Lyrics to
China Doll

This version of China Doll was released by Grateful Dead in 1974.

Our Decade Lyrics Grateful Dead profile has all of the China Doll lyrics from 1974 and many more songs from the Grateful Dead discography that we have on file.

Here's more interesting things in songs and lyrics tied to Grateful Dead or about the 1970s in general.

A pistol shot at 5 o’clock
The bells of heaven ring
“Tell me what you done it for”
“No I won’t tell you a thing

“Yesterday I begged you
before I hit the ground –
all I leave behind me
is only what I found

“If you can abide it
let the hurdy-gurdy play –
Stranger ones have come by here
before they flew away

“I will not condemn you
nor yet would I deny”
“I would ask the same of you
but failing will not die

“Take up your china doll
it’s only fractured –
and just a little nervous
from the fall”

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Want more lyrics and songs by Grateful Dead?

Grateful Dead has released many songs over the years besides China Doll. Grateful Dead released songs from 1967 to 1989 spanning across albums like The Grateful Dead, Anthem Of The Sun, Live / Dead, Aoxomoxoa, American Beauty, Workingman's Dead, Grateful Dead (Skull & Roses), Europe '72, History Of The Grateful Dead, Vol. 1 (Bear's Choice), Wake Of The Flood, Grateful Dead From The Mars Hotel, Blues For Allah, Steal Your Face, Terrapin Station, Shakedown Street, Go To Heaven, Reckoning, In The Dark, and Built To Last. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by Grateful Dead.

If you're a fan of lyrics from 1970s songs looking for more songs from 1974 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and China Doll by Grateful Dead

The lyrics to China Doll are just the words, phrases, verses and chorus that Grateful Dead used when the song was created in 1974. The lyrics to China Doll have both easy-to-spot meanings and hidden metaphors that have been discussed by the music press and fans, but only Grateful Dead and any collaborators know all of the inspirations for the song.

If you like etymology or breaking apart phrases and words, it is easy to understand the lyrics to China Doll by Grateful Dead. The word "lyric" itself derives from the Latin word lyricus, with the actual English word lyrics applied to the definition "words set to music" listed in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Continuing the chain, the Latin word lyricus derives from the Greek word λυρικός or lyrikós. This somewhat means "poetry accompanied by the lyre" or "words set to music." You can easily see that by looking at the background of the word lyric, that the "lyrics to China Doll" means the words set to the music of China Doll, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by Grateful Dead. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song. However, the singular form lyric is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics. Hence, by this analysis of word structure, you could say that the lyric to China Doll and the lyrics to China Doll are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of Grateful Dead who came here looking just for the lyrics to China Doll, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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