I wrote the following email to a friend of mine:

Lately, I've been "running across" comments about "loosing one's ego" (part of the Buddhist philosophy we were talking about today), and ran across the following message in a very long thread in the Phish newsgroup … thought you'd be interested in this.

I don't know about the Much Ado/Shakespeare relationship, but I thought I'd give my own interpretation of Swept Away> Steep, which is quite different from the above one. This meaning hit me when I first saw the song live, at Lake Placid '96. I think this song relates to what I've seen Trey and other band members talk about in many ineterviews, and which was also brought up in the recent Hose thread. What I'm referrring to is the loss of ego that happens when Trey is on stage. He has described that he sees himself not as the orginator of the music, but merely a channel for it, and when he lets go of himself, his ego, he is better able to channel this energy. Anwyay, when he says, "The crowd intrudes all day/ Till I'm finally swept away" I think this loss of ego is what he is describing. What really made me see this when I saw the sing live was the sheer beauty of the harmony on the words, "Swept Away...". The way I see it, it's like Trey has to deal with all the hassles of being famous, crowds intruding all day, etc, but then when he gets to the show, all that dissapears. He is Swept Away in the music, and able to lose himself and all the worries of tedious, everyday life.

Of course, this is just my interpretation, but I like it a lot better than the standard, Trey is sick of fans thing. I don't really see any evidence to support the idea that Trey would feel that way. They always say that they love their fans, because we give them the freedom to experment and do different things every night, in fact we get upset when they don't! :) And I don't think he's the kind of person that would release an album centered around the concept of telling fans that phish is sick of them, and wishes they wouldn't like them so much. It just doesn't seem like that's the kind of person Trey, or any other bandmember is. Anyway, just thought I'd share my thoughts. Peace....