Phish’s Prince Caspian is a deeply moving tune. I can’t get enough of its simple beauty.

Caspian borrows from one of the greatest series in children’s literature (Chronicles of Narnia) which is, among many other things, a narrative about growing out of childhood. The children who come and go from magical Narnia can’t always return. At a point you are too old to find your way back. That’s key.

With this sense of lost childhood in mind, the line “Oh to be Prince Caspian” sung over and over goes from mantra to lament.

It is a mournful wish by a voice that at other times has sung with urgency

Can’t this wait ’til I’m old

Can’t I live while I’m young?

This is a much sadder, more complex expression of the sentiment expressed in Chalk Dust Torture. It is sadder because of the way the lyric and the music intertwine and perfectly deliver the entire meaning (a meaning felt as well as understood, as all good music should allow). And, simple as it is, it is also brilliant because of the hint of unavoidable trouble that comes from

“…with nothing to return to but the demons in their caves”

Who says “nothing but" in front of demons? No such thing as a “mere” demon - they are, after all, our demons. But to have our troubles summed up in one, singularly identifiable thing — demons in their caves — that would be perfect. That. Is. The simplicity of childhood. Is it not?

Prince Caspian, unlike the others, does not have to leave Narnia. He gets to stay forever. The voice signing this song wants so badly to remain in this magical land, the epitome of childhood adventure, as the young prince, the adventurer at sea. (Caspian also remembers the old Narnia, the land his forbears destroyed, and he wants to return it to that original world, since lost. He is a noble character in touch with the old magic)

Trey Anastasio sings this song with the same heart-piercing depth as when Jerry Garcia sang Morning Dew or Comes a Time. He taps into raw, unadorned feeling of loss that is beautiful because it is part of what makes magical, adventurous, unadorned happiness (of the type rock and roll allows) so painful. One day it will be over.



A friend of mine and I were talking about Phish the other day and he summed it up perfectly: “They’re fun!” Pretty much that’s it. To listen to a Phish show is to listen to unbridled fun of the best sort that lasts hours at a time.

The true beauty of Prince Caspian is in hearing it in the midst of such fun. Trey and his bandmates onstage, making magic, feeding off of it, and acknowledging, in a single repeated image of the young prince at sea, the inevitable…



The song is audacious and crazy and successful - and it works only because the Phish guys grew up in New Jersey in the 70s (not the San Francisco peninsula in the 50s). Narnia is part of the fabric of their American childhood. It is theirs to use.



What a brilliant, simple, musically lovely way to capture a burning desire never to grow old - ever more sad because it never can be true. You can hear that in Trey’s voice. What a song.

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ps. after thinking through all of this I listened to the first time Phish ever played Prince Caspian. June 6, 1995, Utah. The song they played right afterwards? Funny you should ask: Chalk Dust Torture.

Can’t I live while I’m young?

