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The story “The Hazards of Love” is a complete saga with well rounded characters with clear motivation. It exists in two acts. There are several layers of potential analysis, from character depth to allusion. “The Hazards of Love” itself is the title of four distinct un-thematically related songs on the disc. It bothered me only for a moment that Colin and company would reuse the song title so often for no clear purpose, but alas, this weekend, I finally found the connection.

The four songs entitled “The Hazards of Love” all describe a different “hazard” of love!

The first song, “The Hazards of Love 1 (The Prettiest Whistles Won’t Wrestle the Thistles Undone)” represents lust. It’s Lust that drive William and Margaret together, that keeps her riding out past Offa’s Wall to meet him, and ultimately leads to her bearing his fruit. Perhaps a little uptight to view lust as a “hazard”? In the age of The Situation and Snooki, sure. In the age of William and Margaret? Sin!

“The Hazards of Love 2 (Wager All)” represents jealousy. Bear with me: I know the Queen doesn’t discover William and Margaret’s affair in this song, but it’s during this episode that she will catch them. The hazard, in this case, is that others will be unable to handle the love. Ultimately, the Queen wants to keep William for herself, and this is the moment she will witness to cement that emotion.

“The Hazards of Love 3 (Revenge!)” represents… wait for it… vengeance, of course. Look at relationships: so quickly they can turn from love to hate. Use whatever cliché you want about the thin line between love and hate, but ultimately, many broken relationship land in hate. Not just hate, but the need to hurt and take revenge. What do The Rake’s children actually do here? Do they terrorize their father? Do they naïvely believe they are returning for his love? Do they kill him? Either way, they get their revenge by depriving him of Margaret.

Lastly, we have the heart-wrenching “The Hazards of Love 4 (The Drowned)”. It’s easy to categorize this one: loss. It’s maybe as simple as just the loss of a single moment, hour, or day with someone when you are in love, but in this case, it’s illustrated in the extreme: William has promised his earthly bones to Annan Water, and Margaret tragically sacrifices herself – and possibly her baby – to be with William for eternity. Of course, the eagle-eyed December-head will know that the baby is probably doomed destined to be rescued by the Queen from the reedy glen, but Margaret, any way you slice it, meets her end. Love’s power is too great, and she is unable to live without her “true love” William.

You could probably write 20 short analyses of “The Hazards of Love” without duplicating content. I like to think that Colin Meloy and crew put some serious thought into this story and loaded it with Easter Eggs that are neither confirmed nor denied so as to leave the story up for interpretation. During “The Wanting Comes in Waves (Reprise)”, I nearly bust out of my seat picturing William swashbuckling through the jungle on the dark side of Annan Water to save our heroine from The Rake. I LOVE the story and the music. So, while I don’t necessarily think that it was the intent to illustrate four different literal “hazards of love,” I think it’s both fascinating and incredible that it’s possible to construct and support the theory at all.

What can I cross off this list since then? Two songs: “Dinner and a Movie” and “Walk Away.”

So I’ll start off with the remaining songs:

• Destiny Unbound
• Camel Walk
• Brother
• Scents and Subtle Sounds
• A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing
• Glide
• Harpua
• Spock’s Brain
• Have Mercy
• The Lizards
• Crowd Control

Then I’ll add songs I want to see as of now:

• Alumni Blues > LTJP > Alumni Blues
• Gone

I don’t think I’ll get Alumni or ASIHTOS because they were played last night, and Camel Walk, Lizards, and Brother were ALL played on Sunday.  But I do have my fingers crossed for something fun.

These are the lyrics of Phish. These are the fun, linguistic acrobatics that entertain us. But, from time to time, things get serious we have to acknowledge that we are human, and we have lives, and we have families. Those, too, shape us and our experiences. I think it’s common for fans to forget that they’re favorite entertainers have lives off the stage, and from time to time, those fans can be both rabid and unforgiving.

When I began to read online comments deriding Trey’s new ballad, Summer of ’89, I was a bothered. When I heard the song debut in Hartford, I thought of it as a light little set-interlude, punctuated by the “and we danced all night” refrain. I wasn’t especially excited about it, but I certainly wasn’t offended by it. On repeat listening, though, I’m feeling differently.

I hope we’re mature enough as a community to recognize Summer of ’89 for what it is: a nice, gentle love song from Trey to his wife. Phish is on the road a lot – less these days, with Shakespeare camp and school vacation commitments – but it seems only fair that once in a while, they can use the stage to remind their family how much they mean to them, especially give the fact that most songwriters write lyrics that touch on their personal lives, while our rock stars tend to sing about imaginary friends, getting raped in the forest on an owl hunt, syrup thieves, aggressive reflections, and, oh yeah… good ol, classic masturbation.

The other day, I was driving along and Summer of ’89 came on, and I listened to the lyrics seriously for the first time. What is it other than an intimate glance into Trey’s love life? Weaving a grass ring, a particular, frequently-worn dress, a shared phase of Brazillian music. And then? “On the road when our first was born in the summer of ’95.” I actually felt a tear well up in my crusty old ducts, one that betrayingly fought its way up, but ultimately, I was just able to hold back. But it connected with me, because the idea of being away from my kids for more than a few days makes me sad, let alone a tour, or missing something as monumental as their birth.

I consider this light little tune, and I realize that behind the simple rhymes are not just memories that make one smile, but a little bit of regret. Regret about how it was simpler then. Regret about missing time with children. Regret in the moment: we used to dance all night, but now… well, now we don’t.

Singing about kids often chokes me up, and this is coming from someone who almost never cries. I’m not ashamed to admit that there was a day a few years ago when, upon hearing the “smiles awake you when you rise” verse of The Beatles’ Golden Slumbers, I suddenly and uncontrollably wept like a baby thinking of my daughter. As a parent, I don’t see any problem with reflecting on the life you’ve built with your family and being wise enough to see your successes and man enough to admit your regrets and mistakes. To me, this was Trey reflecting on his life with his family. A little bit of happy memory, a little bit of bittersweet. But honest. Like Joy, it’s hard not to see something raw underneath the veneer of playfulness that usually coats Phish and Phish-derivative offerings.

Say what you will about Summer of ‘89 – it’s weak compositionally, it’s mushy and out of place at a Phish concert, its chordiness makes it musically unchallenging, it’s not manly enough, it’s unnecessarily sappy, it’s a too-intimate glance into private emotions… to me, those are all excuses. You don’t have to love the song, but to suggest that it’s bad because it’s different just seems disingenuous and uncharacteristic of Phish phans.

But then… what do I know? I likeTime Turns Elastic.

I admit it: I’m a setlist snob.

I started formulating this realization on the field in Indio, when ZZYZX turned to me and said, without the condescension implied, “I remember when I was chasing bust-outs.” And my response was succinctly “If we’re going to hear a 10 minute jam, I suppose I’d rather have the jam be off of a song I haven’t heard before rather than one I’ve seen a dozen times.”

But as true as that is, it’s not the real story. The real story is that I am chasing bust-outs. Not just bust-outs, but “interesting-ness”. And “interesting-ness” changes with the seasons. I’m actually chasing anything at a show that makes me think “Interesting!”

I’ve posted about setlist construction before – to me, as a bit of a Phish geek – it’s fascinating. Those seconds when the band takes the stage, before the first notes of any song, are magical and hopeful – anything can happen. Will it be AC/DC Bag? Will it be Punch? Will it be a song I like? A rarity? A random cover? Will it be something that will make the show immediately legendary, like Harpua? Or an entire cover album?! It’s maddening!

And so it goes, between every song of every show… I wait with bated breath for what might be.

I thought Black-Eyed Katy was awesome in 1997 — one of the highlights of 11/22/97, I’d say. When Moma showed up in summer 1998, it was a funkified sensation. But now Moma makes me cringe – standard fare on a standard night, been there, done that. It takes a lot to make Moma catch my ear these days. Guyute was a patient fan’s reward not too long ago. But these days, I hear groans when Phish launches into a fairly standard execution of this complex composition, which is no small musical feat. Some used to call Roggae a “set-killer,” but here we are in 2010, and 2009 made it into a cherished treasure.

That’s the thing with setlist mechanics: they change every year, if not every tour. As certain songs get played over and over (Kill Devil Falls, anyone?), they lose interesting-ness and uniqueness. When songs disappear and re-appear, they gain it. I’m not sure I think Spock’s Brain is even a very good song, but it’s certainly a rare treat, and that makes me wish I’d get a chance to see it played.

This is how it unfolds, without fail, as I review each show’s setlist. A show that opens with Vultures? Interesting! A show that features a bust-out? Interesting! A new and random cover that could be a one-timer? Interesting! A novelty show, such as the M show, GameHoist, or even the recent Saw It Again adventure? Interesting! The appearance of a song like Dogs Stole Things in a 2010 setlist is interesting, but in 1997, not as much.

A song like Stash is one where I’ve simply fallen out of love, and yet, my most recent shows, Stash has lead to an incredible jam. Ditto Down with Disease, Bathtub Gin, and Wolfman’s Brother. Seeing these doesn’t inspire an Interesting!, but it might be. Hearing a song like Harry Hood or Fluffhead live is almost always satisfying to me. But when I see it in a setlist from a show I’m not attending (or couch touring), it doesn’t make me think “Interesting!” Ditto for Bowie, YEM, and Reba.

On the other side of that coin, songs like Brother, Camel Walk, and Destiny Unbound are rare and interesting enough that, even when executed in standard fashion, they are eye-catching.

Funny thing, if I made a mix of my favorite Phish live song performances for a fellow Phish fan, it likely wouldn’t include many of the “interesting!” setlist choices, but rather, the best jams. And what songs are they? Ghost, YEM, Piper, Split Open and Melt. Not quite “Interesting!“, is it?

As you can see, judging a show from its setlist is almost always a bad idea. It’s much smarter to use the advice of those in the know, or employ something like the Phish.net show rating results to find shows to hunt down. But that doesn’t mean that some of us don’t go against better judgement, and look for those shows with setlists that make us think “Interesting!“

Today starts Phish summer tour 2010, and I can’t help but get sucked into the whole “Phish 3.0″ debate: are they still any good? Can they still jam? Will there be any notable performances? Will 2010 be able to hold a candle to Phish 1.0 shows?

My friend and colleague ZZYZX recently pointed out that Phish has seemingly been misremebered for their long, exploratory jams, when in reality, they didn’t “jam” much until the late 90s. He also points out that perhaps there’s less work required to hit the jam stride, the sweet spot of the jam, so to speak.

I’ve been sucked in a few times to debates with people who maintain that Phish isn’t the same band they used to be. Of course this is true, they’ve got decades more experience, they aren’t trying to find themselves like they were in the 80s, and they’re at a different point in life. But what’s also true is what got us here may not get us there, to borrow a business motivation phrase.

When I hear the complaint that Phish doesn’t write like they used to, citing songs like Reba and Fluffhead, I’m bothered.  Phish does attempt songs like those still: see Time Turns Elastic. Walls of the Cave. Waves. Pebbles and Marbles. The challenge is that these are new, and new is never as good as old when it comes to music.

Let’s look at Time Turns Elastic. I’ve advocated for Time Turns Elastic before, but let me just highlight some of that here. Those noobs who make smarmy jokes suggesting TTE is only for pee breaks annoy me. Time Turns Elastic is a musician’s wet dream: I dare you to try to count it out. It’s got definitive sections, much like Fluffhead. It’s got a happy ending jam a segment, like The Arrival. It’s got some fun, warm sections, like Reba. And some tough-to-figure-out, intricate composed sections a la Divided Sky. But for whatever reason, there is a large group that simply doesn’t like this masterpiece. So much so that it was voted the worst Phish song in a recent poll on Phish.net. Meanwhile, the return of Fluffhead had phans creaming in their drawers. That doesn’t make sense to me.

I’m forced to maintain that older equates to better for too many. We’ve heard Fluffhead a thousand times, it’s part of Phishtory, and it reminds us of a simpler time. It evokes emotion in a way newer songs just don’t… yet. I think in time, should TTE become a rarity, it will get its due. In the meantime, Fluffhead was first.

There’s a certain pride, with a band, in being there first. I only heard of Phish for the first time – that I can remember – in 1992. By then, several of the Phish.net staff had already seen more concerts than I have since. I wonder sometimes if I would have even gotten into Phish if it was 1988 when I first saw them. Or 2004. The state of the band when you first took interest in them undoubtedly shapes your judgement of them in all subsequent phases of their career. But I think we’re unique here, because we have so much of the history captured on tape for posterity… and repeated analysis. I think that many of us are brainwashed because we don’t revisit the totally average shows nearly as often as the epic shows of days past, so we start to believe that the quality used to be higher. We compare every show we attend now to the highlights of days past. Dip that ladel in the tub, and your creation will yield disappointment – the purple paste of “Phish 3.0″ being a letdown. It’s not. It’s exactly what anyone paying close attention should have expected. It’s the natural evolution of Phish.

Phish is no longer a bunch of kids trying to define themselves. They’re a bunch of 40-somethings who have experimented and found their comfort zone. They’re evolving, but at the same time, narrowing in on what makes them happiest and will sustain them longest. They like a variety of music and styles and like variation in their setlists. They like adopting wacky covers, sometimes only once (e.g. Rhincerous, Layla, Golden Age, Terrapin Station). They like playing their classics. They like shelving songs and surprising audiences with their unexpected return. They like treating remote audiences to something special. They’re not a jam band or prog rockers or hippies or old men or young men – they’re amorphous. They’re not just performing, they are creating an overall experience.

In 2009, Phish honed their skills and ambitiously aimed for flawless execution. People complained about lack of variety (AC/DC Bag to open seven shows in 2009?), but Phish played 248 different songs last year, a full third of their entire twenty-five plus year repetoire. What will 2010 have in store for us and will it appease the masses?

Stay tuned to Phish.net to find out.

Jillian: Daddy?
Me: Yes?
Jillian: Dora sings Camel Walk.
Me: She does?
Jillian: Mmm-hmm.  And Benny sings Icculus.  And Tico sings Timber Ho.  And Isa sings Mockingbird.
Me: Really? What about Boots?
Jillian: Boots sings…. Timber Ho.
Me: Who sings Harpua?
Jillian: Uh… Cinderella.
Me: Cinderella sings Harpua? What does Sleeping Beauty sing?
Jillian: Icculus.

SO PROUD.

5406 tracks, 29.18 GB on disk, 17 days

Only 2699 have something in the “play count” field.   I’ve noticed that for whatever reason, it doesn’t register a play count unless you finish the song. Also, many of these were in an iTunes library on a previous PC. This library actually goes back until about 2000, was first in iTunes on Windows in approximately 2003, and was first moved to an iBook in 2005, and was finally rebuilt on my second Mac, a MacBook Pro in 1996.  Since then, it’s been ported to two different iMacs.)

Most played tracks:

1. “Shankhill Butchers” by The Decemberists (104)
2. “Tennessee Jed” by The Grateful Dead (104)
3. “Leslie Anne Levine” by The Decemberists (101)
4. “Terrapin Station” by The Grateful Dead (100)
5. “Circle” by Portal (99)

Most tracks by the same artist:
1. Phish (442)
2. The Decemberists (112)
3. DMB (110)
4. The Beatles (71)
5. Pearl Jam (68)
6. The Pat McGee Band (61)
7. Guns N Roses (51)
8. The Grateful Dead (48)

Oldest track added in iTunes library: 3059 tracks added on 4/11/06
Newest track added: “Alaska” by Phish: 1/2/2010

Shortest track: “Wilkins Hyundai and Suburu” by Peter Griffin: 7 seconds
Longest track: “35 Minute Jam” by Phish: 35:33 minutes

Lowest Bitrate: “It’s Gary Shandling’s Show” 19 kbps (mp3)
Highest Bitrate: Several self-ripped WAV files at 1411 kbps (wav)

At heart, I’m a stats geek. Maybe not like Zzyzx, but certainly I’m interested in the stats. I’m incredibly interested in Phish setlist construction, and hope that one day I find myself in a situation where I can interview Trey about it. “Why,” I would ask, “does a song like, say, Camel Walk, only appear every 50-some-odd shows? Is that intentional? Why premiere Glide II only to drop it seemingly forever? Are there ever permanently retired songs, like, perhaps, No Dogs Allowed, Dear Mrs Reagan, and Jennifer Dances? Can we ever expect to see Eliza again?” I would assume that, like most musicians, Phish collectively enjoys playing some songs more than others, but is that reflected in the setlist? If they don’t like a song, why would they play it at all… or write or perform it at all? Maybe it’s purposeful that they “create” rarities? I wonder, do they maybe love playing Harpua, but intentionally not overuse it so that its appearance heralds a special show? Why not just unleash a hose of rarities during a tour knowing it would make fans very happy^[1]? Unless these some songs are purposely rarities? Will Alumni Blues ever rejoin the setlist as anything other than a super-rarity?

What about common songs? Is Trey aware that AC/DC Bag has opened no fewer than SIX shows since November 1? Did Phish decide to showcase Kill Devil Falls more times than any other song off of Joy because they feel it’s the best song, or was that just coincidence? Are they purposely playing songs like Llama less frequently, or are they simply not remembering it during on-stage setlist construction? Will Time Turns Elastic get its due, in time, when it is a rarity?

In the end, the whole debate is, at the same time, pointless and essential; it is, one on hand, irrelvent, and on the other, the heart of what makes Phish so interesting. If they played rarities all the time, they wouldn’t be rarities and a large part of the fun of Phish shows might be lost. But we all go to see them play, and even songs of which I’ve personally grown a bit tired, such as Stash, still manage to steal the set from time to time, most notably night one of Festival 8. It’s not so much what they play as much as how they play it. I’ve learned that even Character Zero, once you get past the lyrics, can be just as interesting a jam vehicle as Mike’s, YEM, Jim, or Bowie. And yet, I’m still kind of hoping for a bust-out. Despite that, certain songs – for me, Moma, for example – are a bit of a letdown, because I’d rather hear something else I like better. I suppose if I have to hear a jam, I’d rather that jam stem from a song I’ve yet to hear live than a song I’ve heard 10+ times before.

When I look at the NYE setlist, I think the highlights, musically, were Ghost, Rock and Roll, and Piper, three fairly common songs. I also think Demand was awesome (mostly given the infrequency of its appearance?), and Swept Away into the most uncommonly jammed Steep I’ve ever heard is a high point, largely because it was an especially unique performance. So it’s a mix of both quality jams, song frequency, and performance uniqueness that made this fun. A prior night of the run included Gotta Jibboo > Wilson -> Gotta Jibboo, again, two fairly common songs that provided a notable highlight as well. It’s not just about rarities, that much is certain.

But why should we care about stats, right? What good are stats anyway? All they do, one might argue, is allow you to measure your own satisfaction comparatively, an expressly non-Phishy attitude. What good is seeing Buffalo Bill or Brother if you don’t like those songs as much as, say, Divided Sky or Possum except that one can say they’ve seen a rare song?

I think the conclusion is that it’s a mix of all of that: great jams, cool people, uniqueness of an individual performance, and the fact that the setlist remains an unknown all provide a different dimension of interest, and it’s all of that that can make a Phish concert so fun. It’s not about comparison to others’ shows, but rather, a comparison to my own show history: a re-affirmation of the fact that I can keep seeing the same band without ever tiring of the process. As much as I love the great jam, there’s still a moment in between songs when I’m jumping out of my seat with excitement that the next song could be something crazy.

[1] I realize that there were scores of rarities this tour, but I’m talking a total blow-out, something like “Set 1: Brother, Alumni Blues, Dog Log, Glide, Anarchy, In a Hole, She Caught the Katy, Sparkle^[2], Have Mercy, Harpua > Buffalo Bill“.

[2] …Just seeing if you were paying attention.

This post originally appeared on the phish.net blog.

Lawn Boy
Foam
Army of One
Nothing
Possum
Character Zero

There aren’t many Phish songs I don’t like… in fact, I don’t even dislike all of these, but these are the songs that I like least/want to hear least. Character Zero, for example, is a song I used to like, but now I’m just tired of it and hearing the opening riff at a show is always a bit of a downer until the song part is over and the jam part begins. Got any least favorite songs?

And don’t say Time Turns Elastic!