Lyrics to
Cumberland Blues

This version of Cumberland Blues was released by Grateful Dead in 1970.

Our Grateful Dead Songs profile has Cumberland Blues lyrics from 1970 and most if not all of the lyrics by Grateful Dead that we have here at Decade Lyrics.

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I can’t stay much longer, Melinda, The sun is getting high.
I can’t help you with your troubles, If you won’t help with mine.
I gotta get down, I gotta get down, I gotta get down to the mine.

You keep me up just one more night, I can’t sleep here no more.
Little Ben clock says quarter to eight; You kept me up ’till four.
I gotta get down, I gotta get down, Or I can’t work there no more.

A lotta poor man make a five dollar bill, Keep him happy all the time.
Some other fella’s makin nothin’ at all And you can hear him cry,
“Can I go, buddy, can I go down Take your shift at the mine?”

Gotta get down to the Cumberland Mine.
Gotta get down to the Cumberland Mine.
That’s where I mainly spend my time.
Make good money, five dollars a day. Made anymore, I might move away.

Lotta poor man got the Cumberland Blues He can’t win for losin’
Lotta poor man got to walk the line Just to pay his union dues.
I don’t know now, I just don’t know If I’m goin’ back again.

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Grateful Dead has released many songs over the years besides Cumberland Blues. 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.

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About Lyrics and Cumberland Blues by Grateful Dead

The lyrics to Cumberland Blues are just the words, phrases, verses and chorus that Grateful Dead used when the song was created in 1970. The lyrics to Cumberland Blues 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 Cumberland Blues 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 Cumberland Blues" means the words set to the music of Cumberland Blues, 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 Cumberland Blues and the lyrics to Cumberland Blues 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 Cumberland Blues, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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