(5) also on the compilation The Best Of The Grateful Dead Live (4) also on the compilation Best Of Fare Thee Well. (3) also included as part of box set Spring 1990 (The Other One) (2) a live version of Bertha from an unknown date is included on this album sold in the Bay Area in 1997 as a fundraiser for the Huckleberry House (1) also on the box set Europe '72 - The Complete Recordings Huckleberry Jam ( various artists compilation) ( note 2) Truckin' Up To Buffalo ( DVD & CD soundtrack) View From The Vault IV ( DVD & CD soundtrack) Road Trips Volume 1, Number 4 ("From Egypt With Love") ( bonus disc) Rocking The Cradle: Egypt 1978 ( DVD and bonus disc) Winterland June 1977 - The Complete Recordings Winterland 1973 - The Complete Recordings Road Trips Number 1, Volume 3 ( bonus disc) Workingman's Dead (50th Anniversary Edition) That's what Bertha is"Īmerican Beauty (50th Anniversary Edition) ( note 6) On it - you know, an incredible high speed motor that was adapted to this fan, and when you plugged it in, it pushed the body of the fanĪcross the room - it wouldn't stay in one place and circulate air, it actually propelled itself, and this thing would bump into the walls,Īnd it was just incredible, you know, this huge over-powered fan. That's right - that we used to have in our old office, and the thing had something that was like - must have been a drill press motor put Military spec fan - that is to say the kind that spins around and you plug into the wall. Jerry Garcia: No, well there is a real Bertha, but the real Bertha was not a she, the real Bertha was an it. Jerry Garcia, however, cited the story of the fan in a 1979 interview on WMMR in Philadelphia: Interviewer: Is there a real Bertha, and who is she? I wouldn'tīe surprised, but then again, it might not be. Probably some vaguer connotation of birth, death and reincarnation.Ĭycle of existences, some kind of such nonsense like that. Think they started calling this fan in the office that would run aroundĪnd try and catch everyone and cut their fingers off. Robert Hunter: No, this was after the fact.I don't know where that story. McNamara for 92.7 WLIR-FM Garden City, New York for the "Sunday At 9:00" program, Robert Hunter addressed this story: Interviewer: What about Bertha? Is it true she was a fan? An The fan used to act up and 'walk' around the space. There has been an oft-repeated story that the song derived from an electric fan in either the Grateful Dead's offices (c) two "test me"s in "Box of Rain", four in the sheet music, butįive is what Jerry sings on "Skull & Roses." ( thanks to Mike Scroggins for pointing (b) The lyrics on are "Ducked back into Novato" but that must be a mistake ( thanks to Phil Hubbard for pointing this out) ( Thanks to Eric McKay for pointing this out) (a) these are the lyrics in "Box of Rain" and in the sheet music.īut Garcia sang "Lord you was running back to me" at least in the version Test me, test me, test me, test me, test me ( note c) I had a feeling I was falling, falling, falling What's really being asked for here is to be kept in the plane of the enlightened rather than spit back out on Earth to live life again.Bertha, don't you come around here any more Lord, until the sun goes down, 'til it goes down Why don't you arrest me? Throw me in to the jail house It's all night pourin', but not a drop on me Ran into a rainstorm, I ducked back into a bardo That interpretation clarifies why Garcia begs to be arrested. You die, spend time in the bardo, and then are born again (unless you've achieved enlightenment). Where things get really interesting is with the line "ducked back into a bar door," which could be play on the word "bardo." In Buddhism, bardo is the place or state-of-existence between two lives. That why, if you please, I'm on my bendin' kneesīertha don't you come around here, anymore If we look at "Bertha" as "birth," then the chorus: So, in "Bertha," Garcia's saying (with Hunter's words) that he's tired of running through the birth-death-reincarnation cycle over and over again. A simplified view on the Buddhist belief is that we have to keep cycling through lives until we achieve enlightenment, at which point we can get out of the run around and escape the game. The song is then about a fellow going through the cycle of birth, death, and reincarnation. Going by Hunter's statement, though, the song is far more interesting that that. The song is fun and upbeat, so the silliness of the lyrics seems fitting. The simple surface interpretation of "Bertha" is that some unnamed character runs from a window, into a tree, and then into a bar, where he takes shelter from the rain.
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