This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
There's a place out on the edge of town, sir
Rising above the factories and the fields
Now ever since I was a child I can remember
That mansion on the hill
In the day, you can see the children playing
On the road that leads to those gates of hardened steel
Steel gates that completely surround
The mansion on the hill
At night my daddy'd take me and we'd ride
Through the streets of a town so silent and still
Park on a back road along the highway side
Look up at that mansion on the hill
In the summer all the lights would shine
There'd be music playing, people laughing all the time
Me and my sister, we'd hide out in the tall corn fields
Sit and listen to the mansion on the hill
Tonight down here in Linden Town
I watch the cars rushing by, home from the mill
There's a beautiful full moon rising
Above the mansion on the hill
Rising above the factories and the fields
Now ever since I was a child I can remember
That mansion on the hill
In the day, you can see the children playing
On the road that leads to those gates of hardened steel
Steel gates that completely surround
The mansion on the hill
At night my daddy'd take me and we'd ride
Through the streets of a town so silent and still
Park on a back road along the highway side
Look up at that mansion on the hill
In the summer all the lights would shine
There'd be music playing, people laughing all the time
Me and my sister, we'd hide out in the tall corn fields
Sit and listen to the mansion on the hill
Tonight down here in Linden Town
I watch the cars rushing by, home from the mill
There's a beautiful full moon rising
Above the mansion on the hill
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Jane's Addiction vocalist Perry Farrell gives Adam Reader some heartfelt insight into Jane’s Addiction's hard rock manifesto "Mountain Song", which was the second single from their revolutionary album Nothing's Shocking. Mountain song was first recorded in 1986 and appeared on the soundtrack to the film Dudes starring Jon Cryer. The version on Nothing's Shocking was re-recorded in 1988.
"'Mountain Song' was actually about... I hate to say it but... drugs. Climbing this mountain and getting as high as you can, and then coming down that mountain," reveals Farrell. "What it feels to descend from the mountain top... not easy at all. The ascension is tough but exhilarating. Getting down is... it's a real bummer. Drugs is not for everybody obviously. For me, I wanted to experience the heights, and the lows come along with it."
"There's a part - 'Cash in now honey, cash in Miss Smith.' Miss Smith is my Mother; our last name was Smith. Cashing in when she cashed in her life. So... she decided that, to her... at that time, she was desperate. Life wasn't worth it for her, that was her opinion. Some people think, never take your life, and some people find that their life isn't worth living. She was in love with my Dad, and my Dad was not faithful to her, and it broke her heart. She was very desperate and she did something that I know she regrets."
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Yo La Tengo
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This song was originally written by a guy called Peter Gutteridge. He was one of the founders of the "Dunedin Sound" a musical scene in the south of New Zealand in the early 80s. From there it was covered by "The Clean" one of the early bands of that scene (he had originally been a member of in it's early days, writing a couple of their best early songs). The Dunedin sound, and the Clean became popular on american college radio in the mid to late 80s. I guess Yo La Tengo heard that version.
Great version of a great song,
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Ed Sheeran shares a short story of reconnecting with an old flame on “American Town.” The track is about a holiday Ed Sheeran spends with his countrywoman who resides in America. The two are back together after a long period apart, and get around to enjoying a bunch of fun activities while rekindling the flames of their romance.
it's about the haves and have-nots in life. those who have look down on the rest of the world from their place on the hill. those who have not "look up" at the others with a sense of awe. unfortunately for the have-nots, the "steel gate" ensures that each party stays put.
Pretty sure this song is about dreams. From a poor perspective, dreaming one day of being rich, living in the mansion on the hill. This whole album more or less is like the dark side of born to run. The "What if's"
Born to Run is saturated with hope for the future, a chance to break out based upon artistic merit and a lottery ticket like rise to fame via music.
This album is more or less like what it is to not break out, or to turn to crime due to lack of a way. With the same hopes and dreams of being someone, being wealthy, getting out.
no one expresses growing up like the boss
mansion on the hill could be a biblical refrence too. maybe?
Superb song,the Live in NYC version is amazing.
that live album is very good i agree...this is a nice quiet song about dreaming about becoming better than what you are...great song though
Not really any deep meaning to this song. This is from Springsteen's album "Nebraska" and is about Mansion on the Hill, a historic house in Ogallala, NE. ogallalamansiononthehill.com/
In the live version of "Mansion on the Hill" from Shoreline Amphitheatre 86, Springsteen mention that the song is about when he was a kid and his father used to drive them out to this old house on the outside of town that felt really distant to Bruce.
In the book "Bruce" from 2012 by Carlin, it says that Bruce around 1970 took his girlfriend out to a family-meeting at Bruce´s grandfather Zerelli´s house, which they referred to as "the house on the hill". The lyrics also includes a sister which suggests it is Bruce´s sister. Later in the book there is a confirmation of this: "Recollections of a summertime party in “Mansion on the Hill” (the name clearly reminiscent of Anthony Zerilli’s House on the Hill) filter through the stalks of corn where the uninvited young narrator hides with his sister to take in the music and lights."
Although this probably isn't true I like to think of the song in reference to the film Days of Heaven. I heard the title track was based off of the Starkweather murders after Bruce saw Badlands. Days of Heaven is a film by the same writer/director Terrence Malick. If you have seen the film the line
Me and my sister, we'd hide out in the tall cornfields Sit and listen to the mansion on the hill
May strike a chord
The two main character pretend to be brother and sisters while farming a wheat field, the woman than becomes romantic with the farm owner
Someone also stated that the song is about the poor desiring what the rich have, this is also a common theme of the film.
Any thoughts
Nebraska's an amazing album by the Boss. this one's about spending a lifetime looking and wondering how some people have it all and no matter how hard you work, you will never do.