Fare You Well, Robert Hunter

 

Listen to the river sing sweet songs

 

I got me a violin
and I beg you call the tune
Anybody's choice
I can hear your voice
Wo-oah what I want to know,
how does the song go?

It's a hand-me-down, the thoughts are broken
Perhaps they're better left unsung
I don't know, don't really care
Let there be songs to fill the air

I can tell your future

Look what’s in your hand

But I can’t stop for nothing

I’m just playing in the band

I have spent my life
Seeking all that's still unsung
Bent my ear to hear the tune
And closed my eyes to see
When there were no strings to play
You played to me

  

If you hear that same sweet song again
will you know why?
Anyone who sings a tune so sweet
is passing by

I'm gonna sing you a hundred verses in ragtime
I know this song it ain't never gonna end
I'm gonna march you up and down the local county line
Take you to the leader of the band

All the years combine
they melt into a dream
A broken angel sings
from a guitar
In the end there's just a song
comes crying like the wind
through all the broken dreams
and vanished years

Half-step
Mississippi Uptown Toodeloo 

I'm Uncle Sam /that's who I am
Been hidin' out/in a rock and roll band

Wake now, discover that you
are the song that the morning brings
but the heart has its seasons
its evenings and songs of its own 

Strangers stopped strangers
just to shake their hand
Everybody's playing
in the Heart of Gold Band
Heart of Gold Band

While Lady Lullaby sings plainly for you
Love still rings true

One watch by night, one watch by day

If you get confused listen to the music play

Ragtime solid for twenty five miles
then slip over to the Cajun style
Bar car loaded with rhythm and blues
Rock and roll wailing in the old caboose

From the northwest corner
of a brand-new crescent moon
crickets and cicadas sing
a rare and different tune

Terrapin Station

If I had a song to sing
I'd sing it to you - as long as you live
Lullabye - or maybe a plain serenade
wouldn't you laugh, dance, and cry
or be afraid at the trade you made?

I will walk alone by the black muddy river
And listen to the ripples as they moan
I will walk alone by the black muddy river
And sing me a song of my own

Thought I heard that KC Whistle
moanin' sweet & low
Thought I heard that KC when she blow
Down where the sun don't shine
Underneath the Kokomo
Whinin' boy -- got no place else to go

Cats on the bandstand, Give 'em each a big hand,
Anyone who sweats like that must be all right.

When Reuben played the painted mandolin
the breeze would stop to listen in
before going its way again

Love, love in the afternoon
Outside the window an organ grinder's tune
Rhythm, wine; touch of Jamaica, twilight time with a Kingston lady
All the time in the world for me and that girl

Sweet, she sang sweetly; come back soon
Come back for more of that love in the afternoon

Love to feel it flood down to my soul
Loving feel just like in days of old
I sing blues, where has it led?
Gimme some more rhapsody in red, in red

Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
to rock my soul

Deadology: The 33 Essential Dates of Grateful Dead History