"I had a lot of dreams once, but some of them came true... "

The Annotated "Just a Little Light"

An installment in The Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics.
By David Dodd
Research Associate, Music Dept., Univ. of Calif. Santa Cruz (The opinions expressed are those of the author, not of the University of California.) Copyright notice; © 1995,1996, David Dodd
"Just a Little Light"
Words by John Perry Barlow and Brent Mydland; music by Brent Mydland

Well, there ain't nobody safer than someone who doesn't care
And it isn't even lonely when no one's ever there
I had a lot of dreams once, but some of them came true...
The honey's sometimes bitter when fortune falls on you

So you know I've been a soldier in the armies of the night
And I'll find the fatal error in what's otherwise alright
But here you're trembling like a sparrow, I will try with all my might
To give you just a little sweetness...
Just a little sweetness...
Just a little light
.

I have always heard that virtue oughta be its own reward,
But it never comes so easy when you're living by the sword
It's even harder to be heartless when you look at me that way
You're as mighty as the flower that will grow the stones away

Even though I been a stranger, full of irony and spite
Holding little but contempt for all things beautiful and bright,
Something shines around you and it seems, to my delight
To give me just a little sweetness...
Just a little sweetness...
Just a little sweetness...
Just a little light.

[Bridge:]
This could be just another highway, coiled up in the night
You could be just another white-tail, baby, stranded on my brights,
There's a tingling recognition
Like the sound of distant thunder
And I begin to wonder
If the love I've driven under
Won't ignite.

So you know I've been a soldier in the armies of the night
And I'll find the fatal error in what's otherwise alright
Something shines around you that seems, to my delight
To give me just a little sweetness...
Just a little sweetness...
Just a little sweetness...
Just a little light.


"Just a Little Light"

Written in Martinez, California January 27, 1989

Recorded on

First performance: Februay 7, 1989, at the Henry J. Kaiser Auditorium in Oakland, California. "Just Little Light" appeared in the first set, following "Walking Blues" and preceding "Standing On the Moon." Final performance (of 21 total): July 21, 1990, at the World Music Theatre, Tinley Park, Illinois (Brent's third-to-last concert).


armies of the night

Norman Mailer used this phrase as the title of his 1968 nonfiction novel about an anti-war march on the Pentagon in 1967, which won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. He took it from the last line of Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach":
"And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night."

Arnold, in turn, was probably referring to a specific battle fought at night, usually assumed to be Thucydides' account of the Battle of Epipolae in his Peloponnisian Wars (Chapter XXII):

"The Athenians now fell into great disorder and perplexity, so that it was not easy to get from one side or the other any detailed account of the affair. By day certainly the combatants have a clearer notion, though even then by no means of all that takes place, no one knowing much of anything that does not go on in his own immediate neighbourhood; but in a night engagement (and this was the only one that occurred between great armies during the war) how could any one know anything for certain?" (Thucydides continues for quite a passage.)
(This reference courtesy Greene Lawson [verde1@earthlink.net].)

Some critics think, however, that Arnold may have been making a reference to Tennyson's Morte d"Arthur, in which he recounts the "last, dim, weird battle of the west":

Nor ever yet had Arthur fought a fight
Like this last, dim, weird battle of the west.
A deathwhite mist slept over sand and sea:
Whereof the chill, to him who breathed it, drew
Down with his blood, till all his heart was cold
With formless fear; and ev'n on Arthur fell
Confusion, since he saw not whom he fought.

Sweetness....just a little light

This note from a reader:
Date: Sun, 5 Oct 1997 00:54:37 -0400 (EDT)
From: DBDRC@aol.com
To: ddodd@well.com
Subject: Just a little Light

In your annotation for "Just a Little Light" I noticed the reference to Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach". There is also (I think) another reference to Arnold. If I am not mistaken, In Arnold's "Culture and Anarchy", the first chapter is called "Sweetness and Light". Hence, ...just a little sweetness, just a little light. I always wondered if John Barlow and/or Brent put that lyric in for that reason. (I totally missed the reference to "Dover Beach" until now). Now that I see it, I guess it was no accident.
Thanx,
-Brian D'Arcy

fatal error

Possibly the only reference to computing the the entire body of Grateful Dead lyrics. A screen message indicating that something is very wrong. Any ideas on the origin of the phrase would be most welcome!

The McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Electronics and Computer Technology (1984) has this definition:

"An error in a computer program which causes running of the program to be terminated."

Barlow is showing his predilections.


virtue oughta be its own reward

From a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson in his essay "Friendship", published in his Essays (1941):
"The only reward of virtue is virtue..."

living by the sword

Matthew was the only writer of the gospels to report the words of Jesus: "Those who live by the sword will die by the sword." (Matthew 26:52)

all things beautiful and bright

This is the second Barlow use of a line from the hymn, "All Things Bright And Beautiful" (1848) by Cecil Frances Alexander (1818-1895):
"All things bright and beautiful, All creatures great and small, All things wise and wonderful, The Lord God made them all."

The other is in "Let It Grow."


white-tail, baby, stranded on my brights

This note from a reader:
Subject: Re: Just a Little Light
Date: Thu, 07 Nov 1996 13:01:33 -0600
From: Greene Lawson

Dear David,

Another Little note about "Just A Little Light."

"You could be just annother white-tail, baby, Stranded on my Brights"
A white-tail is a White Tail Deer, who are known to stare, as if hypnotized into the lights of oncoming traffic, especially in rural areas. They will stand still and often get hit. I have heard more than one story of people hitting deer, totalling their cars and the deer wlking away, only a little dazed, but apparently otherwise alright.

Thank you for the Annotated Lyrics, it is a beautiful thing.

Peace and Love,

Greene


thunder

It seems to have become almost obligatory for Barlow to mention thunder in his lyrics.
Keywords: @thunder, @virtue
DeadBase code: [LITT]
First posted: November 4, 1996
Last revised: October 7, 1997