Phish.net > Charts > Narration Chart: "Mockingbird", 1993-02-25

TREY: Ok, does everybody know exactly i was just singing about? Some of you know, some of you definitely don’t know. I know that’s a confusing song if you don’t know what it’s about so what we’re going to have to do here to solve this problem is, in order to explain to everyone what’s going on, we’re going to have to go on a little trip here.

Without you knowing it, what’s happening right now is that right this very second while we’re all standing here, everyone’s feet is slowly being locked onto the floor. Without knowing it, you couldn’t lift up your feet if you tried. You can feel the weight in your body hanging down, and you can feel your feet attach to the floor, just feel your feet attach to the floor. They’re starting to sort of take root to the floor; your feet are glued to the floor now.

Everyone’s feet is glued to the floor. As you’re glued to the floor, you can kind of sense a little rocking, sort of hear little bits of the foundation breaking away from the building [makes falling sound, accompanied by Fish]. People glued to the floor now, the building is starting to break away. As we stand here, the whole floor starts to tip up on its side. It’s tipping over on its side, tipping and tipping and tipping, the whole building is turning upside down, slowly turning upside down [makes exertion sound].

Now the building is upside down. Without even anybody knowing it, you guys are actually hanging from the top of the building now. So that’s the floor, and this is the top of the building. We’re all hanging from the top of the building right now. As we’re hanging here, other parts of the foundation start to give way. Slowly, the roof, the roof starts to rip off the top of the building and float up into the air [makes exertion sounds].

We’re hanging up in the air now, and we’re looking down. What do we see? We see Miami all stretched out, Miami Beach off in the distance. Hanging upside down from the floor of the building, we start to float out, floating. We can feel the wind taking us out over the ocean. As we’re going, we start to feel changes. Slowly the wind is blowing, and we start to sort of tumble upside down going into the wind, tumbling along in the wind. We find ourselves standing the right way up again, but we’re way out over the ocean now. We’re all completely away from the building and standing with our feet still locked to this big floor, and this big floor starts to slowly lower down into the ocean until it sinks down.

Now, we’re standing on the ocean. We notice the little corners at the edge of the floor start to stretch out in front of us to a big point. And, in the back another big point comes behind. We kind of start to turn sideways. Off in the distance, we see the biggest wave ever known in the history of the world. A huge wave! We see it! it’s like a wall of water, and you can’t see the top of it coming behind us. We stand there, bracing ourselves. The wave is coming closer and closer, and then WOOWWW! Catching the wave, the tube, we’re in the tube, all of us attached to floor of the building, riding the tube!

Suddenly we notice the land has gone. The wave seems to go forever: there is no beach anymore. Riding the tube, coming up. Our feet are still planted to the floor, there’s nothing we can do [unintelligible], no way to revert out. We’re riding the tube on our board. Suddenly, the ocean stretching out in front of us, we see a huge island in front, stretching out. We’re going towards it.

The wave is going towards the shore now. We’re hanging on, and it’s getting bigger. It’s a different shore though. [Page teases “Gilligan’s Island” theme slowly] There’s no more buildings, no more buildings anywhere. As it brings us up to the shore, instead of breaking over, it just starts to die away, and we just start to drift up on the shore.

We walk off the side of it. Our feet are free now, and we’re walking off the board. We look in front of us, and we see palm trees around the side. It’s some place we’ve never been before. We look over to the right, and we see a big rope ladder hanging down. So we can get a better view of where we are, we all one by one get on the rope ladder and start climbing up the rope ladder [slow paced synced playing from band referencing climbing up the ladder].

We’re looking down now, we look down, and we see where we are. We see that there is a vast green field, a green field stretching off in the distance as far as the eye can see. Over on this side, we can see a huge forest going the other way as far as the eye can see, just stretching off, no buildings anywhere. And right in the back, a huge mountain, the biggest mountain we’ve ever seen, rising up. We realize that we’ve landed… [cupping mic] in GAMEHENDGE!

That’s right because the four of us here, we are troubadours from Gamehendge, and we come here… Part of the thing we do on top of all the other stuff is to sing songs of Gamehendge, which is why we brought you to this land. If you look around you now, you see the trees going off in the distance. Gamehendge a long time -- because i know a lot of you don’t know the story -- ago, for thousands and thousands of years was inhabited by these people called the Lizards. The Lizards lived in peace and harmony with nature. The way they lived in peace and harmony is because they had this book, and it was called the Helping Friendly Book. [Page beings playing “Mockingbird” theme]

The Helping Friendly Book was why they learned to be living in peace and harmony with nature everywhere. The Helping Friendly Book had been given to them by the Great and Knowledgeable Icculus who lived up on top of the mountain. Unfortunately, one day a traveller came to Gamehendge, and his name was Wilson. He knew the innocent ways of all the people of Gamehendge so he enslaved them by stealing their book, and he cut down the trees, built a huge castle, put the book in the castle, and hid it from them. So, the Lizard people were all enslaved by King Wilson.

Well though, on this particular day, another traveller had come. His name was Colonel Forbin. Colonel Forbin had been working with a revolutionary group trying to overthrow the Evil King Wilson. Nothing had been working so this was his last resort. On this particular day, he decided to climb up the mountain to find this god, Icculus, and have Icculus help him get the Helping Friendly Book back for the Lizard people. Right now we see him; he’s going up the side of the mountain; he’s climbing up. Rocks are tumbling down all around the side of his head. The mountain is starting to quake.

He’s looking up, and he sees the spirit of Great and Knowledgeable Icculus appear before him. He looks up, and he says “Icculus, you’ve got to help us get the Helping Friendly Book back.” Icculus looks down, and he says “Colonel Forbin, i’m going to help you, but i’m going to send you a warning that when you get this book that has all the knowledge inherent in the universe, there could be a lot of trouble along with it. But, i’m going to get it for you anyway.” So he calls on his friend, the Famous Mockingbird, and the Famous Mockingbird comes flying down out of the sky. He lands on Icculus’s shoulder, and Icculus tells him to go the castle, steal the book, and bring it back to the people we’ve been talking about.

So here he comes now, the Famous Mockingbird. I hope you got all that because there’s going to be a test on the way out… The Famous Mockingbird coming across the sky...