About to Run
| Originally Performed By | Ghosts of the Forest |
| Original Album | Ghosts of the Forest (2019) |
| Appears On |
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| Music | Anastasio |
| Lyrics By | Anastasio |
| Vocals | Trey |
| Phish Debut | 2019-06-12 |
| Last Played | 2025-07-27 |
| Current Gap | 17 |
| Historian | chrisbaginski |
| Last Update | 2026-03-15 |
History
Like a rolling thunderstorm perched on the horizon, the foreboding sounds of “About To Run” tap directly into our primordial fight-or-flight instincts. Drudging up anxious emotions of doom at your heels, “About To Run” combines that approaching horror with a helpless dread found only in those nightmares where your legs refuse to function. The demon you thought you had vanquished has returned and will be upon you before you can act.
Born from the Ghosts of the Forest sessions held in 2018, Trey didn’t set out for “About To Run” to actually be a song; we can thank Jon Fishman and Tony Markellis for that. As Trey explained in the second episode of his appearance on guitarist Cory Wong’s The Wong Notes podcast, the lyrics began from stray remarks yelled by Trey that were captured on tape. As he told it:
“I went up to the barn with Fishman and Tony when we did Ghosts of the Forest. I was playing them all these songs I had worked really hard on and then somewhere in the pile of all this, somehow, somebody put on some demo of the sound system or something. It was like this tape of me yelling this thing, ‘I'm about to run’. And Tony and Fish were both like, that's my favorite one. I was like, that can't be your favorite one, that's not a song, it's just me yelling how I actually feel. That can't be your favorite! That's not a song! And they're both like, sorry, it's my favorite. Yeah but that's actually just me actually saying how I actually feel. And then lo and behold, suddenly it was a song.”
Earlier in that same episode, Trey talks about admiring the deeply personal lyrics of artists like Adrianne Lenker and Sufjan Stevens and striving to be as nakedly honest and unflinching in his own songwriting. “About To Run” achieves this by taking on the intimate subject of personal failings returning to test us again.
There’s something in all of our pasts we’ve done our best to let go of and as much as we need it to remain behind us, a tether forever connects us to it. And no matter how faint its hold, it remains with us and there’s courage in singing about the fear that it might snap back.
The song’s musical pace shifts between verses that feel like moments frozen in time that are hit with sudden bursts of chorus adrenaline. What once was a struggle to crawl becomes frantic hands clawing at your skin. And just as those brooding sounds boil over, the cries of “Liar!” and “Burning!” pierce the music in haunting echoes of Jim Morrison’s tortured screams.
With Ghosts of the Forest being a tribute to Trey’s close friend Chris Cottrell who died of adrenal cancer, Trey explained to Patrick Doyle in a 2019 Rolling Stone article that, “He [Chris] liked it when I ripped it on the guitar. Period. End of sentence.” If that was Trey’s goal with this project I think it’s safe to say Chris would have loved the absolutely blistering guitar work Trey unleashes in “About To Run.”
As for Trey not initially intending for “About To Run” to be a song, he’s since embraced it, with it being one of four Ghosts of the Forest songs to become a Phish mainstay. It’s also found its way into different TAB iterations (no horns yet) along with a solo acoustic appearance and spots in both Beacon Jams. With all versions fitting into a tight 6-8 minute run time, there haven’t been any Jam Chart worthy outings yet, but there’s always a snarling punch packed into each performance.
Video by LazyLightning55aLast significant update: 3/15/26
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