Phish.net > Charts > Narration Chart: "Mockingbird", 1992-05-06

TREY: As you’re all standing here right now you can imagine that the floor is starting to sink into the ground, and the roof is starting to disappear. The weight of all the people out on the floor is starting to push the floor down into the ground, and then you’re sinking down, sinking down into the ground. Slowly you start to see strata - pieces of rock going down, and then you feel the heat, it’s getting hotter and hotter. You’re sinking down into the ground farther and farther down into the earth, down into the center of the earth, lava going past you.

The heat... you’re hanging on and slowly past the center of the earth you keep sinking, and now you’re basically rising back up on the other side feet first, which is going down but kind of up depending on which way you’re thinking about it. Anyway, you’re going and you finally go up and your feet break through the ground and you’re upside down and you turn back right side up and you look around you, and you’re standing in the middle of a huge green field.

You look all around you and there’s nothing but green field going off in every direction. You can’t see anything but field. So, we’re all going to start walking, and we’re walking towards one side. We keep walking and walking and as we walk along, we pass a huge black rhombus floating on our side. Then we keep walking. We’re walking across the field, and in the distance you start to see the edge of a forest. It looks like a black line, but as you get closer and closer you see that it’s a huge dark forest stretching out as far as you can see.

And finally you have to go into the forest, and you walk through the forest, and you walk through the forest. Out of the corner of your eye behind trees here and there, you start to see little faces peeking out from behind the trees and disappearing as you walk along. And slowly you realize that you’re not in Detroit anymore (chuckles) you’re in... Gamehendge!

So, you’re in Gamehendge and you’re in the middle of the forest and you’re walking through the forest and you come to a particular part of the forest. You see that there’s a little clearing and it looks like an encampment. There’s tents set up all over the place and makeshift shelters and strange creatures walking back and forth and you realize that these are the lizard people of Gamehendge who live in Gamehendge, but you start to wonder to yourself - why are these people staying in the clearing in the middle of the forest instead of hanging out in the other parts?

You realize it’s a revolutionary camp of sorts, and what happened here is these people are trying to overthrow the evil king Wilson who lives far off in the distance in the castle. The evil king Wilson has come to this area that used to be a beautiful and tranquil place in peace and tranquility with nature. All of these lizard people, they didn’t used to have to hide behind the trees because they used to live in peace, but now this man Wilson has come and enslaved them all and he’s taken their book, The Helping Friendly Book, and he’s hidden it in the highest tower in his castle

Basically these people are trying to overthrow the evil king Wilson, but the revolution has been going on for years and years with no hope. You look over to your side and you see one person looks a little bit different than the rest of the people there, and it’s Colonel Forbin. Colonel Forbin, he’s here to save these people because he knows they can’t live without The Helping Friendly Book.

So, what he’s about to do now is, he’s going to go through the forest, past the clearing on the other side from where the field is, and he’s going to trudge through the forest. It gets thicker and thicker with vines going down, until he finally reaches the base of a huge mountain, the biggest mountain you could ever imagine stretching up into the sky, because he knows that at the top of the mountain lives the spirit of the great and knowledgeable Icculus. So, Colonel Forbin starts climbing up the mountain and he knows that Icculus, the author of The Helping Friendly Book, is the last person that can help the lizard people. So, he climbs for days, climbing up, and it gets steeper and the wind is blowing in his hair, ice freezing and turns to snow.

The higher he gets the trees start to disappear. He’s hanging on. He’s near death. He climbs and he climbs. His fingers are raw, and as he gets near the top he looks up, the mountain starts to crumble ahead of him. Rocks tumbling down... it’s an earthquake! He’s hanging onto a huge limb, he’s hanging on and pieces fall out, and as he looks up, the mountain starts to change into the shape of the great and knowledgeable Icculus’ face.

He’s looking up at Icculus and he says, “Icculus, Icculus, you’ve gotta help us! You’ve got to help us get The Helping Friendly Book back!”

And, Icculus looks down at Colonel Forbin and says, “Colonel Forbin, I’m going to help you. I’m going to send the Famous Mockingbird who’s going to fly across the sky, and I’m gonna send him to the castle of the evil king Wilson. He’s going to steal the book from the Castle and bring it back to you, but don’t forget, you don’t necessarily want all the knowledge inherent in the universe because it might be too much. But, I’ll give it to you anyway.”

So, here he comes now the Famous Mockingbird flying out of the sky to save the day by getting The Helping Friendly Book and bringing it back to the revolutionary camp and freeing the lizard people forever to live in peace and tranquility with nature...