There's a devil in the crowd

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I'm really interested in this Tom Marshall interview Booche brought to my attention. The talk about the rhombus and the birth of different songs is fascinating. This bit about Crowd Control is also intriguing.

People seem to have some pretty different interpretations as to what “Crowd Control†might be about. How was the image, as you saw it, right before you wrote it down?

Well, what the actual dream was… it’s sad that I could only remember one or two verses because I knew the whole song in the dream and I was singing it when I woke up and I had the whole thing and I had the tune, the tune is different, but I had it. I don’t know it now. It was weird, I was in a festival, like a Clifford Ball or a Great Went, watching Phish with all Phish fans, having a great time, during the day. And Phish was singing this song and to illustrate some point to us they had turned around. Page was not facing us, his back was facing us, the only one who was facing us was Fishman—he couldn’t turn around and play the drums.

And when you say “us†you’re in the crowd?

Yeah, the crowd… and Mike and Trey were turned around too and they were singing this to that entity that we were all looking. I think what they were trying to say was that they were also in the crowd asking this, for us as a whole, “show us why we came here.†So, when I first heard people say that they thought this is obviously political, I said, what are you talking about? But I see their point now and the amazing thing is that it was written pre-breakup and it’s perfect, the words fit perfectly for the breakup.

Yes, oddly. There are some other lines in there… Especially with you explaining that this was something you were dreaming as a Phish happening; can you see how maybe a kid could be, say, stoned out of his gourd and he is in the middle of the floor and he’s real tuned in and let’s say, hypothetically speaking, that they get to the part where it goes, “Sisters, brothers all around, there’s a devil in the crowd†and again, hypothetically speaking, that kid may have been chased out of somewhere by undercovers at some point or seen perhaps a DEA recon mission, which occasionally goes down at major festivals… there’s maybe something of that deliberately in there?

No. The lyrics at the time didn’t have to do with the cops or anyone. There’s more something evil about the fact that he would have to meet your eyes and to meet your eyes, he would have to turn around, so that would identify who the devil was because he would be the only one facing, because we were all facing the other way… except for Fishman, so maybe Fishman is the devil; I didn’t think of that.

Because he was the only one who was facing you?

Yeah, because he was the only one we could make eye contact with.

And he does sometimes wear horns.

That’s what the dream was trying to tell me; you just helped me figure it out.