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."
A thick cloud caught a piper cub's tail
The match struck blue on a railroad rail
The old puff horse was just pullin' through
And a man wore a pegleg forever
I'm on the bum where the hobos run
The air breaks with filthy chatter
Oh I don't care there's no place there, don't think it matters
My skin's blazin' through and my clothes in tatters
And the railroad look like a "why" up the hill of ladders
One shoe fell on the gravel
One stick poked down
Gray of age fell down on a pair of ears
An eagle shined through my whole watch pocket
A gingham girl, baby girl, passed me by in tears
A jack rabbit raised his folded ears
A beautiful sagebrush jack rabbit
And an oriole sang like an orange
His breast full o'worms
And his tail clawed the evenin' like a hammer
His wings took to air like a bomber
And my rain can caught me a cup o'water
When I got into town
Odd-jobs mam, ah your horse, I'll fodder
I'm the round house man, I once was your father
A little up the road, a wooden candy-stripe barber pole
And above it read a sign, "Painless Parker"
Licorice twisted around under a fly
And a youngster cocked her eye
God, before me if I'm not crazy, is my daughter
Come, little one, with your little old dimpled fingers
Gimme one and I'll buy you a cherry phosphate
Take you down to the foamin' brine and water
And show you the wooden tits on the Goddess
With the pole out full sail, that tempted away your pegleg father
I was shanghaied by a high-hat beaver mustache man and his pirate friend
I woke up in vomit 'n beer in a banana bin
And a soft lass with brown skin
Bore me seven babies with snappin' black eyes
And beautiful ebony skin
And here is, is I'm with you, my daughter, thirty years
Away can make a seaman's eyes, a round house man's eyes
Flow out water, salt water
The match struck blue on a railroad rail
The old puff horse was just pullin' through
And a man wore a pegleg forever
I'm on the bum where the hobos run
The air breaks with filthy chatter
Oh I don't care there's no place there, don't think it matters
My skin's blazin' through and my clothes in tatters
And the railroad look like a "why" up the hill of ladders
One shoe fell on the gravel
One stick poked down
Gray of age fell down on a pair of ears
An eagle shined through my whole watch pocket
A gingham girl, baby girl, passed me by in tears
A jack rabbit raised his folded ears
A beautiful sagebrush jack rabbit
And an oriole sang like an orange
His breast full o'worms
And his tail clawed the evenin' like a hammer
His wings took to air like a bomber
And my rain can caught me a cup o'water
When I got into town
Odd-jobs mam, ah your horse, I'll fodder
I'm the round house man, I once was your father
A little up the road, a wooden candy-stripe barber pole
And above it read a sign, "Painless Parker"
Licorice twisted around under a fly
And a youngster cocked her eye
God, before me if I'm not crazy, is my daughter
Come, little one, with your little old dimpled fingers
Gimme one and I'll buy you a cherry phosphate
Take you down to the foamin' brine and water
And show you the wooden tits on the Goddess
With the pole out full sail, that tempted away your pegleg father
I was shanghaied by a high-hat beaver mustache man and his pirate friend
I woke up in vomit 'n beer in a banana bin
And a soft lass with brown skin
Bore me seven babies with snappin' black eyes
And beautiful ebony skin
And here is, is I'm with you, my daughter, thirty years
Away can make a seaman's eyes, a round house man's eyes
Flow out water, salt water
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Mountain Song
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction
When We Were Young
Blink-182
Blink-182
This is a sequel to 2001's "Reckless Abandon", and features the band looking back on their clumsy youth fondly.
No Surprises
Radiohead
Radiohead
Same ideas expressed in Fitter, Happier are expressed in this song. We're told to strive for some sort of ideal life, which includes getting a good job, being kind to everyone, finding a partner, getting married, having a couple kids, living in a quiet neighborhood in a nice big house, etc. But in Fitter, Happier the narrator(?) realizes that it's incredibly robotic to live this life. People are being used by those in power "like a pig in a cage on antibiotics"--being pacified with things like new phones and cool gadgets and houses while being sucked dry. On No Surprises, the narrator is realizing how this life is killing him slowly. In the video, his helmet is slowly filling up with water, drowning him. But he's so complacent with it. This is a good summary of the song. This boring, "perfect" life foisted upon us by some higher powers (not spiritual, but political, economic, etc. politicians and businessmen, perhaps) is not the way to live. But there is seemingly no way out but death. He'd rather die peacefully right now than live in this cage. While our lives are often shielded, we're in our own protective bubbles, or protective helmets like the one Thom wears, if we look a little harder we can see all the corruption, lies, manipulation, etc. that is going on in the world, often run by huge yet nearly invisible organizations, corporations, and 'leaders'. It's a very hopeless song because it reflects real life.
Punchline
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran sings about missing his former partner and learning important life lessons in the process on “Punchline.” This track tells a story of battling to get rid of emotions for a former lover, whom he now realized might not have loved him the same way. He’s now caught between accepting that fact and learning life lessons from it and going back to beg her for another chance.
Plastic Bag
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Plastic Bag” is a song about searching for an escape from personal problems and hoping to find it in the lively atmosphere of a Saturday night party. Ed Sheeran tells the story of his friend and the myriad of troubles he is going through. Unable to find any solutions, this friend seeks a last resort in a party and the vanity that comes with it.
“I overthink and have trouble sleepin’ / All purpose gone and don’t have a reason / And there’s no doctor to stop this bleedin’ / So I left home and jumped in the deep end,” Ed Sheeran sings in verse one. He continues by adding that this person is feeling the weight of having disappointed his father and doesn’t have any friends to rely on in this difficult moment. In the second verse, Ed sings about the role of grief in his friend’s plight and his dwindling faith in prayer. “Saturday night is givin’ me a reason to rely on the strobe lights / The lifeline of a promise in a shot glass, and I’ll take that / If you’re givin’ out love from a plastic bag,” Ed sings on the chorus, as his friend turns to new vices in hopes of feeling better.
A pirate/hobo rides a train and recollects the events that led to the conception of his daughter. He speaks with a "little one with little dimpled fingers" possibly meaning a young child, "give me one" means he wishes to lead her to the goddess, using the cherry phosphate as a bonus/bribe. The goddess is the boat that he was shanghaied on, where he met the soft lass with brown skin. "God before me if I'm not crazy, is my daughter" may mean that the "daughter" is just a young girl of the same or similar ethnicity of the soft lass with brown skin that reminds him of what his daughter could look like, but the 30 years would mean that his daughter would not be portrayed as a young girl, so perhaps the abstractness of the song is used to show that perhaps he is unstable, though good writing suggests using concrete, discrete language, and Beefheart definitely does in other songs like "well" and "the dust blows forward 'n the dust blows back" the fact that he found his daughter or a young girl that reminds him of his daughter brings saltwater tears to his eyes, once again referencing his life as a sailor. Perhaps the multiple references of being a father means he's in an ethnic area, and all of the women there remind him of his daughters, or could even be his daughters. Thoughts?
@nebraskan I can't find it online now, but I remember reading somewhere that the narrator hasn't actually been "lost at sea" for thirty years. The little girl is his daughter, but he has this other (black) family somewhere, the result of an affair he had when as a young sailing-man he was "shanghaied", and that's why he's been spending so much time voyaging at sea for the past thirty years - taking care of them. Which is why no-one seems to know him when he comes home now.