Phish.net > Charts > Narration Chart: "Mockingbird", 1991-04-21

TREY: We thought that on Earth Day, what today is, we should play you this song because, for those of you who haven’t been able to follow what is going on, this song is about a place where everything was beautiful and green, and there was these people living out in the middle of this land, very innocent people, the Lizards. They lived for thousands of years in peace and tranquility in the middle of this huge green forest with fields underneath a great big mountain.

Everything was beautiful and fine until one day a man came to the forest of Gamehendge. They had never seen outsiders before. They lived alone. They didn’t know anything except to live in peace and harmony with the land. So this one day, this guy is traveling through the woods, and he comes upon all these people. His name was Wilson.

Well, Wilson, this is the full story that you guys, i don’t usually tell the whole story but here is how it goes. Wilson, this goes way back. Wilson had come from a big megalopolis somewhere and he knew all about greed and hate and all of these people that lived there, the lizards, they didn’t know anything about that. They had no conception of that. All they knew about was living in peace and harmony.

This guy came, Wilson, he comes in, sees them and lives with them for awhile. He notices they base their entire life on this book, the Helping Friendly Book, which was of course written thousands of years ago by the Great and Knowledgeable Icculus. He was their prophet, the god that they prayed to. Now, Wilson, because he’s been introduced to hate and greed and he comes from a big city and everything, he knows right away that here are these people: it’d be so easy, he says, i could just take this book away from them and they’d be completely in my power because they rely so heavily on this book.

So, he just saw an opportunity to exploit these people. What he did was, he took the book, set up this castle, and basically enslaved everybody because he had the book. He had the knowledge, and they needed it. So, he set up a castle and became their evil tyrant, enslaving all the people of Gamehendge. For many many years, they didn’t know what to do, until finally another person, from 20th century America -- this is Colonel Forbin -- came, stepping through this corridor, ended up in Gamehendge.

He saw the opportunity to free these people. All they really needed was the book. They needed to overthrow Wilson, but in order to do that they needed the book. At this point in the story that we’re telling you, Colonel Forbin has just decided that the only way that he’s going to be able to get the book back is to climb up the mountain, go all the way back and talk to Icculus himself.

He’s just done that, climbed up the mountain, found Icculus. Icculus is standing above him, and he’s [Icculus] gonna ask the Famous Mockingbird to fly out of the sky and land on Icculus shoulder. He’s gonna whisper into the Mockingbird’s ear and tell the Mockingbird to fly and steal the Helping Phriendly Book.

But, the important thing, the important thing to think about on Earth Day and everything is that you’ll notice in this song “all knowledge seeming innocent and pure becomes a deadly weapon in the hands of avarice and greed.” What really happens in this story -- and not in this story here -- is that after they overthrow Wilson, the revolutionaries get the Book. But, they know now. They’ve been infected with the germ of hate and greed once they have the book. They used to be innocent people, the Lizards, but since they’ve seen Wilson, they know that they too could become powerful. They just take over so the whole cycle repeats itself. So hopefully that isn’t gonna keep happening here on this planet.

But anyway, here comes the Famous Mockingbird...