Lyrics Introduction Phish

Introduction

WilsonWilsonWilsonWilsonWilsonOnce upon a time there was a mountain that rose out of a vast green forest.
And in the forest there were birds and lakes and rocks and trees andrivers. The forest was also inhabited by a small group of people calledthe lizards. The lizards were a simple people and they had lived in theforest undisturbed for thousands of years in utter peace and tranquillity.
Once a year when spring came, and the first blossoms began to show, thelizards would gather at the base of the mountain, to give thanks for allthat they had. They thanked the birds and they thanked the lakes and theythanked the rocks and the trees and the rivers; but most importantly, theythanked Icculus. Icculus lived at the top of the mountain, or at leasteveryone thought so, for no one had actually ever seen him. But they knewhe existed, because they had the Helping Friendly Book. Icculus had giventhe Helping Friendly Book to the Lizards thousands of years earlier as agift. It contained all of the knowledge inherent in the universe, and hadenabled the Lizards to exist in harmony with nature for years. And so theylived; until one day a traveler arrived in Gamehendge. His name was Wilsonand he quickly became intrigued by the Lizards way of life. He asked if hecould stay on and live in the forest; and the Lizards, who had never seenan outsider, were happy to oblige. Wilson lived with the Lizards for a fewyears, studying the ways of the Helping Friendly Book, and all was well.
Until one morning when they awoke and the book was gone. Wilson explainedthat he had hidden the book, knowing that the Lizards had become dependenton it for survival. He declared himself king and enslaved the innocentpeople of Gamehendge. He cut down the trees and built a city, which hecalled Prussia. And in the center of the city he built a castle, andlocked in the highest tower of the castle lay the Helping Friendly Book outof the reach of the Lizards forever. But our story begins at a differenttime, not in Gamehendge, but on a suburban street in Long Island, and ourhero is no king sitting in a castle, he is a retired colonel shaving in hisbathroom.
Colonel Forbin looked square in the mirror and dragged the blade across hiscold creamed skin. He saw the tired little folds of flesh that lay in aheap beneath his eyes. Fifty-two years of obedient self-restraint, ofhiding his tension behind a serene veil of composure. For fifty-two yearshe had piled it all on the back burner, and for fifty-two years it hadboiled, frothing over in a turbulent storm inside of him. It had escapedthrough his eyes, reacting with the cigarette smoke and the fluorescentlights and slowly accumulating into a sagging mass. He ran his drippingpalm across the stubble on the nape of his neck and thought again about thedoor. He had discovered the door some months back on one of hisritualistic morning walks with his dog McGrupp. It had started out as atypical stroll with McGrupp bounding joyously ahead of the preoccupiedcolonel. As they reached the apex of the hill, he saw it and he knew ithad always been there, and felt foolish for overlooking the door for solong. At first, he tried to ignore it, but he soon found that it wasimpossible, and slowly his newly acquired knowledge transformed his drearylife into a prison from which there was only one escape. And on thismorning, Colonel Forbin stepped through the door.