Franklin's Tower

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Description

Written by Jerry Garcia Robert Hunter song, recorded 31/3/2024 by Genius Wild Herb Ways. All guitars, vocals, bass, various slide guitars played by Genius Wild Herb Ways.
Franklin's Tower
By Robert Hunter, and Jerry Garcia
In another time's forgotten space
Your eyes looked from your mother's face
Wildflower seed on the sand and stone
May the four winds blow you safely home
Roll away the dew x4
I'll tell you where the four winds dwell
In Franklin's tower, there hangs a bell
It can ring, turn night to day
It can ring like fire when you lose your way
Roll away the dew x4
God save the child that rings that bell
It may have one good ring, baby, you can't tell
One watch by night, one watch by day
If you get confused, listen to the music play
Some come to laugh their past away
Some come to make it just one more day
Whichever way your pleasure tends
If you plant ice, you're gonna harvest wind
Roll away the dew x4
In Franklin's tower the four winds sleep
Like four lean hounds, the lighthouse keep
Wildflower seed on the sand and wind
May the four winds blow you home again
Roll away the dew x4What's it about?
Robert Hunter on the lyrics…”EXPLICATION:
In another time's forgotten space
your eyes looked through your mother's face
Wildflower seed on the sand and stone
may the four winds blow you safely home.

surface intent
"You have your mother's eyes, child,
the very shape, color and intensity
of the eyes that looked through
her face so long ago. Borne on the
varied winds of chance and change,
like a dandelion seed, you may find
yourself deposited on barren soil.
My wish for you is that the forces
that brought you there may sweep
you up again and bear you to fertile ground.]

deeper intent
"In another time's forgotten space
your eyes looked through your mother's face."
[Relative immortality of the human
species is realized through reproduction.
Dominant traits inherited from an ancestor,
the lyric suggests, share more than mere
similarity with those of the forebear,
but are an identity, endlessly reproducible.
In other words, when someone says
"You have your mother's eyes"
they are not speaking in simile
nor would it be incorrect to say
that "your mother has your eyes,"
if, in fact, possessiveness is
an appropriate term in the context.
Poetic license will assume it is,
if only for the sake of moving on
to the next couplet.]”