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."
I verify the moment has passed
False agency eroding
I see a wire and the method of a burning rite
I see a window and the glimmer of a fading light
I survive on the passion of lovers
I walk away so as to see another holy day
Don't tell me that it's all right
Because it's insight
I want to know what I'm dying for all
All properties collapsed
Communications from a time long past
I see them coming so I modulate a timewar
Forcing calling on the elements I wait for
It's all crucial for an ex-commune
Deny or atone but you know you're not immune
False evidence it's all right
Try to remember it the first light
Oh, the mocking voices they call to me
Alleviating everything I see
Head down, always too late for
Revelation, something that i've prayed for
Head down, always too late for
Nothing doing
But don't you know I tried
To ascend
Dynamically evolve
Provisional denial
Exposing all the matrices within
There's something in the night
Controlling all I feel
Controlling what you see
Crushed first to last
The final answer is near
No saviour, no torture time
Only flesh and a ruined mind
I see you standing with the wings of an angel
Your ship is gone before you
I see a heaven I can never hope to reach for
It's all denial as I'm standing at the final door
Crushed beneath a drowning moment
I can't believe this is perfection
Crushed beneath it, a drowning moment
The license for paradise still never mine
Left in silence and abandoned now
Can't move on but I relate somehow
Living in oblivion never turned out but
Infinty limits me reaching for the trinity
Process, process, never told why
The blackest silence something's failing
Now will come the final trial
All the pity and denial
Don't you know that eternity is mine now?
False agency eroding
I see a wire and the method of a burning rite
I see a window and the glimmer of a fading light
I survive on the passion of lovers
I walk away so as to see another holy day
Don't tell me that it's all right
Because it's insight
I want to know what I'm dying for all
All properties collapsed
Communications from a time long past
I see them coming so I modulate a timewar
Forcing calling on the elements I wait for
It's all crucial for an ex-commune
Deny or atone but you know you're not immune
False evidence it's all right
Try to remember it the first light
Oh, the mocking voices they call to me
Alleviating everything I see
Head down, always too late for
Revelation, something that i've prayed for
Head down, always too late for
Nothing doing
But don't you know I tried
To ascend
Dynamically evolve
Provisional denial
Exposing all the matrices within
There's something in the night
Controlling all I feel
Controlling what you see
Crushed first to last
The final answer is near
No saviour, no torture time
Only flesh and a ruined mind
I see you standing with the wings of an angel
Your ship is gone before you
I see a heaven I can never hope to reach for
It's all denial as I'm standing at the final door
Crushed beneath a drowning moment
I can't believe this is perfection
Crushed beneath it, a drowning moment
The license for paradise still never mine
Left in silence and abandoned now
Can't move on but I relate somehow
Living in oblivion never turned out but
Infinty limits me reaching for the trinity
Process, process, never told why
The blackest silence something's failing
Now will come the final trial
All the pity and denial
Don't you know that eternity is mine now?
Lyrics submitted by darkereflection
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