Phish.net > Charts > Narration Chart: "Harpua", 1994-11-25

Original transcription by Yance Davis, Harpua Files

TREY: Welcome everyone and Happy Thanksgiving! Hope you had a good one. I know I did. I'm gonna tell you a Famous Thanksgiving story. Now you probably know a lot of different Thanksgiving stories, but this particular story you may not know. You may know it. This happened some time around the 1600s, you know, somewhere In New England. There's a boat that brought some people over. They all landed somewhere around Plymouth Rock, and they started this little town. In this town there was all kinds of different people, but one of the things that really kind of started the future off on the wrong foot was that the people in this first town in America.

There was one person in this town that they all did not like, and they let everybody know it. They couldn't have love for every person in the town so there was one person that was a little bit different. Because this person was different, they always gave him a hard time.
Now, this person was a little bit older than the rest of them. He was sort of an old man. I need a little background music here...

He was an old guy and he travelled around with his mangy little dog. You know, the name of the song is "Harpua." Well the name of the dog was also Harpua. This is the story of Harpua and his owner. Now, there they were in the town. The townspeople didn't like either the dog or the old man very much, and they started to make it really obvious. He started to feel a little more outcast and a little bit different than the rest of the people, and as time went on, he felt more uncomfortable.

So, he acted a little stranger, and they saw him acting stranger. They thought he was even more different so they were more mean. Eventually, it got to the point where he just couldn't live with the people anymore, and they forced him to move up into the mountains and away from the rest of the town, forced him right out of the town. So he was lonely and by himself and living up in the mountains. So, he goes up into the mountains. As he's living up there, every day he would look down at the people in the town and get madder and madder. He'd look down and say “You people are so… You really piss me off. You tick me off”

FISH: Tick me off.

TREY: He’d get madder and madder. But, he never said anything about it, he just bottled all this anger up inside. He kept getting madder and madder, and as the years went on, he'd look down every day from his little cave dwelling up in the mountains and he'd see them all having their happy little days down there, walking from house to house, and he'd get madder and madder. One day he just couldn't take it anymore so he opened up his mouth, and he looked down and he just let out the biggest, most awful scream of all time, a scream that was so horrible that it shook the rafters of the town [screaming and cacophony]...

The anger poured out of his chest. Deep in his gut the anger toward the town... The incredible thing was he was so angry, his anger was so deep, that people actually looked up in the mountains and they saw... It wasn't just sound, it became this sort of beam of ugly red light… coming out of his mouth. Over and over, out of his mouth in a big arc, out of his mouth, just a giant beam of light, it came bursting down through the town, coming down, leaving a swath of death and destruction behind it. Anger, ugly horrible screaming sound [more screaming and cacophony] knocking out buildings, knocking cars off, kicking boats out of the water. [another scream] It came bursting down through suburban streets. Until it came upon the house of our friend JIMMY!

That's right, Jimmy was in his house when the angry beam of vocal hatred came through and, Jimmy is the other person in the story. Jimmy was sitting on this particular day. Jimmy was in his house, and he had no idea that the angry beam of ugly sound was coming towards his house, because he was too busy watching TV and listening to movies and petting his cat, his pet cat, who he loved so much. His house was filled with love. He looked at his cat and pet the little cat.

FISH: Ah... nice cat.

TREY: And he looked into its eyes and said “You are nothing but love. When you open up your mouth, I see a beautiful green love beam coming out at me.” He pet the cat. That's why.. [Someone throws a glow stick at Trey]

FISH: Much like, that love beam. Trey, someone's beaming love at you...

TREY: Green love beam, coming out, hitting him. And he feels kind of.. He'd look at the cat and... ahh, they're coming out everywhere! Beautiful green love beams [glow stick war]. So he looked down and said “I love your beautiful green love beams you.. handsome cat, you beautiful, you beautiful feline friend of mine, my sweet…”

FISH: Beautiful red love beams as well. [glow stick war continues]

TREY: ...flying out of everywhere. He said “I love that beautiful green love beam! That's why ... I named you... POSTER NUTBAG!”

FISH & TREY: [high pitched] Poster. [musical cacophony] Oh Poster. Poster Nutbag. Poster!

TREY: Poster Nutbag. Anyway, it was at this point in time, that Poster Nutbag, standing in front of his door, suddenly the door was blasted open by the red beam of vocal hatred from the guy who had been at the beginning of the story. His door comes bursting off his hinges, smashing him in the chest, flying him back up against the wall. Meanwhile, he loses Poster Nutbag who drops upon the ground. Poster Nutbag runs out into the street, gone, out into the street.

Meanwhile, the old man's vocal scream was so incredibly intense that it had opened up a giant fissure in the earth, and Poster Nutbag stepped into the fissure, and fell in the bottomless pit, into the lava in the middle of the earth, disappearing forever. Jimmy, meanwhile, lying in the house, gets up, pushes the door off, doesn't know what happened to Poster Nutbag but suddenly his father walks in the room…

Look, the angry red vocal hate beam is gone...