Jack Straw from Wichita

Non-Phish General
#1

This is from David Dodd’s GD lyric website. (He also put out a book of annotated lyrics.)

http://arts.ucsc.edu/gdead/agdl/jstraw.html

cut his buddy down
This note from Josh Wilson on possible interpretations of this line:
Date: Sat, 07 Oct 95 00:18:34 0000
From: Josh Wilson

One note on an interpretation of Jack Straw:

I’ve heard two takes on “Jack Straw from Wichita cut his buddy down, dug for him a shallow grave and laid his body down.”

1: Jack Straw cuts Shannon down, as in backstabs him, since Shannon is nothing but trouble (“Ain’t no place a man can hide, Shannon, keep him from the sun; ain’t no bed can give us rest now, you keep us on the run.”)

2: Shannon is caught and hung, and Jack Straw cuts the rope holding up the corpse, and buries his friend’s body.

  1. Maybe a third interpretation? Shannon is wounded and dragging behind (“My old buddy you’re moving much too slow”), maybe dies, and Jack ties the body to the horse, before cutting the ropes and burying the body…who knows!

EDIT: I think that Jack Straw killed Shannon. It would be backstabbing, but maybe Shannon would have killed him eventually.

#2

Hmmm…

Interesting.
I got to listen to the song again then I’ll vote.

#3

When dealing with uncertainty, the simplest answer is usually the correct one.

#4

Thank you, Billy Occam.

#5

::googles Billy Occam::

#6

“Cut down a man in cold blood, Shannon
Might as well be me”

To me, these lines seem to indicate that Jack Straw didn’t kill Shannon, but didn’t prevent his death when he could have.
I went with option 2.

#7

One thing, I need to start getting the Dead into my Ipod rotation more often.
I love Hunter’s lyrics.

Now, upon further review I voted option 1.

Jack kills him and gets moving on.
“You keep us on the run”

Meaning Jack is tired of running.
I think this verse backs me up:

“We used to play for silver
Now we play for life
One’s for sport and one’s for blood
At the point of a knife
Now the die is shaken
Now the die must fall
There ain’t a winner in this game
Who don’t go home with all”

#8

I love this song, but I’m really not sure.

I guess Gamecat’s got a good argument there.

#9

Wow, this is first time I’ve ever even remotely pondered the lyrics to this tune…and it’s one of my favorite Dead tunes. I was probably too busy rocking out to the song to ever think about it. Plus the “Jack Straw from Wichita” line is always when they start getting heavy.

Stevo

#10

I always assumed 1. Intriguing indeed.