Yet Another YEM Poll

Phish Songs
#1

Here’s a link to the Phish.Net Faq file about A Live One.
http://www.phish.net/faq/alo.html

I’ve been curious recently about how the band went about choosing the songs for ALO. This page gives some background on how they asked for fan feedback before making those choices. It also indicates that they have a whole tour’s worth of 40 Track recordings of some of the best that 1994 had to offer. I’d love to hear some of that.

As it is, my head is spinning because of a YEM from that year (supposedly also taped on 40 tracks by the band), the one from Red Rocks, 06/11/94, during the first set (which, by itself, would make a perfect “A Live One” version 2, ->Wilson, Chalk Dust Torture, You Enjoy Myself, Rift, Down With Disease, It’s Ice, Tela, Stash).

I’d love to know how close this one came from being chosen over the 12/07/94 San Diego YEM that made it to ALO. Imagine having a job trying to decide which version of Phish songs should go onto an album? How excruciatingly hard would that be? How freaking enjoyable would it be at the same time?

I’ve listened to this version of You Enjoy Myself for the past two mornings, and I can’t get enough of it. The four of them are so right on together, so connected in this song. I can’t get over how fortunate I feel that I can understand the absolute exhuberance and joy of this music.

I read an article once where Trey and Mike admitted that this song is the song that most represents who they believe Phish is. You know this to be true when you hear them perform this song like they did on

06/11/94 Red Rocks Set 1: YEM [until 02/01/06]
http://s44.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=31VRMOPXM3I0R1C0QOGXXQ2SIK

Anyone who wants a copy of A Live One -Version 2 (that is, 06/11/94 Set 1), email me and I’ll make you a copy this weekend.

Have a great Friday OKP!

#2

YEM is amazing, but I could’t pick the top category.

#3

Is a person’s love of a certain type of music purely a result of conditioning, or is there a physiological connection to it? I mean, does this version of YEM make me want to get up an dance and shout and move about in uncontrolled celebration because it strikes chords with my pre-conditioned neural patterns, or do the vibrations resonate on a more biologic, a more cellular level?

It certainly seems at most times, when I’m not thinking about what I’m listening to, I just become the rhythic vibrations posed by the music. I feel the music along every neural pathway I’m aware of, and I’m not as convinced that it’s my mind that stimulating them or it’s the vibration being received directly through the cell walls.

Marie and I noticed what Phish music does to a water bottle at a Phish concert, and since we’re 97% water, figured it must be affecting every body in much the same way. I guess it must be some important mixture of both. My cells must like the way Phish music vibrates through them.

#4

What the hell is with the YEM hating? How can you hate YEM?!

#5

Yeah, I can’t fathom how it is possible that anyone, from any muscial background with any kind of musical taste—can not appreciate a tight version of YEM. You don’t have to like phish, but if you put that aside and just listen to the song as music, you realize that the song has everything you could possibly ask for.

#6

because you touch yourself at night, that’s why.

#7

I love YEM! It’s not “Phish.” I feel one song could in no way sum up a band…especially Phish.

#8

Now, are we talking about the song, or the OKP member? :wink:

I voted for ‘I like it a lot’. For me, there are a few other songs that do it to me more.

#9

You raise the blade, you make it change
You re-arrange me

#10

yup, i voted “I love it.” There are just a few other songs that make me wet myself more than “YEM,” though.

#11

My vote was for the OKP member. You can guess at what I said.

#12

I went with love it. It is definitely in my top 3 songs and on many days it is #1. I do think it is the best single song representation of Phish, but still it’s hard to say any song “is Phish”.

#13

I do love YEM. (the song) So that is what I voted. However, I also feel that YEM is the one tune that fully represents the aesthetic, vision, and spirit of the band. It is truly the quintessential phish tune. The composed section is technical and weird, there is tension and release, strange and sparce vocals and lyrics, and a huge jam at the end. This is truly what phish is all about.

#14

Fonefono I do love the way your mind works. Let me try and respond to the question you’ve graced us with today…

Well, for starters, I’m listening to the YEM you posted to inspire me and to see if indeed my cells are bouncing around my body even as I sit and type.

I think that there is perhaps a combination of the two possibilities you have presented. I think that conditioning has something to do with an individual’s love for music. If you mean repeated attempts at a band or song or groove before said person gets it. Then there is a connection that is made.

I also think that there might be something going on physiologically. That can be a more immediate response to the music or eventual response to the familiarity of the music. It might also ellicit or trigger a sensory experience or simple memory that would register with us physically.

The evidence of this at a phish show is the thousands dancing in unison but all doing their own interpretation of how the music moves them. The individually different movements, girations, arm flailing, head bobbing, etc, is I think, reflective of that. I don’t dance the same to every song. It depends on the groove, the tempo, the crescendo, the significance of it and the way it moves me inside. I’m not aware of what I’m doing when I’m deep in a groove and wearing out the floor beneath me so I guess that is my body physically reacting because I don’t ever think about it. My body just moves. At times, I forget I’m even moving.

In short, I don’t think I really justified you with a coherent answer, but I think the connection is both learned and involuntary. We move because we are human. Because we love it. And mostly, because we have to.

Great topic. Thanks for waking me up today…love this YEM by the way.

#15

^very cool. thanks.

sorry that i need affirmation from you at times. ya see, this shit affects me so profoundly, that I have to check to see that others here it that way too. after all, it’s not an experience unless you bring someone else along.

#16

^
No apologies necessary…I too feel the need for affirmation when it comes to Phish and the effect their music has on me. Trying to articulate that experience to others can be strange and even embarassing because it leaves me exposed and vulnerable.

Yet, what at times may seem like a mind racing completely out of control can also make perfect sense to another soul.

Keep em comin’ fone…

#17

exactly same for me…divided sky being THE one

#18

Yem is a great tune don’t get me wrong but here is the real skinny. When you are at your 10th straight show and you have heard 4 Yem’s before the first Drowned or Mcgrupp or any song you have really been dying to catch you can’t help but be a bit dissapointed. Now that the boys are not touring. A fan can listen as often or not to a song. Make their own setlist and manipulate all the music to their liking. It is at our discretion. That being said, when you have no CD control button’s to press at a live show. And are at the band’s mercy for tunes. The whole experience is differen’t.

#19

If I had to play one Phish song to show somebody what they’re about, it would be YEM. There’s a reason it never got dropped for long from rotation. I voted that it is Phish.

#20

tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimmyyyyyyyyy!

(sorry just passing through)