@nichobert said:

See maybe bungled was the wrong word.

But in Fluff, it seems pretty clear that Trey wanted to layer the Piper chords over the big Fluff peak, but Fish heard Piper, apparently thought it was a signal to drop out and start Piper from the start. Then there's a weird confusion and Trey just goes ahead and starts singing- IMO a pretty clear indicator that he had intended to completely bypass the intro of Piper. On paper that sounds like a lot to get across, but he and either Mike or Page- I need to re listen- mutated Fluff into Piper absolutely effortlessly.

aaah ok, i heard that segue as trey attaining nirvana and deciding to go for piper, and then doing **his** lately-usual clumsy segue thing and accelerating into piper without waiting for anyone to come along -- and i hear trey singing over the transitional passage (rather than the proper piper chords) as a really cool choice given that fishman was playing exactly what he normally plays during the piper intro...i love that segue because it fits the old 'pieces of each song moving against each other' standard.

(btw @nichobert, the ya mar > weekapaug segue is one of the greatest moments of phish ever, for me, and it's absolutely fish's starting-pistol drumming that makes it so intense.)