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."
The world was her cloister, the abbess Duboir
In the convent at All Hallows fair
A pearl in an oyster she shone like a star
Augmenting her sisterhoods prayers
Her singing touched Angels and melted their hearts
her choirs inspired the search
For the lost holy grail, the Benedict arts
And the best of the Catholic Church
But if one thing
One precious little thing
Would darken this facade
There would be such consequences
Like the night Sister Victoria
Stepped in from the freezing cold
No candles would light at Evening Mass
The days passed by without a sigh
But dusk came thick with dread
Intangible, the air was full
Of wanderlust and approaching bloodshed
In truth, the Abbess with her pious whims
Enjoyed the new girl's pain
Proof to the rest tat the briars of sin
Entangled all the world in Satan's name
Victoria Varco, once heiress
To a proud noble estate
Fell pregnant by her recklessness
Who then fell foul to a violent fate
Such was here cime in expedient times
And the shame of besmirching her name
Her child was burnt, she was dragged to these walls
For a life in obedient chains
But not one thing
One precious little thing
Would darken this facade
Like the night Sister Victoria
Woke screaming in her room
She spent a week spiralling from heaven
And as the seasons wheezed and pained
Her dream grew more perverse
For no good reasons she would to find
An alluring woman naked save for jewels and verse
When here eyelids close, on a moonlit shore
This intoxicating beauty would appear
The sweetest symphony composed
Those abating lips rose
Tho whisper dirty secrets in her ear
Clandestine secrets
A dream within a dream
She finds herself this nymph
Abreast a desert dune
And below the crescent moon
Atop a darksome stranger
Ah, the spurting of his seed inside here
Triggers paradise
She rides the beast until the heavens trembled
Forcing eclipse, her lover licks her blood
That drips upon the sand
And almost out of hand
Coarse plots assemble
For somewhere in the convent walls
A templar treasure rests
Forgotten to the vestibules
Like pleasures of the flesh
So, in return for nightly runs
Past tongues and wisdom's hiss
She promised to assist the hunt
for an ancient golden chain amiss
In the convent at All Hallows fair
A pearl in an oyster she shone like a star
Augmenting her sisterhoods prayers
Her singing touched Angels and melted their hearts
her choirs inspired the search
For the lost holy grail, the Benedict arts
And the best of the Catholic Church
But if one thing
One precious little thing
Would darken this facade
There would be such consequences
Like the night Sister Victoria
Stepped in from the freezing cold
No candles would light at Evening Mass
The days passed by without a sigh
But dusk came thick with dread
Intangible, the air was full
Of wanderlust and approaching bloodshed
In truth, the Abbess with her pious whims
Enjoyed the new girl's pain
Proof to the rest tat the briars of sin
Entangled all the world in Satan's name
Victoria Varco, once heiress
To a proud noble estate
Fell pregnant by her recklessness
Who then fell foul to a violent fate
Such was here cime in expedient times
And the shame of besmirching her name
Her child was burnt, she was dragged to these walls
For a life in obedient chains
But not one thing
One precious little thing
Would darken this facade
Like the night Sister Victoria
Woke screaming in her room
She spent a week spiralling from heaven
And as the seasons wheezed and pained
Her dream grew more perverse
For no good reasons she would to find
An alluring woman naked save for jewels and verse
When here eyelids close, on a moonlit shore
This intoxicating beauty would appear
The sweetest symphony composed
Those abating lips rose
Tho whisper dirty secrets in her ear
Clandestine secrets
A dream within a dream
She finds herself this nymph
Abreast a desert dune
And below the crescent moon
Atop a darksome stranger
Ah, the spurting of his seed inside here
Triggers paradise
She rides the beast until the heavens trembled
Forcing eclipse, her lover licks her blood
That drips upon the sand
And almost out of hand
Coarse plots assemble
For somewhere in the convent walls
A templar treasure rests
Forgotten to the vestibules
Like pleasures of the flesh
So, in return for nightly runs
Past tongues and wisdom's hiss
She promised to assist the hunt
for an ancient golden chain amiss
Lyrics submitted by leichenlager
The Nun with the Astral Habit Lyrics as written by Daniel Lloyd Davey Ashley Jurgemeyer
Lyrics © Peermusic Publishing
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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Mountain Song
Jane's Addiction
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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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