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What are they saying in You Enjoy Myself?
This question is asked so often and on the net that there is a standard abbreviation for the question, which itself has been treated as a word. "What Are You Saying in You Enjoy Myself?" is thus shortened to WAYSIYEM (also asked as "What Are They Saying...?" shortened to WATSIYEM) and used as a word in, for example, "What a waysiyem question!" Only the band members know for sure what they're saying, and there may well be variation or even uncertainty among them. Official Answer: As published in the guitar tablature for YEM in Guitar World, they're saying ""wash uffize drive me to firenze". Intentional Confuson? The line was originally thought to be "wash your feet then drive me to a frenzy." It's now generally understood as "wash uffitzi, drive me to Firenze" (pronounced Fuh-wren-zhee), referring to Trey and Jon's trip to Europe as wandering minstrels in the summer of 1985 (living in a car, thus the stinky feet), including stops in Florence, Italy (Firenze, to Italians). Page & Trey (March 92, Colorado) wouldn't fess up, but admitted that it was in two different languages. Uffizi (prounounced by Phish as "you-feet-zee", with an added "t" sound) is part of Florence (Firenze), near the Ponte Vecchia most known for the Uffizi Gallery (alt), formerly the offices of the wealthy & powerful Medici family. (The Italian word for "offices" is "ufficio". Thomas Wuensch) (To note, "Frenisi" is the name of an Artie Shaw tune, not "Firenze" or &Firensi".) Origins in Idioms? From Brian Snyder: After the Mann summer show in '92, a friend... in Murphy's in West Philadelphia... band was in there havin' a few beers and playing pinball. Apparently Fishman's grandparents live near Penn or something. Anyway, Frank asked Trey what was up with You Enjoy Myself. Trey and Mike told him they had been hanging out with a couple Italians who couldn't speak English very well. When the foreigners left, they said "You enjoy myself, yes?" I think it was supposed to mean "wishing you the best." Anyhow, they all started laughing and somehow came up with the song. The Italians were from Florence, which in Italian is called "Firenze." Aside from the cathedral, the most famous thing in Florence is a museum called "Uffizi." Anyhow, Frank told me that Trey told him that what they sing is "Wash Uffizi, drive me to Firenze." But then listen to the 10/31/95 YEM, when the words are slowed down until distinctly can be heard "Wash Your Feet and drive me toooooo..... firenze" The Uffizi: "The Uffizi is an art museum. It is a U-shaped building with two wings, & a piazza in between the wings. There was no actual Uffizi family, but the Uffizi was the site of the government offices of the Medici family during the sixteenth & seventeenth centuries. The family itself lived in the Palazzo Pitti across the Arno River. There exists an above-ground tunnel that leads from the Uffizi to the Palazzo Pitti, stretching over the east side of the Ponte Vecchio (also correct spelling)." (Andrew Ager 4/30/93) The Uffizi Gallery was bombed in the Spring of 1993, reportedly by Italian mafia. A Phish newsletter which followed the bombing extended condolences and grief. At the end, Mike wrote "Drive me to Firenze." Mike doesn't help: In response to fan mail, Mike has taken a liking in newsletters to offering possible variations. The first ("water you team, in a bee-hive, i'm a sent you") was clearly used for at least the first half of February 1993. In newsletters of that month, Mike clarified this by saying it means "yes, I'll play, but no I won't raise", & also listed these: "washer/dryer/freezer/fencing", "wanton in a key, i live, & me for horse rent", "wont you please-e-curve me from valensi", "wash, you face, and drive me to Valencia", & "washington fences, please, says me". He later gave additional answers, such as "Watchusett fiji is sun-hived to floor antsy,", and had earlier given the answer "Wasohbf woeh ejwro jeeef je ei Fndsbid."
Wash your feet: Ken Williford (5-26-96), citing an earlier newsletter, recalled that "Mike said that the band (I suppose it was only Trey and Tubby), while sojourning in Firenzi, took off their shoes, rolled up their trousers, and stomped around in the fountain outside the Uffizi. I have since taken this to be a remarkably clever pun on the phrase "wash your feet(sies)," which is actually sung as "wash-a-Uffizi." Besides the spelling aspect of the pun, simply do your best impression of an italian trying to pronounce the words "wash your feetsies" -- you should come up with something very much like "wash-a-uffizi." Other suggestions/guesses from Phish.Netters:
Song PARTSCharlie Dirksen has reviewed scores of YEM's, and uses the following "key" to the different sections; the start-times are timings from A Live One:
BTW, Zach "Grt947" reported 7/16/00 something which Trey had explained in an old (but lost) interview: The first arpeggio in the song is in 11/16 time. A method for keeping time in Indian music is known as "taki-gamala". It's used to phonetically break down subdivisions in odd time signatures. ("Taki" represents 2 beats, and "Gamala" represents 3, and by counting off the beats in your head that way, it makes it much easier to keep time with something like 11/16 and count "gamala-gamala-taki-gamala-taki" than to count "one-two-three-four-five-etc-etc-ten-eleven".) Anyway, the vocal jam is an extension of that, according to Trey. Vocal JamsYEM typically ends in a "vocal jam", an extension of the Hey! exercises in which the instrument-playing stops but the music continues, through a free-form offshoot of skat. Some classic vocal jams include 8/9/93 (with lots of teases, then a brilliant transition into Contact), 11/14?/94 (Cat's Cradle, with a crazy chicken/cheeseburger rant), 9/29/95 (which erupted into a fabulous "clicking" rant), 4/26/96 (in which they started the opening lyrics to the next tune, Wolfman's Brother), 12/6/96 (with Mike solo and "Everybody go nuts, I like donuts!" chant), 10-31-95 ("Fuck you up the ass"), 8/12/98 ("Who's your daddy? / Oooh Chicago"), 1/3/03 ("George Takei", best known for his role as Hikaru Sulu in StarTrek). (Thanks to Phillip Zerbo, Aaron J. Westendorf, Jamie Deblasio, Grant Calof, JMAC, and Charles Franz.) Chris P. Thorn suggested (9/1/98) a possible influence from Pink Floyd's Ummagumma: "I couldn't help noticing a close kin-ship between 'Several Small Species of Furry Animals...' (a synthesized sound effects track by Roger Waters) and the vocal Jam on You Enjoy Myself. Is that where it comes from, or is it just a coincidence?" To note, Trey has said (New York Post, 1/1/99) that YEM "sums up our first five years". Also, "during the 2-21-97 YEM *in* Firenze (Florence), the crowd goes nuts every time they sing WUDMTF, and Trey or Fish says, "This is a dream come true!" The crowd is also clearly singing along to those most unintelligible of Phish lyrics." (Dan Hantman, 4/1/00) The band Yes has a song called Fish which sounds at least something like YEM. Chuck, 1/14/00) Recommended VersionsFrom the archive of RMP, Charlie Dirksen's 1/14/97 list of reviewed YEMs. (For a more concise and considered selection, see The Phish Companion.) The following is a summary of most of the YEMs publicly reviewed so far. If a "?" appears, it means I didn't record the timing, am guessing, or that my YEM cuts and thus the timings are even more untrustworthy than they already are. "Boy" is the time when Trey sings it. "Jam" is when the jam segment begins, if I bothered to note its timing. "B&D" is the timing for when the bass and drums segment begins. "FS/VJ" is when the final WUDMTF segment (and ensuing vocal jam) begins. If there was no vocal jam, "NoVJ" appears. "Total" is the total time (usually rough). "Notes" ipse dixit. A "->Cities" notation means there was a segue into Cities. A "(C)" means I rated this YEM a C (a "C" is a typically good version). If you are upset with a rating of a particular version, please listen to versions with comparable or better ratings, and THEN flame the hell out of me as coherently and eloquently as you can (please! the more opinions on Phish's music on phishnet, the better, imo). The timings are obviously not gospel, and will not, in almost all likelihood, jive with the timings of your copy of YEM from any given show. Consider the timings as useful to gauge the lengths of certain segments of YEM (or don't). A long segment doesn't necessarily mean an outstanding segment, of course (but it usually does!!!). I also apologize about the formatting. BTW, this is a list of YEMs that I've reviewed not that I have heard. There are many YEMs that I have heard that I didn't bother to review because they bored me. Also, just because a YEM appears below does not mean that I still have the version on tape. [Thanks to Chris Hilker for the 4/02 reformatting!]
For those of you who have emailed me demanding to know where the reviews of more recent YEMs are, the truth is that I haven't reviewed most of those yet. Believe it or not, I actually haven't even heard every YEM from 1995 and 1996 yet. :) If you have da or daa copies of any of the following sets with YEM on it, and a three head deck, I might be interested in trading. If you have any of these shows on DAT and would make me a da for blanks and return psotage, that'd be wonderful, too.
10/8/95 11/10/95 11/29/95 11/13/96 11/19/96 11/24/96 These are the only YEMs from 1995-6 that I don't have or haven't heard. I liquidated the 6/29/95 and 10/14/95 shows, though, and apparently didn't bother to keep the YEMs. That was probably a mistake in the case of 10/14 since that YEM involved Medeski Martin and Wood, but in all honesty, as a big fan of both Phish and MMW, I found that jam so pitifully depressing given what Funky Bliss I'd hoped to hear that I had no trouble ridding myself of it. So there will be no review of 10/14. I should have timed the son of a bitch, though, I suppose. Could someone else review that? I would really appreciate that. Many people have asked me what my favorite YEM is. Clearly, I love the song and there are many, many amazing versions that move me. But perhaps the Jam Segment that moves me most is that of the Albany 12/9/95 YEM. Some have poo-poohed its repetitivity, but as far as I'm concerned, better to hear a bunch of gloriously melodious, teary-eyed licks over and over again than a typical Oye Como Va hinting jam. I just really truly LOOOVE the Albany 12/9/95 YEM's jam segment. I will review that one in due course. Other favorite YEMs of mine include 5/5/93, 11/18/95, 10/24/95, 7/25/92, 11/16/91, 3/14/93. See also: Tabulature Special thanks to Richard Stern, Lee Silverman, Tom Montgomery, Daniel Meilcarz, Allen Mock, newsletters, & many, many years of net discussions!!
This page last updated February 03, 2007. All contents © 1992-2007 Ellis Godard. All rights reserved. |