Lost in the Pack

• Performances
• History
• Lyrics
• Artist
  • Phish
  • Fish
  • Mike
  • Page
  • Trey
  • All

Originally Performed By	Trey Anastasio
Original Album	Lonely Trip (2020)
Appears On
Music	Anastasio
Lyrics By	Marshall/Herman
Vocals	Trey
Historian	Benjy Eisen
Last Update	2026-03-15

History

Less than a week after states began issuing stay-at-home orders due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, Trey Anastasio began posting new songs, almost daily, on Instagram. “Lost in the Pack” was the first of what would become an entire batch of these songs.

With just the title, songwriting credits, and confirmation that he recorded it the day before, Anastasio posted “Lost in the Pack” on 3/18/20, accompanied by a photo of himself among the Rubber Jungle at his home, taken by his wife. “Be safe everybody,” he wrote.

The lyrics to “Lost in the Pack” reflect a certain loneliness, isolation, and emotional confusion that felt entirely appropriate for the first week of the pandemic, even though Anastasio, Tom Marshall, and Scott Herman had, in fact, written the song earlier, on a songwriting retreat.

Just four months after its internet debut, “Lost in the Pack” appeared on Anastasio’s solo acoustic album, Lonely Trip, alongside some of the other songs he posted on Instagram during that period. He kept the initial recording, preserving its lo-fi nature as a way of capturing its sense of aloneness and isolation, making a virtue of necessity. Those conditions give the recording an authenticity akin to what Bruce Springsteen achieved with Nebraska. You can hear the loneliness, uncertainty, and isolation in Anastasio’s honest vocals.

The next time the song appeared was at Saratoga Springs Performing Arts Center on 6/18/21, also under unusual conditions — the pandemic was still a thing, and seats were sold by “pods,” for social distancing purposes, while negative COVID-19 tests were required for entry. It was the first live show Anastasio performed since before the start of the pandemic, a year and a half earlier. And while he had the Rescue Squad string section and pianist Jeff Tanski with him for various portions of the show, he still opted to perform “Lost in the Pack” solo. Notably, it was the first of the lockdown songs he performed live.

Anastasio had his solo band briefly add parts to the song for the next two live versions — 9/14/23 (Hampton Beach, NH) and 5/15/24 (Cleveland, OH) — before he stripped it back, choosing to perform it mostly at his solo acoustic shows and with only occasional, light accompaniment during shows that featured his entire band otherwise. On 11/14/25 (Denver, CO), in the encore spot, Cyro Baptista added very sparse percussion — but that was it. Two weeks later (11/28/25) at Beacon Jams 2.0, Anastasio had his horn players and a string section at his disposal, but still opted to go it alone. Which is, ultimately, kinda what the song itself is partially about.

Video by Djbobstar

Last significant update: 3/12/26

 

Submit notes/corrections