Phish.net > Charts > Narration Chart: "Mockingbird", 1991-10-27

TREY: OK, as the snow falls outside here in the distance in all the mountains out there tonight, the last of it hopefully, come with us to a different place, another mountain far away in a different land called Gamehendge. At this time, what’s going on right here is we’ve got another mountain, a lot like the one up right over there, moving up into the distance.

Colonel Forbin, the hero of the story, is going to climb up the mountain and try to find the great and knowledgeable Icculus. The reason he’s doing this is because he’s trying to get the Helping Friendly Book. But, let me back up a little bit…

In Gamehendge, which is inhabited by people called the Lizards, who for thousands of years lived in peace and harmony with the land, they had this book, the Helping Friendly Book. The Helping Friendly Book... [crowd members yells loudly] He’s obviously read the book. The Helping Friendly Book had all the knowledge inherent in the universe and taught them the ways to live in peace and harmony with the land.

Everything was great until this guy Wilson one day wandered along. He was from a different culture, and he had never seen such innocence. In their innocence, the natives of the land, the Lizard people, in their innocence, they just took him in and didn’t realize the danger, not unlike of course what happened in this particular country. So in comes Wilson and he sees all these innocent people, they’re giving him all this stuff, and he says, “O boy, if i got my hands on that book, i could probably enslave these people because they need the book to live by.”

So he takes the book and builds a big castle, cuts down all the trees, builds a castle in the middle of the forest in Gamehendge. Then he hides the book in the highest tower of the castle and enslaves the people of Gamehendge and lives in the castle.

Now at this point, Col Forbin comes along. He’s another guy from another place and time who manages to just wander into this town. He sees this scene of slavery, and he tries to help the people, the revolutionaries, overthrow Wilson. All their attempts are failing miserably so as a final attempt he decides he’s going to climb the mountain and find the great and knowledgeable Icculus.

Icculus is the god of these people; he gave them the book. But, no one has ever seen Icculus before so it’s a pretty scary thing. Now, he climbs up the mountain, as just happened in the song, and the mountain begins to crumble, rocks start coming down everywhere, and the spirit of Icculus is starting to come out of the mountain.

As rocks tumble down, the mountain actually takes the shape of Icculus’ face. He looks up at the face, and he says “Can you please help us?”

Icculus says, “I’ll help you because i see what a mess this is” so he’s going to call on the Famous Mockingbird, who’s going to fly down out of the sky, land on Icculus’ shoulder. Icculus whispers into the Famous Mockingbird’s ear, and the Famous Mockingbird will fly off to the castle, steal the Helping Friendly Book from Wilson, and bring it back to the people of Gamehendge, the Lizards.

So here he comes now, the Famous Mockingbird...