"Think I'll come back here again, every now and then, from time to time"

The Annotated "Born Cross-Eyed"

An installment in The Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics.
By David Dodd

"Born Cross-Eyed"
Words by Robert Weir

"Born Cross-Eyed"

Recorded on Anthem of the Sun

Deadbase lists nine performances, all in 1968.

The song has reappeared in live performances in 2002 by The Other Ones!

Blair Jackson, in The Music Never Stopped, quotes an interview with Weir in Crawdaddy, in which Weir says the song didn't come out the way he wanted. (How's that for third-hand info?)

This note from a reader:

Date: Sat, 09 Nov 1996 14:52:23 -0500
From: Bruce Thomas

The annotated Dead Lyrics are great. Under "Born Cross Eyed" , might it help to note that Buckminster Fuller was born that way? He either wrote an article or delivered a speech with that title or phrase in it, which I ran across years after I got into this song. He attributed the uniqueness of his theories to the difference in perception that arose from being born that way.

Could that be an influence?

brucet@usm.maine.edu

This note from a reader:

Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2002 7:56 AM
Subject: Lyrics

David,

I continue to enjoy browsing your annotated Dead lyrics site. I was looking at Born Cross-Eyed and noticed you didn't mention that Bob Weir is dyslexic. Don't you think there is some kind of connection -- you know, the part about the sun rising in the west?

Thanks
Jeff


in the sweet by-and-by

A reference to the song "In the Sweet Bye-and-Bye", by Samuel Fillmore Bennett and Joseph P. Webster.

about the time the sun rises west

A synonym for "never",or for a lie, used repeatedly in the folksong tradition:
First posted: June 30, 1995
Last revised: November 27, 2002