Lyrics to
Samson And Delilah

This version of Samson And Delilah was released by Grateful Dead in 1977.

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If I had my way, I would tear this old building down.

Well Delilah was a woman, she was fine and fair,
She had good looks, God knows, and coal black hair,
Delilah she gained old Samson’s mind.
When first he saw this woman, you know he couldn’t believe his mind.

Delilah she climbed up on Samson’s knee,
Said tell me where your strength lies if you please.
She spoke so kind and she talked so fair,
Well Samson said, Delilah cut off my hair.

You can shave my head, clean as my hand
And my strength will become as natural as any old man.

If I had my way, if I had my way, if I had my way,
I would tear this old building down.

You read about Samson, all from his works,
He was the strongest man that ever had lived on earth.
One day when Samson was walking along,
Looked down on the ground, he saw an old jawbone.

He stretched out his arm, God knows, chains broke like thread,
When he got to moving, ten thousand was dead.

If I had my way, if I had my way, if I had my way,
I would tear this old building down.

Now Samson and the lion, they got in a tack,
Samson he crawled up on the lion’s back.
You read about this lion, he killed a man with his paws,
But Samson got his hands around that lion’s jaws.

He ripped the beast till he killed him dead.
The bees made honey in the lion’s head.

If I had my way, if I had my way, if I had my way,
I would tear this old building down.

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Grateful Dead has released many songs over the years besides Samson And Delilah. 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 1970s music looking for more songs from 1977 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and Samson And Delilah by Grateful Dead

The lyrics to Samson And Delilah are just the words, phrases, verses and chorus that Grateful Dead used when the song was created in 1977. The lyrics to Samson And Delilah 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 Samson And Delilah 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 Samson And Delilah" means the words set to the music of Samson And Delilah, 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 Samson And Delilah and the lyrics to Samson And Delilah 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 Samson And Delilah, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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