My Top 1000 Songs #870: Wolfman's Brother

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

For those viscerally repelled by the Phish community, this is unlikely to change anything. And, sure, nobody's going to accuse these guys of being the world's finest lyricists. Still, "Wolfman's Brother," off 1994's Hoist, is one of their most classic-rock-friendly pop-adjacent songs, a track (like several others on that record, and the several that followed) which shows them to be perfectly capable of crafting songs that hold up fine in their studio form, contrary their reputation as entirely a live act. It's got a slinky vibe and an infectious chorus, funked-up with some horns courtesy of Tower of Power.

Of course, all that said, my main reason for including it here is as a springboard to my single favorite live Phish jam, a performance from their legendary 1998 Halloween show (where they also performed the Velvet Underground's Loaded in its entirety), "Wolfman" slithering into a nearly half-hour spaced-out ambient jam designed to blast you into the stratosphere. Grab some headphones and your favorite herbal refreshments and take it for a spin tonight!

10/31/98 with massive ambient jam:
A more recent and performance and (slightly) more concise jam from 2023:

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