What is scarlet begonias about

I really love this song. Super Storm Sandy Sandy kicked our asses here on the Jersey shore. A good portion of the audience were quite possibly still homeless. I used the opportunity to bring up the house lights for "Strangers stopping strangers" line around 5 min in and have everyone meet the neighbor they helped or meet the neighbor that helped them.

It was a magical moment in the show. People were hugging each other. Heck of a song, indeed. Random audience vid posted on youtube. Always brings a smile I think Dave hit it right on with the comic teaching part Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right If more people listened to music, really listened and especially listened to the Dead the world would be a better place Too pat to open.

Wonderful elucidation of a great song full of pregnant lines and charming imagery. Scarlet Begonias This is clearly a potential sexual encounter with an otherwise coupled man and an extremely attractive woman. Me and My Scarlet I'm approaching the 32nd anniversary of meeting my Scarlet.

She walked into the record store in Glasgow, Scotland, and I knew right away she was into the blues. She also purchased "Anthem of the Sun" among other. I still love my Scarlet though I usually have to call her Sheila. And this is still "our song". Having experienced certain consciousness shifting emotions involving a "cosmic" girl that led me to recollecting what a trans-formative role the Dead played for me from to , I paid homage by taking a walk to Grosvenor Square and then to nearby Berkeley Square.

I was struck with how Hunter was riffing off the later and giving us a much more complex and ultimately fulfilling set of emotions. Correction On The Recording Date Given Hey, this is a wonderful blog with great comments about one of my all-time fave songs, and I agree with the woman who proclaimed the studio version to be special.

I just wanted to humbly correct Mr. I believe the album was mostly recorded in Feb. I had turned seventeen a month earlier. We'd seen the band just nine months prior, on September 15th at the same venue, up close on the floor for "A Swell Dance Concert. Blues" that night, we were hearing tunes we'd be able to get the record of and spin the next day! I couldn't believe how much sweeter those seats were than how I'd even remembered them.

The place was crackling with high energy that night and we really had some killer seats for it. By coincidence, the three people I attended the game with that evening two years ago were all there with me on that night in Nothing is the same thereafter. Shake the hand Strangers stopping strangers just to shake their hand. Reminds me of Crocodile Dundee walking down the sidewalk in N.

It has an energy of the old days similar to the feeling of China Cat and Crazy Fingers. Some of us continued to carry some kind of innocence into the future long past "back in the day". A heart of gold will protect a person in many ways.

I loved hearing Scarlet Begonias live in as a stand alone work. Music lives. Instant I think I loved this song the very first time I heard it and ever since. It was certainly the studio version with its very unusually articulated guitar and keyboard parts, then later on some of the very first live tapes I received from kind schoolmates. Remember when those were like gold? The anticipation of hearing each one was electric.

This many years later, I have to agree with several other posters that the stand-alone versions are the ones I crave most. Something about that one just takes me there. That one is no slouch, either. The aud tape I have isn't terrible at least by that point in the show but I would kill for a great matrix.

But you know, Jerry never struck me as much of a ladies man and this song has him inhabiting the character of a sexually curious dude. I wonder if he was comfortable singing it.

It certainly seems like he was. I just don't think of him that way. He was always this oddly asexual mega-hippie figure to me. So Sweet As you can tell from my username Scarlet is one of my all time favorites. I have to admit that I am partial to its pairing with Fire. My friends and I have always called it the "Never Ending Jam". This moniker is due to an early evening road trip through the Northern Adirondack Mountains.

The Boys ripped into Scarlet and as Jerry began the solo we approached a lengthy curve in the road. The combination of the curve, Jerry's extended blazing solo and a certain chemical made this experience unforgettable!! Man he just went on and on and on!! And so did we!!!

We certainly "got shone the light" that night! Scarlet Begonias in one for the ages!! I always feel better after helping others. She already has everything she needs. She is young, beautiful, independent, looking for adventure. So the cards that he has to play -- all the things he has to offer her -- are things that she doesn't need yet and isn't looking for. He has no opening.

If he wanted, he could probably easily turn the evening into a one night stand. He would have to bluff -- lie about his intentions -- but he doesn't want to do that. He thinks she is a cool girl and doesn't want to hurt her or spoil the evening. Or maybe he thinks that she would see right through him. Either way, she was too cool to bluff.

He likes her, but she is too young for him, and now it is time for him to do the right thing and say goodnight. So he picks up his matchbook and puts it into his pocket. She correctly reads this as a cue that he is about to leave and surprises him by getting up and closing the bedroom door. Now the two of them are in the closed room together. The tables have turned!

Up until this moment he has been pursuing her, but now she has made the move on him! So what happened? He was so busy processing the situation from his perspective and struggling that he didn't realize that she had experienced the evening from a very different perspective. She was walking down the street, when a very nice man stopped her and introduced himself to her.

He spent the entire day easily talking with her, paying attention to her, and he was a perfect gentleman as well! He never hit on her, never pressured her in any way, and now he's saying goodnight. He's exactly what she wants. Right now. He had closed the deal without even trying. She is acting exactly the same way that he used to act. When he was her age! So what happens next? Well, a gentleman would never tell, but Hunter offers some coy clues: "Well I ain't often right but I've never been wrong.

Strangers stopping strangers, just the way he stopped the girl yesterday. All the people interacting with each other like members of a band all playing the same song together. The world in tune. Once again, love this song. At the Beginning of the song Hunter describes a chance meeting with a beautiful woman, she seems too good to be true "it could be an illusion She was obviously "not like other girls", and perhaps a bit foolish or naive "Scarlet Begonias tucked into her curls".

He knew immediately they shared a common interest the blues. Later that evening however, the goin' got rough. She was a confident woman, she was beautiful and knew it, i.

He decides then to not pursue her " He knows vanity, he's "been there before", so he lets her go. These types of relationships seldom have happy endings " Although he lets her go, he later says that there is not a damn thing wrong with her, or the feelings she may have felt for him "There ain't nothing wrong the way she moves, Now I have no idea what Hunter is trying to say in the last verse, but to me, I think he is obviously daydreaming about something "The sky was yellow and the sun was blue", this must be a dream reference.

I think the subject of the daydream is his evening with this woman "the wind in the willows played tea for two"? The daydream is obviously a happy one which can be seen from the last two lines of the song. Once again, I believe Hunter's message is the usual "live the moment". Here he is intoxicated by a woman but decides not to pursue her because if he fails, he would have ruined the moment. In not pursuing the woman, he can kindly re-live it over and over again in his mind and remember her as untarnished as he met her, besides her slight vanity of course.

A little background on myself I am, what many would consider I am, but only a mere 24 years of age. I study Computer Science, am a budding engineer Yet, in my spare time, I travel to see as many shows as a guy can. In the last eight years or so, I don't think another band has had the pleasure of being in my CD player This information is indeed nonsense, I was only hoping to relate how much of an impact the guys are still making. The impact may not be as hard felt In my generation of manufactured shit music Nobody can describe an emotion better than Hunter, and none better to relay it than Garcia.

Thanks again. But he does pursue her! I know that it is not "cool" to admit that you like the Grateful Dead, but I never said I was cool. I just said I was blogging about home and garden projects that will make your life fabulous. It was written by Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter. It is a love song about a woman who wore "scarlet begonias tucked into her curls".