Reuben and Cerise" occupied the penultimate spot
in the first set, following "Queen Jane Approximately" and preceding "Let
It Grow".
"Cerise" is French for "cherry," and may also refer to the color, cherry-red.
The word is also used in English for the color.
Hunter has set the story in New Orleans, so this reference must be to Mardi Gras, the
pre-Lent blowout celebration. This places the time in February, on Shrove Tuesday, which
falls on a date determined by the date of Easter in any given year. The celebration is
the final night of the traiditonal world-wide celebration of Carnival, which is a season
of celebration beginning with Twelfth Night--January 6.
The word "carnival" derives from the renunciation of meat (carne vale or "farewell to meat") which is a
traditional way of observing Lent. Tom Robbins, in one of his books, proposed an alternate
etymology for the word, linking it to carre navalis, or "car of the sea."
According to American Given Names:
"From the oldest son of Jacob; also a tribal name. ... The name is uncommon, and approaches
extinction after 1850."
While I cannot locate a specific reference to any song entitled "The Carnival Parade,"
it is interesting to note that there are three main parades at New Orleans' Mardi Gras:
Endymion, Bacchus, and Orpheus.
This line has always confused me--is it possible that Hunter was referring to the classical
Commedia del'Arte character of Pierrot, the companion to Harlequin? This would make sense,
in terms of "dressing as" a character. I can find no reference to Pirouette as a character
in any context.
Calls to mind the song by Harry Birch, "Reuben and Rachel":
"Reuben, Reuben, I've been thinking,
What a queer world this would be
If the men were all transported
Far beyond the Northern Sea."
Again, a name meaning "red." The addition of "Claire" to the name indicates "bright red."
Ruby dresses in red. Reminiscent of the lines in "Casey Jones":
"Trouble ahead
The Lady in Red!"
In the version of the song published in Box of Rain, Hunter includes a number of
verses that flesh out the song's plot a bit, making it clearly a parallel to the tale of
Orpheus, in which the hero makes a trip to the underworld in order to rescue his lover,
Eurydice. He is told that he may have her back, as long as he does not look behind to
make sure that she is following him.
In the context of the Cats Under the Stars album, there is a nice echo of this
idea in "Gomorrah," in which Lot is allowed to escape the doomed city with his family as long
as he does not turn around. Of course, his wife does so, and is turned into a pillar of salt.
The positioning of the songs on the album puts brackets around the entire set of songs, with
"Rubin and Cherise" opening the album, and "Gomorrah" closing it.
The setting of the Orpheus legend in the context of carnival also echoes the 1959 film, Orfeu Negru
(Black Orpheus).
Keywords: @New Orleans, @red, @colors, @music, @mythology
DeadBase code: [REUB]
First posted: December 13, 1995
Last revised: April 14, 1998