Sugar Magnolia

SUGAR MAGNOLIA

Sugar Magnolia, blossoms blooming
Heads all empty and I don't care
Saw my baby down by the river
Knew she'd have to come up soon for air

Sweet blossom, come on under the willow (note 1)
We can have high times if you'll abide
We can discover the wonders of nature
Rolling in the rushes down by the riverside

She's got everything delightful (note 1)
She's got everything I need
Takes the wheel when I'm seeing double
Pays my ticket when I speed

She comes skimming through rays of violet
She can wade in a drop of dew
She don't come and I don't follow
Waits backstage while I sing to you

She can dance a Cajun rhythm (note 1)
Jump like a Willys in four wheel drive
She's a summer love in the spring, fall and winter
She can make happy any man alive

Sugar Magnolia
Ringing that bluebell
Caught up in sunlight
Come on out singing and I'll walk you in the sunshine
Come on honey, come along with me

She's got everything delightful (note 1)
She's got everything I need
A breeze in the pines and the sun and bright moonlight
Lazing in the sunlight, yes indeed

Sometimes when the cuckoo's crying
When the moon is half way down
Sometimes when the night is dying
I take me out and I wander around
I wander round

Sugar Magnolia is definitely the most upbeat of the songs on the album. Robert Hunter describes it as a reaffirmation of the important business of just getting stupid and being in love. The Grateful Dead were active in the acid test organized by Ken Kesey in San Francisco. The documentary Summer of Love 1967 showed the crowds of hippies wandering through the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood without clear intent. It was the summertime so the crowds were composed of college students on summer vacation from school and of the genuine hippies who did not attend to any formal obligations like school or work at all. They were certainly "getting stupid" with the aid of LSD and other drugs, catapulting them into alternate states of consciousness where they claimed to discover higher meaning. Affection was rampant; people were caught making love in the streets. The hippies were all about love, so "Sugar Magnolia" perfectly represents the love that was in the air. The woman sung as "she" is described as the ideal partner, especially with the lines "she's got everything delightful. She's got everything I need." The hippies had everything they needed in each other and would "wander round."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkKuhAxcH7g