The song was written by Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter and guitarist/vocalist Jerry Garcia. It's a fan favorite that the band performed 316 times in concert, first on March 23, 1974 at the Cow Palace in Daly City, California, and last on July 2, 1995 at Deer Creek Music Center in Noblesville, Indiana. The song is about a chance encounter with a woman. A game of cards is used as a metaphor for their flirtations. By the end, we're left with meditations of the cosmic and existential.
The opening line ("As I was walking round Grosvenor Square") places the song in Britain in two different ways: Grosvenor Square is a park in London's Mayfair district, and the traditional start for British ballads and nursery rhymes is "as I was walking."
In 1978, Robert Hunter said that the song was originally many pages long and was titled "Bristol Girls." According to White Gum, Hunter expanded on this idea in 2004 when talking to Blair Jackson, explaining that "Scarlet Begonias" was about his girlfriend Maureen, who later became his wife. She was in England, and Hunter would often make the journey from America to see her. Originally, the song went: Look all around this whole wide world You'll find nothing stranger than a Bristol girl The character in the song makes a run for it ("I was closing the door"), but Hunter didn't: He and Maureen were married in 1992.
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