"Here there may be roses to punch you in the nose"

The Annotated "When Push Comes to Shove"

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

"When Push Comes to Shove"
Words by Robert Hunter; music by Jerry Garcia
Copyright Ice Nine Publishing; used with kind permission.

Shaking in the desert, wherefore do you cry?
Here there may be rattlesnakes to punch you in the eye
Shotguns full of silver, bullets made of glass,
String barbed wire at your feet and do not let you pass
When Push Comes To Shove, you're afraid of love

When Push Comes To Shove
When Push Comes To Shove
You're afraid of love
When Push Comes To Shove

Shaking in the bedroom, covers on your head
Cringing like a baby at the hand beneath the bed
Phantom in the closet, scratching at the door
The latest mystery killer that you saw on channel four
When Push Comes To Shove, you're afraid of love

Shaking in the garden, the fear within you grows
Here there may be roses to punch you in the nose
Twist their arms around you, slap you till you cry,
Wrap you in their sweet perfume and love you till you die
When Push Comes To Shove, you're afraid of love

When Push Comes To Shove
When Push Comes To Shove
You're afraid of love
When Push Comes To Shove


"When Push Comes to Shove"

Recorded on

First performance: December 15, 1986, at the Coliseum Arena in Oakland, California. "Push" occupied the third spot in the first set, following "C.C. Rider," and preceding "Beat It On Down the Line." "Black Muddy River" was also debuted at this show. "When Push Comes to Shove" remained in the repertoire through July 17, 1989.


Here there may be..."

A phrase borrowed from old maps. "Here there may be monsters" indicated that the mapmaker was in uncharted territory.

bullets made of glass

This note from a reader:
From: Brendan Riley [mailto:bpriley@sonic.net]
Sent: Monday, July 28, 2003 10:15 PM
Subject: When Push Comes To Shove

Dear David,
driving west into the fog today, listening to the Dead debut When Push Comes To Shove from Oakland 1986, I bent my ear to hear the line about:
“bullets made of glass”
In Jules Vernes’ 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, Captain Nemo invites Professor Aronnax on an undersea hunting expedition, which, among other marvels, will employ guns powered by compresed air, firing glass bullets:

“Monsieur, with a gun such as mine, all hits are fatal; an animal has only to be touched, however slightly, and it drops stone-dead, as if struck by lightning.”

“How can that be?”

“Because the bullets ejected by this gun are not ordinary bullets. They are little capsules invented by Leniebroeck, an Austrian chemist, and I have a considerable supply. These glass capsules are covered with steel and weighted with a pellet of lead. They are little Leyden jars, highly charged with electricity! On the slightest impact they are discharged. The animal, however powerful it may be, falls dead. Besides, they are so small that an ordinary gun can hold ten of them.”

What better example of a man afraid of love than Captain Nemo? or filled with a love so great he is afraid to share it with the world, which might be the same thing?

from 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (1870) by Jules Verne
quotation from Signet Classic Edition, 1969;
Chapter XV: "A Written Invitation", pg. 120.
Translation by Mendor T. Brunetti

Sincerely,
Brendan Riley
Petaluma

First posted: January 20, 1996
Last revised: July 31, 2003