Phish.net > Charts > Narration Chart: "Harpua", 1994-10-16

TREY: [Hums the marching rhythm] You can hear… that little rhythm going there. You can picture it. You’ve got two little creatures walking side by side. One of them is actually a human being, and one of them is a dog. So, try to picture in your mind here, a dog with its little four dog steps going [Trey plays notes imitating the dog walking and Mike slides on bass]. And next to this dog, is this dog’s owner. The owner, who actually has sort of a limp because he’s this old grungy guy, he’s kind of walking, going next to him.

[Music becomes syncopated, slowing to an almost reggae beat] You’re probably wondering who these two people are. So, let me take you to this different land here now for a little while. Yes, that’s right! Yes, that’s right, Gamehendge, [imitates Spinal Tap singing “Stonehenge”] “where the banshees live and they do live well.”

Ok, here we have this… little town in the middle of this kind of weird land that has a mountain going out of it, as you’ve heard before, and the forest off in the distance. The forest goes as long as you can see and you have this mountain going off in the distance. Now, these two people that I was telling you about, the dog and the guy, they used to live in the middle of town with all the other people until the townspeople started to dislike this old guy.

He wasn’t so old back then, but he became sort of the town clown. People would diss him in the streets and stuff, and eventually he became so ostracized that he had to move out kind of farther and farther to the outskirts until he ended up living in this shack up in the woods somewhere, just kind of getting angrier and angrier and older and dirtier and, you know, full of hatred for this town. And, as he got more and more full of hatred, his dog, who was his best friend, kind of picked up on these vibes too, until the dog over the years turned into this evil, killer, mangy hound. His name was… Harpua.

So, here’s this old guy and this dog Harpua living up in the woods. Meanwhile, down in the town, there’s a small boy, and he lives in sort of the suburban area of the town. On this particular day, he’s down there, and we can picture ourselves going down to his house here, a typical suburban house, little driveway, little car parked. On this day, actually though, we find that he isn’t home, he’s gone out. We try and start looking around town to see where he’s gone, and we see that he’s somewhere downtown. He’s in the local club. He’s in the club, and he’s seeing one of his favorite bands that night… Bootsy Collins!” [Band begins “Flashlight”]

You can hear the music coming out the window, Jimmy’s in there, getting down [more “Flashlight”]. So, Jimmy’s in there grooving down to Bootsy Collins, and everybody’s, everybody’s pumping, the place is pumping. He’s in there and on this particular night he’s brought his best friend with him. His best friend is this beautiful little cat. Now, the bass is pumping, and the cat needs to go outside so Jimmy decides to leave Bootsy for a minute, walks out to the door, opens the door and starts to go outside with the cat.

He tells the cat... He’s holding up the cat, and he’s looking at the cat. He’s petting the cat. He’s looking into the cat’s eyes. He can hear Bootsy in the background, and he’s saying “Oh, oh, man, [moans] oh I love you so much. O you beautiful, beautiful cat. You’re such a good cat. You’re my very special...kitty. You’re my very special POSTER NUTBAG!’ [band plays] “My best friend, Poster Nutbag. My pet, Poster Nutbag,” he says. “Poster Nutbag”, he says, “Poster, I’m going to go in, and I’m going to listen to a little bit more Bootsy. But, what I want you to do is, I want you to wait outside the door here. Don’t go away till I come back.” So, he shuts the door, and he goes back in. Poster Nutbag is sitting outside the door.

In the meantime, remember our evil dog? Harpua has started wandering in the town to look for a little action because he’s full of hatred. He’s walking down the street. He comes and he hears the bass bumping, and he thinks, “I’m going to go over in that direction.” He walks around the corner, and he comes face to face with Poster Nutbag.

Poster Nutbag looks at Harpua. Harpua looks at Poster Nutbag. Poster Nutbag looks at Harpua. Nutbag. Pua. Nutbag. Pua. Bag. Pua. Bag. And they start looking at each other and they realize there’s going to be a fight! Anger starts to rise up in Harpua’s eyes, he looks at the cat, threateningly, and goes, “This is it.” Poster Nutbag looks at Harpua in terror. He arches his back, before standing up on his legs. Harpua lets out an evil growl and a hungry drop of saliva, dripping to the ground! The fight’s about to begin!

Look, the storm’s gone...