Suck and Blow (11 page)

11

“DIVIDED SKY” FOR “CHRISTMAS”

Although Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio grew up in Princeton, I never met him until later. He was at the Princeton Day School while I was at Princeton High School and was a couple of years older than me. I believe the first time we crossed paths was when Phish came down to play the Ukranian National Home in New York on December 15, 1989. We'd heard of them and a lot of people were talking about them, so they sort of became the Gimbels to our Macy's.

All of the other venues in New York City seemed to have more personality than the Ukrainian National Home. I was struck by how much it looked like a Cuyahoga event hall. It seemed like a place where you'd have a Welcome to America dance for the new Ukrainians, a getting-to-know-you dance, and the Local 200 Ice Skate Repairman's Union meetings. It was just a big, loud, boomy space, and it was poorly lit. But the most fun part for me was checking out Phish.

We each played two sets, alternating back and forth, with Phish opening the night. I came out during their second set for two covers. My thought was,
Okay, I'm meeting a new band,
so I wanted to show them my stuff. I remember I was very determined to impress them, and that's how it's been ever since. Whenever I play with Phish, I'm
always determined to make a good showing. I played on ZZ Top's “Jesus Just Left Chicago,” which was blues, and I knew just what to do on that one. I was also on Son Seals' “Funky Bitch,” where they got to show something that was more in their wheelhouse. It had that cool Phish thing, in which it seemed like normal funk, but there was a little rhythmic trick to it, and I was really into that.

From the start there was always something else going on beyond the music as well, another level of communication and connection with the audience. That night they decided to prank their former lighting guy, Tim, who would occasionally play harmonica with them, by pretending that I was their new lighting guy, Chris. The band was going to give Tim the tape and say that I was Chris. So before I came on, Trey told the crowd to call out “All right, Chris!” Then after I was done I said, “I'd better get back to those lights.”

From there we would do gigs with them whenever we could, and I found them fascinating. We went up to hang with them in Winooksi, and I remember eating with them at the House of Pancakes, the same place where Bobby and I had our altercation after Bill Graham died. I was enjoying this wonderful, intellectual discussion with Phish, while at the next table my band was being all loud and causing trouble, getting their Jersey on. I remember being somewhat embarrassed by them:
Oh the ruffians I hang out with.

One of my favorite Phish appearances was in February of 1993 when I was in a wheelchair. They had me on stage, and I insisted on being covered with a tarp the entire show so people wouldn't know what I was. Then they unveiled me toward the end and I sat in with them. But just to make the gag work, I sat there the entire show covered in a tarp.

After the show there were some kids who were desperate for a ride back to Long Island. Because I was in a wheelchair, I had a van and a driver. These kids were stranded, so we drove them all the way back; they woke their friend up and we had cocoa.

Trey was the one I clicked with the most and who amazed me the most, although they're all brilliant musicians. Another time we were at a party in Winooski, I think it was at his house, I mentioned fugues. He stopped what he was doing, took me to his room, and pulled open this filing cabinet full of fugues. Some of them were his, some were
Bach's, and some were Haydn's. He showed me all of these fugues and explained the rules of a fugue, how it transports a melody through different variations. The light in his eyes as he was describing this blew me away. I could keep up with what he was saying theoretically, but the execution of it was a really difficult thing for nonclassical musicians.

That's why at times watching Phish is like watching a classical band. They are very intricate in their compositions; it can be difficult to tell what's improvised and what's choreographed. And, as it turns out, they can do both with equal aplomb—they can switch into improvisation or go back to something that's very arranged. They weren't just trying to make stuff move in a jam; they were trying to focus on a single aspect of a jam, and it was really brilliant. Something that Col. Bruce Hampton has always said about Phish is that “the rest of us just play.”

Mike Gordon is really cool, always surreal. I remember they had this little tiny box that looked like a beeper, and he said, “Think of a number between one and a hundred.” I thought of fifty-seven, they pushed a button, and it said fifty-seven. He would not tell me how they did it and, to this day, still will not tell me. Page McConnell is one of the sweetest, nicest guys. He is always amiable and always trying to make stuff work.

And Jon Fishman is just a madman. I think he didn't always need to put in as much effort to be that madman, but I think he felt that he needed to do so.

The very first time we saw them play at the Ukrainian National Home, Phish opened their second set with Fishman on vacuum. Given my instrument of choice, I've always been intrigued by that. What I found out relatively recently is that I can play the vacuum cleaner in a very different way from Jon Fishman. I find that with the shape of my mouth, I can play notes and really play scales. But he's already popularized the vacuum so much that it would be hackneyed to try to fill his shoes. But someday I hope to get into a vacuum cleaner duet with him. That would be awesome. I'd like to use this book as an opportunity to extend a standing offer.

In 1995 Trey became the first among us to have a child. I was so excited that I sent him every diaper he'd ever need. Literally, a semi
pulled up on his driveway and out came every diaper from infancy to toddlerhood. I figured that was something nobody would give him. We calculated how many diapers a kid would need in a year, factoring in that she would have to grow into bigger diapers. It was crates and crates of diapers. He sent me a picture of his little one on top of these boxes with a caption, “Let the shitting begin.”

Phish played chess with their audience, they had beach balls going up and down, and each band member played like how his beach ball was being treated—that is beyond music. The reason I rigged a dummy of me to fall through a giant yard trampoline during the 1993 H.O.R.D.E. in Richmond was because Phish did that all the time, and just once I wanted to come up with something like that. It took all of my organizational skills, and I had to own the tour to do that.

Trey wasn't much older than me, and for somebody to be so knowledgeable was one thing, but to see how they could command a stage with one note flying high above an interwoven musical cacophony, that felt to me like he was our Mozart. They were such composers
and
improvisers, and their system guaranteed that their music always was different. They had a much more efficient and effective system of improvising—there was a point when someone had to change something; it was mandatory and it would have to be a little variation. It would give me a headache to play like them—there was a lot to think about, but they did it so effortlessly.

We competed with them for rooms for a few years, but at some point you had to sit back and appreciate what they were doing. They took on musical and theatrical challenges that no other band would want to take on, and that's the thing about Phish. So I went from begrudgingly competing with them to sitting at their feet, and I would always try to take something back to my band. Phish helped me keep my imagination going. They were the pioneers for our generation.

For a while Phish was the only music in my car CD changer, and I would constantly listen to all of their albums in succession. Compared to what we were doing chordally, there was nothing like it. Their song “Divided Sky” was my favorite—the way Trey took this simple melody on his guitar and played it without time for a second, with time for a second, and really milk it—I was obsessed with that song. Then I realized it had the same chords as “Bingo Was His Name-O” and “Hark!
The Herald Angels Sing,” which led me to think there was a Christmas melody in there. I wanted to work on something with the same chords that, at the end, would reference “Divided Sky.” I tried to get my band to do it, but they weren't Phish fans like I was, so they kept asking, “Why are we doing this?”

But then we were approached to contribute a song to the
Very Special Christmas 3
compilation album benefitting the Special Olympics. I wrote a melody to the “Divided Sky” chords, but it was nothing as elaborate. Then at the end I put the “Divided Sky” reference. Because it was a charity, I called Trey and told him, “I want to use this melody. I want to write this song and give you credit for writing it with me.” He said sure and made a few jokes like, “I'll see you in court, buddy,” but it was for charity so he didn't mind, and that gave me the license to “Divided Sky” the shit out of it.

There was a part when I put my melody with his, and there were eight harmonies singing each verse. It's one of my favorite songs because you have all these harmonies working at the same time, and it was one of those times when I really hit it out of the park with the lyrics.

It was what I've felt about Christmas, it was what I wanted to say, it was full of all sorts of musical stuff I wanted to do, and it was on a nice vehicle, a Christmas record. And I called it “Christmas” so we could copyright Christmas. I have not as yet received any checks, I have not sued anybody, but if I could somehow sue Santa Claus, it would make one hell of a movie.

“Christmas”

Words by John Popper, Music by Trey Anastasio and John Popper

              
Comes the time for Christmas

              
And I really have to ask

              
If this is feeling merry

              
How much longer must it last?

              
I wish a one-horse open sleigh

              
Would come carry me away.

              
But I've been waiting here all day,

              
And one just hasn't come my way.

              
Now excuse me if I'm not being reverent,

              
But I was hoping for a miracle to hold me, wash me,

              
Save me from my righteous doubt as I watch helpless

              
And everybody sings.

              
If it's Chanukah or Kwanza,

              
Solstice, harvest, or December twenty-fifth,

              
Peace on earth to everyone

              
And abundance to everyone you're with.

              
Comes the time for Christmas,

              
And as you raise your yuletide flask,

              
There's like this feeling that you carry

              
As if from every Christmas past.

              
It's as if each year it grows.

              
It's like you feel it in your toes.

              
And on and on your carol goes,

              
Harvesting love among your woes.

              
I want to buy into the benevolent,

              
And I was hoping for a miracle to hold me, wash me,

              
Make me know what it's about,

              
As the longing in me makes me want to sing

              
Noel or Navidad,

              
Season celebration, or just the end of the year.

              
Christmas can mean anything,

              
And I mean to keep its hope forever near.

              
As if a cold and frozen soul is warm to love

              
By love's own hand,

              
So goes the prayer if for a day, peace on earth

              
And good will to man.

              
At twenty, below the winter storm, it billows,

              
But the fire is so warm inside

              
And the children, while nestled in their pillows,

              
Dream of St. Nicholas's ride

              
And how the next day they'll get up and they will play

              
In the still-falling Christmas snow,

              
And together we'll celebrate forever,

              
In defiance of the winds that blow.

              
My God in heaven, now I feel like I'm seven,

              
And the spirit calls to me as well,

              
As if Christmas had made the winter warmer,

              
Made a paradise from what was hell,