Drop Me in the Water
11/21/95, Winston-Salem, NC, Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum
SET 1: Fee > Chalk Dust Torture, Prince Caspian, Divided Sky, My Long Journey Home, I'm Blue, I'm Lonesome, Guyute, My Friend, My Friend -> Dog Faced Boy > Runaway Jim
SET 2: Simple -> David Bowie -> Take Me to the River -> David Bowie, Glide > Ya Mar, Mike's Song -> Keyboard Army > Hold Your Head Up > Suspicious Minds > Hold Your Head Up, Carolina, A Day in the Life
ENCORE: Good Times Bad Times
The Talking Heads loom large in Phish evolutionary history. One could make a case (and I may next year) that the Halloween cover of Remain In Light is the most important decision and show after the peak of 12/31/95, a defining event that would set their course for the rest of the 90s. But as 80s teens raised on college radio, the twitchy post-punk foursome were forever on Phish’s collective mind. Cities was one of their earliest covers, debuting in 1984, “Psycho Killer” has made some notable, if partial, appearances, and on this night, they take their first official crack at a cover-of-a-cover: Talking Heads’ take on Al Green’s “Take Me To The River.”
The Remain in Light set came at the perfect time for Phish, a period when they were floundering a bit creatively having reached what felt like the summit of their career thus far. The Talking Heads’ most experimental record gave them the way out, a musical approach that realized the band’s desire for a more collective and textured sound. Those campaigns were already underway in 1995, represented in the noisier pedal jams of summer and the mini-kit of fall, so it creates an interesting thought experiment: if the band had tackled Remain in Light earlier, say on Halloween ‘95, would it have had the same impact?
Tonight’s Talking Heads moment suggests: no. It’s definitely unfair to compare this seemingly spontaneous and incomplete rendition of “Take Me To The River” to the well-rehearsed and deliberate Remain in Light set. But even so, they present versions of Phish that are worlds apart despite only 11 months of calendar. For 83 seconds, 1995 Phish barrels through River with all the joyous bluster and lack of subtlety of the year, a fun passage in a torrid Bowie, but not exactly faithful to the source material.
It’s worth looking back at those original versions for comparison’s sake. The Rev. Al Green’s version is pure soul, with an arrangement that mirrors the gorgeous restraint of the singer’s voice — apart from the horns picking up, even the chorus barely budges from its mellow groove. The Talking Heads’ cover, on their second record More Songs About Buildings and Food, also keeps it remarkably subdued for a band fleeing the punk scene they never fit into, putting the focus on Jerry Harrison’s organ, Tina Weymouth’s bass, and dubbed-out percussion likely concocted by producer Brian Eno.
The Stop Making Sense version of the song — sung by David Byrne’s big-suited caricature of American greed wearing, prophetically, a red baseball cap — is perhaps the closest to Phish’s raucous take. Like the rest of the set (the greatest rock movie ever, imho), it’s hopped up with manic energy, and is more guitar-heavy and funked-up than prior versions, courtesy of the great Alex Weir. But the Take Me To The River take that sounds closest to Phish’s 11/21 version is a lesser-known cover by another band entirely: Foghat’s dunderheaded 1976 remake, which completely transposes the central riff for hard-rock guitar.
Phish doesn’t need to do that; they’ve got an organ player right over there! But Trey, as ever, calls the shots, and snarls out the riff himself as he handles lead vocals. One of the most frustrating parts comes when Page finds that great little twirly post-breakdown melody (first introduced in the Heads’ version) on his organ...just in time for Trey to send the band back into Bowie with a big loud chord.
Funnily enough, there’s an earlier Phish version that gets closer to the spirit of the Talking Heads’ cover, a soundcheck from 4/9/93 that somehow seamlessly puts a jam on the song between two Stones tracks, “Miss You” and “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking.” Maybe it’s the relaxed soundcheck vibe, or Phish’s cleaner, more sparse early 90s sound, but it gets closer to the trebly nerves and laid-back tempo of the More Songs About Buildings and Food edition. The other “official” Take Me To The River comes after Remain in Light Halloween on 7/10/97, but also pushes too hard and fast...at least until they pump the brakes back to Ghost tempo and jam somewhere between the two songs for several more minutes.
That spooled-out improvisation does a great job demonstrating the lessons of Remain In Light: everyone in Phish is given the space to contribute to the overall tapestry, with the lead role swapping frequently, or even existing in quantum superposition somewhere between the four members. You can trace it back to the very first bars of the Remain In Light set where “Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)” gives Page’s organ, Trey’s rhythm, Mike’s bassline equal billing over the percussive backdrop of Fish and Karl Perazzo.
Now jump back to the 11/21/95 Bowie, and it’s a dense slab of music without those sinuous contours. Let me be clear though — it’s still great, particularly the frenzied post-River segment which sweeps up another, more-appropriate post-punk classic (The B-52’s absolutely deranged “Rock Lobster”) into its whirlwind. The semi-with-cut-brakes sound of 1995 just doesn’t have the nuance to tackle Talking Heads/Al Green, which is fine, the priorities are different at this moment in time. But it’s fascinating to see just how fast those goals can change in under a year, and how an important Phish influence can move from jukebox tease to mentorship.
[Ticket stub from Steve Bekkala. Thanks Steve!]