Hello Phish Phans!
This week’s song is a cover of the song “Roses are Free” by the band Ween. Phish has covered songs from a lot of different bands over the years, including Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, and Talking Heads. They’ve even covered Will Smith. For a full list, see this wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Phish_cover_versions
Phish began covering “Roses are Free” in the late ‘90s (the original song was released on Ween’s 1994 album, Chocolate and Cheese). Ween actually didn’t appreciate the fact that a bunch of dirty hippies liked their music, and stopped playing this song for two years once they learned Phish was covering it.
Phish usually doesn’t use this song as a starting point for a long, exploratory jam. This version from 1998, however, pushes through the usually ending and launches into a ~22 min jam. This version is also a good example of the late ‘90s style of jamming that centered around funky, groove based playing, something close to the style of James Brown. Theres a clip of Trey excitedly talking to the band after a set exclaiming, “Wow, what a great set! We almost sounded as good as James Brown on a bad night!” However, being 4 white guys from Vermont, they couldn’t really call their music “funk” and typically refer to it as “cow funk” instead.
There’s also a youtube video on the analysis of this version of the song (the video is about 35 min). If you have a music background, you might find it interesting. Even if you don’t, there are still some interesting bits and the analysis is done at a level attainable for someone without a strong background in music theory.
Here are the two videos:
Roses are Free (4/3/1998): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkHjnoex2gU
Jam Analysis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edp2yh8FHyE
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