...And Flew Away History

...And Flew Away

Originally Performed By	Trey Anastasio
Original Album	Lonely Trip (2020)
Appears On
Music/Lyrics	Anastasio
Vocals	Trey (lead), All (backing)
Phish Debut	2023-07-14
Last Played	2023-07-14
Current Gap	127
Historian	Parker Harrington (tmwsiy)
Last Update	2026-01-01

History

There is something inherently melancholy about a message in a bottle. It is physical evidence of the impulse to send a thought into the void, regardless of whether it ever reaches a shore. While there is a quiet sadness in that vast distance, there is also a thrill… a belief that a connection can survive the elements. To find such a message is to share a fleeting moment with a stranger.

To understand “…And Flew Away,” one must view the 2020 album Lonely Trip through the entirety of the album it was released on and the era it came about. The song definitely does not stand in isolation. Recorded in the "Rubber Jungle," which during the depths of the Covid lockdown was housed in Trey’s New York apartment, the album functioned as a collective message in a bottle cast out to a sequestered fanbase.

“…And Flew Away” captures the psychological strain of that era, where isolation begins to morph into a psychedelic, out-of-body experience. Just as a bottle battles the sea and crashing against rocks on the shore, the song depicts a soul struggling against the physical world: fire burns, gravity presses down, and escape is imagined upward, as if the laws of nature themselves have become something to push against.

Video by Trey Anastasio

A major theme of Lonely Trip is the physical body being trapped while the mind searches for a way out. “A Wave of Hope” shares nearly identical DNA with “…And Flew Away,” featuring the lyric “Untied my wrists and flew away.” In both songs, flying is not a joyful vacation. It is a desperate spiritual act: flight undertaken to survive a crisis. Phish songs often depict euphoric flight filled with joy, color, and spectacle. But there is another category, where flight is necessary rather than celebratory, driven by self-preservation.

“I Never Left Home” serves as the grounded counterpart. Where “…And Flew Away” describes the roof exploding, “I Never Left Home” captures confinement within four walls. Together, they represent the two dominant experiences of lockdown: the boredom of the “room” and the madness of the mind pushing against it. Someday, a generation of fans may struggle to grasp the gravity of that era, but for those who lived it, this song remains a recollection of a time when escape was imagined because it had to be.

Unlike the “love and light” themes common in much of modern Trey’s songwriting, the Lonely Trip material is darker and more inward. In “When the Words Go Away,” Trey confronts the fear of losing the ability to communicate. In “…And Flew Away,” that fear expands into a full break from the immediate world. Far from the resilient optimism of his arena-sized sing-alongs, this is the sound of a person at their breaking point.

It is likely no coincidence that the line “There’s someone in my head” directly echoes Pink Floyd’s “Brain Damage,” the penultimate track on The Dark Side of the Moon (1973). That lyric reads:

You lock the door and throw away the key
There’s someone in my head but it’s not me.

“Brain Damage,” written by Roger Waters, reflected the mental collapse of the band’s original leader, Syd Barrett. Like Pink Floyd’s take on mental strain, “…And Flew Away” never turns it into a spectacle. It feels more like an honest admission of how isolation can warp your sense of things, and how survival sometimes means loosening your grip rather than fighting it.

The message finally reached the shore on October 9th, 2020, during the Beacon Jams. Performed in an empty Beacon Theater with the band’s back to where the audience should be, the song completed its journey from private confinement to shared experience. What was written in isolation was suddenly received by thousands of people, scattered yet still connected. In that moment, it stopped being a solitary act of survival and became a communal “I hear you.”

Video by Trey Anastasio

Its placement in the set only sharpened that effect. Coming immediately after “Everything’s Right,” a song built on reassurance and forward motion, “…And Flew Away” felt like falling through the floorboards beneath that optimism. The juxtaposition captured the tension of the moment: the desire to believe things were okay, followed by the quieter admission that sometimes they very much were not.

Release me from the fire
Take me away from this place
Parallel reason under the timeless moon
Float away, float away
A new dawn is coming soon

In more recent years, the song has taken on a different weight through regular performances by Trey Anastasio Band. What once sounded like the ripping metal of a crisis now reflects the new dawn that followed. When “…And Flew Away” debuted during the Beacon Jams, it came with immediate weight, paired with a benefit that raised over $1 million and tied the song directly to action rather than intention. The opening of Divided Sky Residential Recovery completes that arc. Heard now, “…And Flew Away” feels less like an emergency flare and more like a reflection on survival and proof that the flight wasn’t just away from something, but toward a place where others could land safely.

So far, the song has appeared only once in a Phish set: July 14, 2023, in Alpharetta, GA. It followed a ferocious “Ruby Waves,” functioning as a deep collective exhale. It was not a rarity-chase moment or a launchpad for expansion but an act of recalibration. By resisting the urge to stretch the song, Phish allowed it to say exactly what it needed to say. It stands as a reminder that some songs are born of necessity and might only be revisited when the moment is exactly right.

Video by ChakaHahn

Last significant update: 1/1/26