Lyrics: Traditional (note 1)
Music: Traditional
One of the songs played from the earliest days of the Grateful Dead.
Jerry Garcia mixed up the order of the verses, but this is the basic structure:
Well she's coming down the stairs, combing back her yellow hair (note 2)Notes
And I ain't gonna be treated this-a-way
This-a-way
And I ain't gonna be treated this-a-way
Well she went up to her room and she sang a fateful tune (note 3)
And I'm going where those chilly winds don't blow
Winds don't blow
And I'm going where those chilly winds don't blow
Well I married me a wife, she's been trouble all my life (note 4)
Run me out in the cold rain and snow
Rain and snow
Run me out in the cold rain and snow
Grateful Dead Recordings | |||||
Date | Album | ||||
studio Jun 1966 | Birth Of The Dead (note a) | ||||
studio Jun 1966 | Birth Of The Dead (instrumental) (note a) | ||||
3 Jul 1966 | 30 Trips Around The Sun | ||||
30 Jul 1966 | The Grateful Dead: 50th Anniversary Edition | ||||
studio 1967 | Grateful Dead (first album) | ||||
22 Oct 1967 | Anthem Of The Sun (2018 bonus disc) | ||||
2 Nov 1969 | Dave's Picks Volume 43 | ||||
12 Dec 1969 | Dave's Picks Volume 10 | ||||
26 Dec 1969 | Dave's Picks Volume 44 | ||||
3 Jan 1970 | Dave's Picks 2019 Bonus Disc | ||||
18 Jan 1970 | Download Series Vol 2 | ||||
24 Jan 1970 | Dave's Picks Volume 19 | ||||
2 Feb 1970 | Dave's Picks Volume 6 | ||||
15 Apr 1970 | 30 Trips Around The Sun | ||||
24 Oct 1970 | Dave's Picks Volume 51 | ||||
28 Dec 1970 | 30 Days Of The Dead (2010) | ||||
21 Feb 1971 | Workingman's Dead (50th Anniversary Edition) | ||||
29 Apr 1971 | Ladies And Gentlemen ... The Grateful Dead | ||||
22 Oct 1971 | Dave's Picks Volume 3 | ||||
26 Oct 1971 | Download Series Vol 3 | ||||
7 Dec 1971 | Dave's Picks Volume 22 | ||||
26 Mar 1972 | Dave's Picks Vol 14 | ||||
17 Apr 1972 | Europe '72 - The Complete Recordings | ||||
24 May 1972 | Steppin' Out with the Grateful Dead: England '72 (note b) | ||||
25 Aug 1972 | Dave's Picks Volume 24 | ||||
3 Sep 1972 | Dave's Picks Bonus Disc 2023 | ||||
28 Feb 1973 | Dick's Picks Vol 28 | ||||
29 Oct 1973 | Listen To The River: St Louis '71 '72 73 | ||||
2 Dec 1973 | Dick's Picks Vol 14 | ||||
20 Oct 1974 | Steal Your Face | ||||
9 Jun 1976 | Road Trips Volume 4, Number 5 | ||||
14 Jun 1976 | June 1976 Box Set | ||||
17 Jun 1976 | Dave's Picks Volume 28 | ||||
28 Sep 1976 | Dick's Picks Vol 20 | ||||
4 Nov 1977 | Dave's Picks Volume 12 | ||||
3 Feb 1978 | Dick's Picks Vol 18 | ||||
11 May 1978 | Dick's Picks Vol 25 | ||||
7 Jul 1978 | July 1978: The Complete Recordings | ||||
26 Dec 1979 | Dick's Picks Vol 5 | ||||
9 Dec 1981 | Dave's Picks Volume 20 | ||||
6 Apr 1982 | Road Trips Volume 4, Number 4 | ||||
12 Oct 1983 | In And Out Of The Garden | ||||
20 Apr 1984 | Dave's Picks Volume 35 | ||||
12 Oct 1984 | 30 Trips Around The Sun | ||||
27 Apr 1985 | Dave's Picks Vol 49 | ||||
1 Nov 1985 | Dick's Picks Vol 21 | ||||
3 May 1986 | 30 Trips Around The Sun | ||||
26 Mar 1987 | Dave's Picks Volume 36 | ||||
31 Dec 1987 | Ticket To New Year's (video/DVD only) | ||||
3 Apr 1988 | 30 Days Of The Dead (2021) | ||||
4 Jul 1989 | Truckin' Up To Buffalo (DVD & CD soundtrack) | ||||
13 Jul 1989 | RFK Stadium 1989 Box | ||||
14 Mar 1990 | Spring 1990 (The Other One) | ||||
28 Mar 1990 | Spring 1990 (The Other One) | ||||
16 Sep 1990 | Dick's Picks Vol 9 | ||||
14 Jun 1991 | View From The Vault II (video/DVD & CD soundtrack) | ||||
Other Recordings | |||||
Date | Album | Recorded By | |||
1989 | Fresh Tracks In Real Time | Tom Constanten | |||
1992 | Nightfall Of Diamonds | Tom Constanten | |||
1995 | Eternity Blue | Henry Kaiser (note c) | |||
2000 | Grateful Dreams | Tom Constanten | |||
2002 | 88 Keys To Tomorrow | Tom Constanten | |||
16 Jun 2004 | Mick's Picks, Volume 3 | Jefferson Starship (with Tom Constanten) | |||
2005 | Deadgrass | Deadgrass | |||
2006 | Moved To Stanleyville | Tom Constanten and Ken Foust | |||
2015 | The Promised Land | Sagol 59 & Ami Yares | |||
2016 | Songs To Fill The Air (WFMU Pledge Drive) | Chris Forsyth and the SMB | |||
2019 | Dead Air | The Gladstones | |||
2019 | Phantom Ships With Phantom Sails | Live Dead '69 |
"It should say "arranged by Grateful Dead." If it doesn't, it's an oversight on the part of Warner Brothers. I'm an old folkie. I've always hated that. As far as I know we don't get publishing royalties for that. We didn't write it.Jerry Garcia has said he learnt the song from Obray Ramsey's 1960s album "Folksongs From The Three Laurels." In a 1967 interview with Larry Miller, he said: "the song is a traditional song...it's a [framework] ballad taken from Obray Ramsey, and earlier from Rufus Crisp I think."
"Cold Rain and Snow is a fragment that I learned from a banjo player named Obray Ramsey, a traditional singer from someplace like Indiana [actually North Carolina]. It's in the same kind of mode as it originally was, but the melody is different. And we've added a harmony line and of course it's us, it's our rhythmic structure and our ideas."In a 1991 interview for Banjo Newsletter, Garcia was asked whether his banjo style had influenced the orientation of the Grateful Dead:
"No, not really. Only in so far as my banjo playing reflects my whole taste in music to some extent. So yeah, there's some cross-pollination there, but it'd be really hard to take the Grateful Dead and say, 'Well, this part of it is attributable to Garcia's banjo playing.' I can't think of anything, off hand, with the possible exception of our version of Cold Rain And Snow. It owes a lot to banjo. I think I even got the tune from a banjo player: Obray Ramsey, or somebody. Some old-time banjo player."(thanks to Jesse Jarnow for pointing me to that
Well I married me a wife, she gave me trouble all of my lifeRamsey's LP notes credit Cecil Sharp, who collected the first verse only from Mrs. Tom Rice at Big Laurel, NC August 18, 1916. That version has "Made me work in the cold rain and snow" rather than "Run me out ..."
Ran me out in the cold rain and snow
Rain and snow, oh Lord
Ran me out in the cold rain and snow
Well she came down the stairs, combing back her long yellow hair
And her cheeks were as red as the rose
As the rose
And her cheeks were as red as the rose
Well I did all I could do, trying to get along with you
And I'm not gonna treated this a-way
This a-way, oh Lord
And I'm not gonna treated this a-way
Well she came in the room, where she met her fatal doom
And I'm not gonna treated this a-way
This a-way, oh Lord
And I'm not gonna treated this way
"Berzilla Wallin, who also sings the song, explains: 'Well, I learned it from an old lady which says she was at the hanging of - which was supposed to be the hanging, but they didn't hang him. They give him 99 long years for the killing of his wife... I heard the song from her in 1911. She was in her 50's at that time. It did happen in her girlhood ... when she was a young girl... She lived right here around in Madison County. It happened here between Marshall and Burnsville; that's where they did their hanging at that time - at Burnsville, North Carolina. That's all I know, except they didn't hang the man.'Blackman concludes that the song was a ballad written about a murder that actually happened in Madison County, probably in the 12870's, albeit incorporating some references to other traditional songs.
"The initial verses of this song resemble Grayson and Whitter's 'Never As Fast As I Have Been', Buell Kazee's 'Sporting Bachelors' and the song in Alan Lomax's Folk Song USA titled 'Sporting Bachelors'"