"Cream Puff War": What were the Grateful Dead *on* about here?

An early Grateful Dead song, that appears on the first LP, but which they don’t seem to have performed much after that, is Cream Puff War. It’s a nice, catchy little pop-flavored tune, with Pigpen’s Hammond C3 pulsating throughout the song with a sort of “disco au-go-go” nightclub vibe. Now I know that one shouldn’t expect early Dead lyrics to make a whole lot of sense, still I’d like to know what the point of the song is.

Is anyone familiar with this song who could talk about what it means? Somehow I get the idea that it’s about things deteriorating in the Haight Ashbury district, but I’m not sure it wasn’t recorded before things started to go pear-shaped there.

“Not performed much” is an understatement. Deadbase only lists 5 performances, the last in 1967.

That early, it seems like Jerry was just commenting on a couple he knew. My guess is that the lyrics have no deeper meaning than that.

Thanks for the response. I’d always wondered because the song seems almost unique in the Dead’s collection. When I hear it, I picture conservatively dressed young adults, like Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate, just having happened into a bar where the early Dead were playing. I see them dancing, and then getting puzzled during the slow passages.

In the OP when I mentioned the Haight scene going downhill, I was referring to the influx of too many runaways, heroin, and other ills, following the Summer of 1967.

Well, it was first recorded in early 1966, so I doubt the Haight scene had anything to do with it. It seems like Jerry was just playing around. But you’re right…it doesn’t really fit with the rest of the Dead playlist, does it?

Her’s a linky to the lyrics.

I have no fuckin’ idea what they mean. I just opened this thread while I was streaming on a '93 show at Madison Square Garden with the smokinest GDTRFB-Stones-NFA I’ve ever heard. And Lucy is coming up for the encore. Sweet.

All right, now, here are the lyrics to “Cream Puff War”:

"No, no! She can’t take your mind and leave
I know it’s just another trick she’s got up her sleeve
I can’t believe that she really wants you to die
After all it’s more than enough to pay for your lie

Wait a minute, watch what you’re doin’ with your time
All the endless ruins of the past must stay behind, yeah

Well, can’t you see that you’re killing each other’s soul
Well, you’re both out in the streets and you got no place to go
Your constant battes are getting to be a bore
So go somewhere else and continue your cream puff war"

Now, from reading these lyrics, it is my impression that the song is about a couple (boyfriend and girlfriend, husband and wife, etc.) that constantly squabble and have a very unhealthy and bellicose relationship, and that the song is sung from the point of view of a largely objective observer of these events. That, at least, is what I get from a reading of these lyrics. It’s about the possible breakup of a very destructive and toxic relationship, one filled with lies and arguments and worse.

No, no! She can’t take your mind and leave
(U.S. can’t take the Anti-War support)
I know it’s just another trick she’s got up her sleeve
(The draft)
I can’t believe that she really wants you to die
After all it’s more than enough to pay for your life
(Dying for the U.S.)

Wait a minute, watch what you’re doin’ with your time
All the endless ruins of the past must stay behind, yeah
(Don’t join the war cause your young and need to enjoy life. Wars are a relic of the past, not the present)

Well, can’t you see that you’re killing each other’s soul
Well, you’re both out in the streets and you got no place to go
Your constant battles are getting to be a bore
So go somewhere else and continue your cream puff war
(Leave us alone, and go so elsewhere to support your war)

Well isn’t it about time for a video link?
(BTW AnthemOfTheSon: Jerry’s quote included at the beginning here has something to say about anti-war songs…)