Coconut

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History

After kicking off the first night of the Baker’s Dozen with a knowing grin, Junior Senior’s “Shake Your Coconuts”, Phish doubled down on the tropical humor by closing the second set with an unlikely cultural heavyweight on 7-21-2017.

Harry Nilsson’s “Coconut,” released in 1971, is a fascinating anomaly: a Top 10 hit and pop-culture staple that is played using one single chord (C7). The song is a masterclass in repetition, built entirely around the line: “Put the lime in the coconut and drink ’em both up.” It would have fit perfectly in the Tin Pan Alley era of New York City, where early pop hits lived or died on a single, infectious hook and little else.

The song unfolds as a miniature skit featuring three distinct characters, a calm narrator setting the scene, a frantic sister in the throes of a stomach ache, and a grumpy doctor who sounds moments away from hanging up the phone.

While Nilsson voiced all three himself in a deadpan Calypso style, Phish’s barbershop arrangement version distributed the roles among the band. The group shared the narrator and sister parts, but it was Mike Gordon who stole the show, adopting the gravelly, dismissive tone of the doctor.

The premise is pure absurdity: the sister is in pain from drinking a lime-and-coconut mixture, and the doctor’s solution, delivered with increasing agitation, is more of the same. It is the ultimate "hair of the dog" remedy: curing the ailment with the very thing that caused it.

In hindsight, “Coconut” served as a perfect mission statement for the Baker’s Dozen residency. Much like Nilsson’s doctor prescribing the same cure over and over, Phish utilized a singular framework for their 13-night stand. The venue remained the same, the stage remained set, and the band essentially told the audience to "wake up in the morning" and do it all again, night after night.

Phish carried the tropical joke into the encore, slipping in “The Mango Song” as a final fruity nod to Nilsson’s coconut-fueled idiocy. To this day, “Coconut” remains a Baker’s Dozen one-off, a novelty never revisited and likely never again. Then again, this is Phish; even the strangest "one-offs" have a habit of reappearing when you least expect them, perhaps with a little extra lime.

Last significant update: 1/18/26

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