"Harry Hood" is a song that was commonly performed live by the American jam band, Phish, although it never appeared on a studio album. It is one of Phish's most frequently performed songs, featured 258 in live performance since its debut on October 30, 1985.
Background
"Harry Hood" refers to the Hood Dairy Co., a New England dairy company based in Boston. While the band was living with Brian Long in Burlington, Vermont next to a Hood milk plant, "Harry Hood" was the company mascot of the Hood Milk Co., and this character was featured in a 1970s television commercial in which people opened their refrigerator to find Harry Hood standing inside. The lyric "Where do you go when the lights go out?" most likely refers to this advertisement, and to the automatic light in a refrigerator. A "Mr. Minor" is also mentioned in the song, a reference to a previous tenant of the house. Letters containing the message, "Thank you, Mr. Minor" continued to show up at the house during the band's stay there. The song opens with a reggae section prominently featuring the bass, then moves through several contrasting themes before culminating in a gradually intensifying jam section. This structure is characteristic of much of Phish's older material. "Harry Hood" is infamous among the band's fans for its association with the spontaneous emergence of "glowstick wars," a Phish-created audience and band interaction in which multicolored glowsticks were tossed in dazzling, arching parabolas from all points in the crowd, such as during the 1997 "Great Went" performance featured in the film Bittersweet Motel.
