It was on the twenty-seventh day of September, in the year of our Icculus nineteen hundreds plus eighty-five, that a perhaps immodest assembly gathered within the walls of the mostly modest Slade Hall, to hear a fledgling group of young musicians test their strength against the demands of live performance. They were not yet today's veterans of summer amphitheaters and storied New Year’s runs, evolved and tested (though not hardened) by the rigors of touring, but were but mere apprentices in the craft of improvisation. There, amid murmurs of anticipation and the creaking of floorboards, the lamps glowing with modest wattage, the instruments piped through relatively stark effects, the band struck forth a tune that would prove, in time, to be among their most enduring: "Possum".

The number was not, by outward description, of any grand pretension. Its theme, concerning as it did the untimely, flattened fate of a humble marsupial upon the roadway, might in other hands have been dismissed as trifling or grotesque. But Phish seized upon the simplicity, of both roadkill and rock, as though it were a secret key to greater realms. And, indeed, it was. In its earliest renditions, the tune was brisk, almost fleeting, scarcely five minutes in length. Yet, from that unassuming seed of song, there grew, over the course of two score years, a mighty beast of resurrected energy, with performances eventually stretching, flowering, and contorting into something far larger than the sum of its nominal parts.

What Dickens might have called the spirit of the thing — that vigor of the human soul which transmutes the ordinary into the extraordinary — is precisely what "Possum" came to embody, as that sodden seed became a most enduring staple. Its introduction elongated, its bridge embiggoned, its energy enhanced, the song leapt from its debut to a favored place in the setlists of the years to follow. What was once under five minutes even on an ambitious evening has blossomed into a hallmark of power and release — a frequent opener, a rousing closer, even an encore, when the night required one final burst of joyous tumult. Despite, or perhaps because of, its playful parsimony, the sound spaces afforded "Possum" have given room for daring improvisation, creative signals, teases, and audience interplay. And though there came a brief period, in the year of 1997, when the tune was all but abandoned, that lapse proved temporary, and its absence was felt as keenly as the silence of a missing friend. Returned to the fold, "Possum" has never again strayed far from the band’s musical grasp.

And now, the wheel of time has borne us onward four full decades from that first occasion. Forty years of "Possum", forty years of stomping chords, gleeful jamming, audience clapping and cheering, band and crowd alike swept up in the thunderous drive of the thing — the flattened carcas, the shouted chorus, the driving rhythm, each and all now a beautiful beast to behold. In the intervening span, Phish themselves have grown from youthful dreamers into elder statesmen of improvisational music, yet "Possum" remains as fresh and as vigorous as it was that night of "Possum"'s birth in Burlington, and ever moreso. The passage of years has wrought changes — in sound, style, crowd, and context — but the core remains: a rocking drive, a lyric that hints at an unavoidable mortality, a jam that invites and denotes communion.

What secret sustains it? Perhaps it is the union of humility and ferocity — the ridiculous subject matter, yoked to a riff so unyielding that it cannot but rouse the blood. A humble subject, once flattened to the asphalt, now fired with a fierce delivery. Perhaps it is the endless opportunity for invention within its frame, each solo an untraveled road. Or perhaps, it is simply that in the ordinary — in the road-killed possum, in the creaky dance hall, in the laughter of the crowd — lies the extraordinary, if only one has the wit to perceive it. In the hands of Phish, even a dancable dirge becomes a vessel for exploration and celebration.

And so, before the morrow, when the calendar will have once more passed the twenty-seventh of September, let us toast both the song and the singers. Let us salute the spark of 1985, in all its early and gory pre-glory ambitions, which have grown into the flames of 2025, giving warmth in a world darkly full of dumpster fires. Let us remember that music, like memory, is not bound by age, but forever renews itself in the act of being played. And let us give thanks that a band, a song, and a certain creative creature have traveled with us this far, and — if fortune is kind — shall travel with us farther still. May the thirty-third chord, the climactic jam, the roar of the crowd, all echo forth in celebration. And may “Possum,” that humble creature of road and rhyme, continue to run through Phish’s veins for decades yet to come.

And, yeah, sure, if all that ain't enough to celebrate, this is also the 40th anniversary of the first "Prep School Hippie" and "TV Theme" - but those have only been played 8 and 2 times, respectively, and not since 1987 and 1985, respectively. So, unless the band just goes nuts with setlists (and, sure, that's always a possibility), none of us is going to see either of those. But, oh, we'll see another "Possum". And it. Will. Rage.

If you liked this blog post, one way you could "like" it is to make a donation to The Mockingbird Foundation, the sponsor of Phish.net. Support music education for children, and you just might change the world.