On Billy Breathes

March 29th, 2010

Piper and I have been spending most evenings going to bed listening to lots of cuts from Billy Breathes (Amazon link), the 1996 Phish album that cemented their status as ever growing, learning musicians.

On a personal level, it was the first album release that happened while I was touring with the band.  After the amazing time I’d had at The Clifford Ball, I knew I was hooked.  Phish played a mini-set of some of the acoustic Billy Breathes songs in Plattsburg that I was lucky enough to be very close to the stage for.  It was the first “pretty” stuff I’d seen them do, and I had a feeling they were on to something special.  I recall (fuzzily) my dad taking me to the mega book & music store in Hamburg to pick it up.  I listened so closely for days.  In particular Prince Caspian (a song I would later come to despise) caught my ear.  But I was also enthralled with Free and Theme From the Bottom.   Fall Tour ’96 started a few days later, and though I hadn’t planned on it, the Buffalo show was the first of 29 shows I’d see before the New Years run.  It was a fantastic run of shows, and I have very clear memories of standing Page Side High watching CK5′s bubbly green lights during Theme and the swirling frenzied strobes for Free.  I was so drawn to these songs, but I never really put my finger on it.  Free rocks, don’t get me wrong…but why did it feel so real to me?

It was years later during a conversation with my wife that I finally figured it out.  The majority of Tom Marshalls lyrics up until BB were about characters, feelings, abstract ideas.  Listen to just about anything on Junta and you’ll get my drift. No one really thought Trey wanted to take them out for Dinner and a Movie.  But Billy Breathes was loaded with personal songs.  Lots of “I” and “you”.  When I heard Trey singing “come waste your time with me…” it really felt like he was addressing me.  Lost, bored, confused 17 year old me.  And it felt nice. I belonged!

Now, at night, I put my daughter to sleep with these tunes.  It’s really special to me…she’ll always remember (in her primal brain, perhaps, but nonetheless…) these songs as comforting.  I’ll always remember them the same way, but with a new layer of love on top.  Watching her eyes flutter closed during Talk is the most beautiful thing in the world.

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