Phish.net > Charts > Narration Chart: "Harpua", 1995-06-23

Original transcription by Yance Davis for the Harpua Files

TREY: Welcome everyone, welcome...to the concert. Hope everybody's having a good time. I'm gonna tell you a little story here because this happens to be a very special night. A little bit different from the rest of the nights on the tour for those of you who have been going from show to show. And, it's because we're in a very special place tonight here. To be at the Waterloo Concert tonight is very special… because. It's reminding me of this story because Waterloo happens to be the closest venue on this particular tour to a very special spot to myself and all of us, and probably all of you, and that's a place called The Rhombus.

I don't know if you guys know about the Rhombus, but I've been hearing from talking to people that there's a quest for the Rhombus. Yes, the Rhombus is real and we happen to be near the Rhombus, so it reminds me... This place makes me want to tell the story because the Rhombus brings me to the whole land of Gamehendge, which probably you know. A lotta stuff kinda went down in Gamehendge. There's this kinda one little tucked away corner in Gamehendge, and whenever we're near the Rhombus I like to kinda tell the story.

It happened a long time ago. It was a summer night sorta like this. In this one particular part of Gamehendge, there was this old man. The old man had been, he was sorta chastised from the town. He had been pushed out of the rest of town because he was a little bit different than all the other people. So, this particular old man had a dog that he liked to travel with. Because he was different, he had been pushed up into the woods, and he lived up in the woods overlooking this very quaint little town, not unlike some towns around here. Every day he would sit up in the woods there, and he would look down and he'd think about how mean the townspeople were to him. He'd look down and kinda wish that he could go back into town.

This one day was very strange because what happened was, he's standing there and he's leaning on this tree, he's looking down on the town. He's thinking, “I really wish, with all my heart, that they'd accept me, that they'd take me back, ya know. I've been living up in the woods turning into this grumpy mean old man. My dog down here is very mean too, very awful and wants to go and eat people.” Of course that dog is none other than the one and only Harpua. [plays menacing riff] Yes, Harpua.

So, he's leaning there, he's leaning against this tree, and he's looking down at his dog Harpua. This mean tree… The strange thing is he's leaning on this tree, and as he's leaning there, he's holding onto this low-hanging branch. he's thinking to himself, “Man, I really wish that I could go hang out down in the town with the people.” As he starts to wish, he realizes that sometimes wishes come true, and the branch sorta slowly starts to move back and forth. It's flying back and forth, and suddenly he feels it sorta tugging at him. The next thing you know he's, he's hanging onto this branch, and suddenly he feels it sorta tugging him forward. The next thing you know his feet are sort of sliding against the ground. Suddenly, he feels the branch is suddenly attached to this sort of magical tow rope, and the next thing you know he finds himself skiing down this hill, then being dragged by the giant wire…

Going faster and faster, he's cruising down the hill, the dog running behind him. Faster and Faster! Past all the buildings! Past the church! Past the houses! Faster! Until he's going behind the school and, suddenly, he finds himself cruising into this little suburban neighborhood. He finds he's back down in the town. As he's going down this particular street, he looks up and he sees this one little suburban house, and he realizes he's standing outside of the house of a young boy named Jimmy.

Jimmy is inside the house right now. Jimmy has always been very scared of the old man, but he's... The old man has been gone up in the woods for so long, it's not really a very big problem. So, on this particular day, Jimmy is sitting in his house relaxing. He's flipping through his album collection, and he decides he's going to pop on... He looks down and suddenly he sees this album that he hasn't played in a long time. He thinks to himself, “Wow... This is great! It's, it's, it's my old ABBA record.” He pulls out his old ABBA record and he puts the ABBA record on and cranks it up. He's like “It's a day for ABBA!” [Band plays ABBA’s “Waterloo” for about a minute and continues through the next part of the narration]

So, he's listening to this ABBA record. Then he starts thinking, “This is really shitty music. ABBA! I hate ABBA! I can't believe I used to listen to this crap!” He thinks, “What can I do to make this a little bit better?” So, suddenly he thinks, “Maybe if I added a little rockin' harmonica to it or something it'd kinda tighten it up a little bit.” [John Popper joins the band for a harmonica solo]

[The harmonica solo eventually segues into “Llama,” leaving “Harpua” unfinished]