Phish.net > Charts > Narration Chart: "Harpua", 2013-07-21

TREY: I’m gonna tell you a little story now. And i’m gonna tell you this story right: i am gonna tell this story right. And, I’m gonna tell you why i’m gonna tell this story right. Because today I walked out on stage for the first song and i saw a sign that i couldn’t understand, from that guy. It said Dinner and a Movie 1-270. So we played the song because i couldn’t understand the sign.

Oh by the way, one little thing about signs -- i’m veering off into the sign thing. But i will tell you one little thing about signs. If we start a song and you instantly hold up a sign for another song, that is the best way to not get your song played. That’s for the record going forward. He who holds up a sign for a different song than the song… like that guy.

See that’s the kind of asshole… O i’m sorry That’s the guy, The reason we’re playing this song right is because this guy held up this sign that doesn’t make any sense whatsoever to me. And he’s been holding it up all night while i’m playing… Hang on you gotta see what it says. [Trey retrieves the sign]

It says “Poster Nutbag: The Right Way.” Indicating we’ve been doing it the wrong way all these years.

FISH: What’s he mean by that?

PAGE: What does he mean by that?

TREY: I can’t hear you, hang on hang on. [Trey brings the guy and his girlfriend up to the stage] [to crew member] You got another mic over there? [brings them mics]

JULIE: Hey Trey!

TREY: I don’t want you breathing into my mic. I like you and everything.

JULIE: It’s whatever, man

TREY: What’s your name?

CHRIS: I’m Chris.

TREY: Hey Chris. What’s your name?

JULIE: I’m Julie.

TREY: Hey Julie.

JULIE: What’s up man.

TREY: Chris and Julie, let’s hear it for ‘em. Poster Nutbag the right way

PAGE:: Poster Nutbag the right way, these people represent Poster Nutbag the right way.

TREY: No seriously man. Where are you from?

JULIE AND CHRIS: Philly, we’re from Philly.

TREY: Are you guys doing some conference here or are you guys on the tour

CHRIS: We’re on tour. We’ve been on tour

JULIE: For a long time man.

TREY: Are you alone?

JULIE: No we’re with our whole group of people that we’ve been on tour with for like 15 years

TREY: Let’s get them up here…

JULIE: This is the best night of our lives.

TREY: The gang from Philly, you guys from Philly o my god.

CHRIS: All from Philly

MAN IN PANTS: All from Philadelphia

TREY: Can you explain to the people what you meant by that, “Poster Nutbag: The Right Way”?

CHRIS: Well, we love Harpua, it’s our favorite song. Harpua is our favorite

JULIE: Yea it’s the best jam

CHRIS: But you’ve been telling the story wrong

MAN IN PANTS: It’s All wrong, all wrong.

JULIE: You’ve played it wrong awhile now.

CHRIS: No for 30 years, you’ve been telling the story wrong.

TREY: What do you mean?

KATIE: We were there!

TREY: What about the?

CHRIS: We were there, when it happened.

TREY: Where were you?

MAN IN PANTS: We were there for the whole impetus of the whole thing

KATIE: Yeah Thirty years ago.

FISH: Impetus!

CHRIS:: So so alright. It started. So We all grew up together in Philly. And we’ve been following you around for a long time. And we

TREY: Alright come on spit it out man,

CHRIS: So it started, we all toured together so we would all travel the country

MAN IN PANTS: All just in a van traveling together

TREY: Did you see the yodeling mother daughter team

JULIE: Sure with the mother daughter.

TREY: How bout that one? That was good right?

KATIE: But that’s not part of it.

JULIE: Yeah that was fine but it’s not the real

MAN IN PANTS: It’s not the real part

CHRIS: So the story is… We were all traveling together. We started out as tornado chasers and we were all over the plain area, the plain states, in the Midwest, travelling looking for tornadoes.
[Fish starts drumroll and Trey grabs his guitar]

MAN IN PANTS: ...travelling looking for tornadoes all over, and finally we see like a big whirlwind, a massive whirlwind tornado just building and building steam, going round and around in a circle [The Crew from Philly begins following each other in a circle], a massive massive tornado

CHRIS: And Katie here, she looked up in the sky

KATIE: I looked up the sky and just right up there was the hotel we were staying at. It had been taken up into the sky.

MAN IN PANTS: Pulled from the ground and literally taken up to the sky

KATIE: It was a Best Eastern at that point, it had been a Best Western and was now a Best Eastern.

MAN IN PANTS: It turned into a Best Eastern (boombap)

WOMAN IN DRESS: And then out of that hotel came Al Gore. He was dressed like a sailor. And he spoke to us. Do you remember what he said?

KATIE: He actually rapped.

CHRIS: Yes

WOMAN IN DRESS: Al Gore rapped.

MAN IN HAT: Yea yea i remember Al Gore’s rap, it was like [he starts beatboxing, Mike lays down a bassline, Fish comes in, Trey plays a vamp] Yea! Yea! He said “my name is Al Gore, sweeter than Baby Ruth, i’m here to give y’all an inconvenient truth. That’s right yall, i have all yall in pain got stumbly when i was on Clinton campaign. And also that connection, George W Bush also stole my election. And after that it took a correction when he stole my election also stole my erection. That’s right! Forget what you heard. Gore so hot melt you down like an iceberg, True that! That was the end of the night. After that we all just got into a fight.

CHRIS: [rapping] Puppies Puppies Puppies

KATIE: [rapping] Kitties Kitties Kitties

CHRIS: [rapping continues] Harpua Harpua

TREY: [interrupting] Guys hey guys, wait a second, stop stop stop. What about Poster Nutbag? Poster Nutbag?

CHRIS: [pointing to sign on the ground] Who him?

WOMAN IN DRESS:Yeah he was there too

CHRIS: [rapping] Kittens Kittens Kittens [music picks up where it left off]

MAN IN HAT: [rapping] Poster Nutbag, that’s how he survived, a kid with about nine lives, you can kill him once, you can kill him twice, until you kill him nine times he won’t be feeling so nice. That’s right. He’s like a drag. And that’s how we talk about that Poster Nutbag. [music continues]

JULIE: I just wanna take this opportunity to [music stops] celebrate women’s right to choose. [Page stands up and claps; Fish gives Trey a wtf look]

MAN IN HAT: [nodding] It’s important

MAN IN PANTS: And the dog and the cat got into a massive fight. [Katie makes cat noises]

MAN IN HAT: The dog and cat got into a massive fight

WOMAN IN DRESS: Just, just fighting

MAN IN PANTS: [angry dog noises, cat noises] A crazy fight right. Dog and cat, looked more like...

MAN IN HAT: ...was more realistic. Realistic!
[More dog and cat noises while the Crew from Philly starts to tussle a little onstage]
[Jimmy’s theme begins]

CHRIS: And then after the fight, we all looked up into the sky together and we noticed...

WOMAN IN DRESS: There was no more tornado

MAN IN HAT: The clouds had cleared

FISH: [screaming over the cacophony] [with Trey] Look the Storm’s Gone

TREY: Ok everybody. Did they tell it right? Or do i usually tell it right? [crowd is confused] You guys gotta get off the stage! [pauses] That was really weird

PAGE:: I don’t think they were really from Philly.

TREY: Think they were pulling a chain?

FISH: I don’t think they’d ever seen this band before.

TREY: Mike, what did you think of that?

MIKE:: I thought it was odd.

PAGE: Mike speaks, Mike speaks.

FISH: It was oc, it was oc [made up work, pronunciation of ok perhaps?]

TREY: Y’know, now that we’ve got your attention, and i’ll go back to the story. Some of you might notice how much fun it is that Page is talking this tour. But i haven’t heard much from Mike and he’s the one we really wanna hear from. Mike, why don’t you tell the Harpua story?
MIKE: There was this cat that went for a little walk in Chicago at 4 in the morning, and he ended up at the Kingston Mines. Ended up being called on stage except he didn’t know music, English or stage, or any of that, he just knew cat food and occasionally pissing on things.

It was the anger of the people in his household that caused him to go for a slight ennui that particular night, thinking he would take in some blues at the Kingston Mines. But, he couldn’t really relate with what was going on there so he actually went across the street to Blues on Halstead. And that was a really bad scene because there was dog energy, playing a lot of dog songs, and actual… He just was out of there.

The good thing about that is, he had couple other cat friends who said you wanna go check out something going on at Second City? Which is exactly what the cab driver didn’t understand when he was just saying [makes cat noises], stuff like that. So after a few different cab drivers, he managed to strike up a conversation with a feline one, who did take him over to Second City.

Even though he didn’t understand English, he definitely could see that funny stuff was going on, which cats can appreciate. It seemed to be going pretty well until the main comedian came on stage, who was totally canine, and he had an H on his sweatshirt. [Ttrey plays a distinct melody)]

He said so “Oh Fuck there’s a dog here.” And he started to slowly inch his way backwards one paw at a time, but the dog came off the comedy stage and started to chase him into the back alley. Whenupon someone arched their back: what happened?

TREY: The guy in the cat alley, the feline and dog stood across from each other. It was going to be a horrible fight. What happened? [looks toward Mike] You were there.

MIKE: The dog struck the cat!

TREY: Look! The storm is really gone, now. THANK GOD!!!