Lyrics Ain't It Crazy (The Rub) - Grateful Dead

Ain't It Crazy (The Rub)

Mama got the rub board, sister got the tub
They’re going round doing the rub-de-rub
Ain’t it crazy, ain’t it crazy
Ain’t it crazy one day, to keep on rubbin' that thing
Two old maids, they was layin' in a bed
One turned over and this is what she said
Ain’t it crazy, ain’t it crazy
Ain’t it crazy one day, to keep on rubbin' that thing
Yeah mama killed a chicken, thought it was a duck
Put him on the table with his feet sticking up
(Alternative: … with his feet turned up)
Ain’t it crazy, ain’t it crazy
Ain’t it crazy one day, to keep on rubbin' that thing
There was two old maids, layin' in the sand
Each one wonderin' if the other was a man
(Alternative: Each one wishing that the other was a man)
Ain’t it crazy, ain’t it crazy
Ain’t it crazy one day, to keep on rubbin' at that thing
Notes:
This was played by the Dead a dozen times in 1970 and 1971, and before that in
1964 by Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions before the Dead proper were formed.
It seems clear that the Dead knew this song as «The Rub».
In July 1964,
for example, Weir introduces it by saying that Mr Pigpen McKernan is going to
sing a Lightnin' Hopkins song — The Rub.
But Lightnin' Hopkins recordings have
it under the title «Ain't It Crazy», «Mighty Crazy» or «The Crazy Song.»