Bouncing Around the Room

This song was written about an experience Tom Marshal's friend, Larry Feathers, had at a County Fair in New Jersey. The Bouncing part is his harrowing adventure in one of those bouncy castle bubble things. He was holding his girlfriends hand, bouncing around, and then hae was knocked out cold by an out of control chubby kid who had been sold way too much cotton candy. Having lost consciousness he had no control over where the bouncy castle decided to bounce him too and he got bounced right over the top of the wall of the castle and into a shallow moat that had been erected around the castle which also doubled as a man made coral reef exhibit where fair goers could rent snorkel gear and safely experience seeing a coral reef without the threat of being attacked by a shark or stung by a jellyfish. This awoken Larry and since he had his glasses broken by an errant horseshoe toss earlier that day he could not tell where he was and the sirens he thought were singing for him was actually coming from the nearby bandshell from a Heart cover band playing Barracuda. Larry was fine, just a little wet and confused. That chubby kid turned out to be Chris Christie, future NJ Gov. Sadly Larry went missing while spelunking in NewFoundland by himself several months later and never was found but he fortunately told Tom about his County Fair adventure beforehand.

not about drugs it is about having good dreams and wishing they were real

awesome song

It seems like a guy daydreaming about his crush. Fack -- I know about that! =o)

this must be my favourite song by Phish. i agree with the daydream idea, but at a loss for what "bouncing round the room" could literally mean.

maybe a creative way to say his mind went a-wanderin'?

This is a great song! It was a shame how so many die hard phish heads reacted with distaste for it when phish would play it at a show once it got radio play of the "a live one" version.

The lyrics are some of Tom Marshal's finest, at par with the magnificance of the "Rift" album lyrics. It is indeed about a crush of sorts, for some dream induced fantasy girl. We have all had dreams of the sort where we win the lottery, or fly, or perform some other fantastic feat. It may all seem so lucid and real though we wake and find it was only a dream and our heart is still racing with the excitement of it all. Longing for the feeling of it once again without the dissapointing abrupt awakening. In the case of this song, the dream is of a woman, who effects a haunting desire in the dreamer. The effect of the mythological Sirens of the Sea; Beautiful voices who are said to sing to lost sailors, enchanting them into the water and ultimately their drowning in the depths of the blue.

The dreamer gazes into her eyes and seems to dream within a dream, holding the hand of his Siren. When she whispers some secret enchantment, the dreamer awakes to find he was but dreaming. And faintly bouncing round our dreamer's thoughts (room..) is the echo of whatever she might have said. Whatever the beautiful utterance may have been it leaves that longing feeling for that lucid grasp of her hand and leads our dreamer to contemplate her time and again, sinking into the depths of his imaginative ocean and coral mazes of his heart and mind.

The Lyrics are truely masterful. The composition of the song is so amazing too! As it breaks into the layered and echoing vocals and music, bringing us progressively deeper into the maze until we take that one final breath and its over.

Have you ever awoken abrutly from a dream, and had the last words spoken in your dream echo in your mind?

uh, Fanko311, those are the lyrics from the song Lawn Boy.

On February 28, 2003, I had the best experience of my life: seeing Phish for the first time ever. I had been waiting pretty much since I was around 8 years old (my older brother got me into them) to actually witness the spectacle of a live Phish show, which was said to be of legendary proportions. Believe me, it lived up to standards. Anyway, the night finally came, and for some reason, all day, Bouncin Around the Room had been on loop in my head. I kept hoping that they would play this song, which is probably one of my favorites. So, I was stoned (obviously), and had been drinking a ton of water. As much as I didn't want to stop dancing, I really, really, really had to pee. So I planned my escape to go as smoothly as possible, but one minor detail didn't enter my convoluted mind: the line for the girl's bathroom was incredibly long. I waited on line for about 5 minutes, finally got into the bathroom, and through the wall, heard a familiar bass line. "Oh shit," I thought "they can't possibly be playing that." But, they were. So I got out of the bathroom, freshened up and everything, and ran as fast as I could back to my seat. I got into the stadium just as soon as they were playing the final chords. It was such a weird experience, I'll never get over that. -Rebecca-

this song is awsome and anyone that doesnt like it........why are you reading it? im already got my tickets to the phish show in charlotte, nc this summer, its gonna be insane

This song is amazing. I would tend to agree with the ide that its about a dream of sorts. Additionally, Fanko311 can fuck off, just because Phish is notorious for their drug use doesnt mean that all of their songs are about drugs.