"to tell sweet lies one last time"
The Annotated "To Lay Me Down"
An installment in The Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics.
By David Dodd
Kraemer Family Library, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs
"To Lay Me Down"
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.
"To Lay Me Down"
Lyric written in London, 1970. According to an interview with Hunter in a documentary film by Jeremy Marre, "To Lay Me Down," "Brokedown Palace" and "Ripple" were all composed in one afternoon, over a half-bottle of retsina. (The film aired on VH-1 on April 16, 1997.)
Musical details:
- Key: G
- Time signature: 3/4 ("Moderately slow Gospel: 9/8 feeling")
- Chords used: D, C, G, Am, Em, Bm Bm7, A, D7. E, Gsus4, Dsus
- Songbook availability:
Recorded on
Covered on Deadicated by
The Cowboy Junkies.
First performance: July 30, 1970, at the Matrix, in San Francisco. "To Lay Me Down" opened the show, which consisted of one acoustic set. It was followed by "Dire Wolf". The song's subsequent performance history is fairly unusual among Dead tunes, dropping from the repertoire for 200-300 shows at a time several times.
Keywords: @love , @sleep, @dream
DeadBase code: TLAY
First posted: February 1, 1996
Last revised: April 18, 1997