Phish.net > Charts > Narration Chart: "Mockingbird", 1992-03-24

TREY: Now by the puzzled expressions on some of your faces, I see that there is definitely some people out here that don’t know what’s going on, and I’m going to explain it to you right now. First of all, let’s just go back one song in the song list, the song that we just played before this, “Llama,” takes place in Gamehendge, which is where we are right now. We just left this building and moved into Gamehendge.

So we, [inaudible] troubadours from Gamehendge are going to sing you songs, we’ve just done a couple of them here, about the history of Gamehendge. So first we did “Llama,” which was the fast rock song right before this. In “Llama” you’ve got this guy sitting up on top of the mountain, this is years… In the history of Gamehendge,it’s late in the history of Gamehendge when Gamehendge has become a war torn Middle East sort of place.

And the way that happened is, a long time ago, there was this beautiful place called Gamehendge. There were trees, a huge vast green forest stretching out and these people called the Lizard People lived in peace and harmony and tranquility with the earth. And the way they did this, they had a book, called the Helping Friendly Book. The Helping Friendly Book had been given to them by their god, the Great and Knowledgeable Icculus, whose spirit lived on top of the mountain that grows out of the forest but who none of the Lizard People had ever seen.

The legend had it that he was on top of the mountain. He had given them the Helping Friendly Book, and the Helping Friendly Book contained all the knowledge inherent in the universe and taught them how to live in harmony with nature. So one day this traveler comes to Gamehendge named Wilson. And Wilson sort of seizes the opportunity here and steals the Helping Friendly Book from the Lizard People then thereby enslaves them.

He cuts down trees from the forest and builds a huge castle in the forest and hides the Helping Friendly Book in the highest tower of the castle and enslaves all the people of Gamehendge. Now, they don’t like this one bit so a revolution starts to take place, and revolutionaries form a little encampment in the woods.

At this point in time, our hero, Colonel Forbin, comes from another time and sees our revolutionaries, he sees that they are failing at overthrowing the Great and Knowledgeable Icculus, so he decides he’s going to do the one thing that he thinks can save them: he is going to climb up the mountain to find the Great and Knowledgeable Icculus who’s going to help him get the Helping Friendly Book back.

So that’s what I was just singing about, Colonel Forbin is climbing up the mountain, he’s trying to find the Great and Knowledgeable Icculus to get the book back. As he climbs up, he’s climbing up all the way up the mountain, it takes days to get up the mountain. Finally, he gets up near the top and he starts to get near the spirit of Icculus. He’s parched and thirsty, and the mountain starts to quake up above him, boulders start tumbling down. Along the side, he’s hanging on to this tree. Rocks tumbling down all around him. Little pieces of the mountain start to fall apart and start to form a huge gaping mouth and enormous eyes. The mountain starts to take the shape of the Great and Knowledgeable Icculus. Forbin is looking up at him terrified, and he says, “Icculus, you’ve got to help me, I’ve got to get your Helping Friendly Book back.”

So, Icculus says, “I’m going to call on my friend, The Famous Mockingbird,” and The Famous Mockingbird is going to fly out of the sky and he lands on Icculus’s shoulder. And Icculus says, “Famous Mockingbird, fly to the castle of the evil King Wilson, steal the Helping Friendly Book, bring it back to the revolutionaries,” thereby freeing them and bringing them back to peace and harmony with nature forever and ever.

So, here comes, The Famous Mockingbird, flying out of the sky…