The Grateful Dead
Black-Throated Wind [Live at Baltimore Civic Center, Baltimore, MD, 9/17/72]
[Verse]
Bringing me down
I'm running aground
Blind in the light of the interstate cars
Passing me by
The busses and semis
Plunging like stones from a slingshot on Mars
But I'm here by the road
Bound to the load
That I picked up in ten thousand cafes and bars
Alone with the rush of the drivers who won't pick me up
The highway, the moon, the clouds, and the stars
The black-throated wind keeps on pouring in
With its words of a life where nothing is new
Ah, Mother American Night, I'm lost from the light
Ohhh, I'm drowning in you
I left St. Louis, the City of Blues
In the midst of a storm I'd rather forget
I tried to pretend it came to an end
Because you weren't the woman I thought I once met
But I can't deny that times have gone by
When I never had doubts or thoughts of regret
And I was a man when all this began
Who wouldn't think twice about being there yet
The black-throated wind keeps on pouring in
And it speaks of a life that passes like dew
It's forced me to see that you've done better by me
Better by me than I've done by you
What's to be found, racing around
You carry your pain wherever you go
Full of the blues and trying to lose
You ain't gonna learn what you don't want to know
So I give you my eyes, and all of their lies
Please help them to learn as well as to see
Capture a glance and make it a dance
Of looking at you looking at me
The black-throated wind keeps on pouring in
With its words of a lie that could almost be true
Ah, Mother American Night, here comes the light
I'm turning around, that's what I'm going to do
[Outro]
Going back home that's what I'm going to do
Turning around
That's what I'm going to do
Because you've done better by me
Than I've done by you