

The first known live version of the song dates from a Carousel Ballroom performance on January 17, 1968.Ĭhina Cat” remained steadily the repertoire, with the exception of the years 1975-1978, when it was played just once, in 1977. This cat took me in all these cat places there's some essence of that in the song." I had a cat sitting on my belly, and was in a rather hypersensitive state, and I followed this cat out to-I believe it was Neptune-and there were rainbows across Neptune, and cats marching across the rainbow. I don't think any of the words came, exactly-the rhythms came.

"I think the germ of came in Mexico, on Lake Chapala. I'd have to admit that before you could trace it back that there was some influence."Īnd then there's this in David Gans' Conversations with the Dead, Hunter says: Wag like a bear, with my top hat and my whiskers, that tra-la-la trapped affair.' I just like the way she put things together. It was originally inspired by Dame Edith Sitwell, who had a way with words-I like the idea of quick, clicky assonance and alliteration like 'See me dance the polka, said Mr. I wrote it in different settings and added this and that to it. In an interview in Golden Road (Spring, 1991, p. "To the jade 'Come kiss me harder' He called across the battlements as she Heard our voices thin and shrill As the steely grasses' thrill, Or the sound of the onycha When the phoca has the pica In the palace of the Queen Chinee!" Quote from the Dame Edith Sitwell poem "Trio for Two Cats and a Trombone": More recently played by The Other Ones, Ratdog and Phil & Friends. Played by the Dead from 1968 to 1995, almost invariably seguing into I Know You Rider. Krazy Kat peeking through a lace bandana like a one-eyed Cheshire like a diamond-eyed jack A leaf of all colors plays a golden string fiddle to a double-e waterfall over my backĬomic book colors on a violin river crying Leonardo words from out a silk trombone I rang a silent bell beneath a shower of pearls in the eagle winged palace of the queen Chinee Look for a while at the China Cat Sunflower proud-walking jingle in the midnight sun Copper-dome bodhi drip a silver kimono like a crazy-quilt star gown through a dream night wind
