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."
Bad News travels fast
And if it's about you you'll probably hear 'bout it last
But when they press up
And check up
And they ask
You gotta keep perspective on the future and the past
And laugh
While they keep talkin'
Talk, talk, talkin,
Chicken heads keep squawkin'
Power of the spoken word is infinite
You can tell
'Cause people are always talking
Talking on the run, talking while walking,
Talking in line, talking in circles,
Talking in time all over the world
Talkin' 'bout whatever's on their mind- that's fine
Talkin' 'bout who they hawkin, who they watchin, who they clockin,
Who they heard was up to something poppin'
Always talkin' about who they remember and who's forgotten
Who's rockin' the set and who's floppin', droppin' out
Talkin' 'bout people from the cradle to the coffin
Talkin' 'bout people, talkin' 'bout people, talkin' 'bout people,
Talkin' 'bout people non-stop talkin' often
Bad News travels fast
And if it's about you you'll probably hear 'bout it last
But when they press up
And check up
And they ask
You gotta keep perspective on the future and the past
And laugh
People talk shit
Their minds reinforce it
Spittin' out words and thoughts that are amorphous
Pushin' sloppy sound out of their vocal orifice
Like it ain't bein' recorded
Sometimes a words scorch is worse than torches
What's more
Is the talk ain't uniform or rehearsed
It's the richest, the poorest,
From CEO boardrooms to porches to alley ways and gutters
From coast to coast, east to west, south to north
It's people talking of course!
Like life is a courtroom
Most bullshittin' from midnight to high noon and back again
Blacks and the Blacker thans
Whites and the Africans
Far to little action far to much satisfaction
In philanderin' usin' sex like a sedative
Repetitive like rhetoric
I'm bettin' ya think ya nice 'cause you give free add-vice right?
But unless you got a tight alternative it's best to let it just live!
And raise the octave up to the positive
Even though they try and stop you up
Arteries cloggeded
The Black man targeted that's how they set it off, they said it
But in the end it will be only them that's effected by they negative vibe
I know it hurts, there is no indigestion worse
Than that which comes from having to eat your own words,
I heard two people need not bicker in a burning home
But some people know how to live everybodies life but their own so,
Here's the poem dedicated
To the hatred propagated by the ill-fated
Snakes that's waitin' in grass
Those that talk the most got the least to say
But that ain't nothin' new
And it ain't even really all that
[Repeat: x33]
Bad
And if it's about you you'll probably hear 'bout it last
But when they press up
And check up
And they ask
You gotta keep perspective on the future and the past
And laugh
While they keep talkin'
Talk, talk, talkin,
Chicken heads keep squawkin'
Power of the spoken word is infinite
You can tell
'Cause people are always talking
Talking on the run, talking while walking,
Talking in line, talking in circles,
Talking in time all over the world
Talkin' 'bout whatever's on their mind- that's fine
Talkin' 'bout who they hawkin, who they watchin, who they clockin,
Who they heard was up to something poppin'
Always talkin' about who they remember and who's forgotten
Who's rockin' the set and who's floppin', droppin' out
Talkin' 'bout people from the cradle to the coffin
Talkin' 'bout people, talkin' 'bout people, talkin' 'bout people,
Talkin' 'bout people non-stop talkin' often
Bad News travels fast
And if it's about you you'll probably hear 'bout it last
But when they press up
And check up
And they ask
You gotta keep perspective on the future and the past
And laugh
People talk shit
Their minds reinforce it
Spittin' out words and thoughts that are amorphous
Pushin' sloppy sound out of their vocal orifice
Like it ain't bein' recorded
Sometimes a words scorch is worse than torches
What's more
Is the talk ain't uniform or rehearsed
It's the richest, the poorest,
From CEO boardrooms to porches to alley ways and gutters
From coast to coast, east to west, south to north
It's people talking of course!
Like life is a courtroom
Most bullshittin' from midnight to high noon and back again
Blacks and the Blacker thans
Whites and the Africans
Far to little action far to much satisfaction
In philanderin' usin' sex like a sedative
Repetitive like rhetoric
I'm bettin' ya think ya nice 'cause you give free add-vice right?
But unless you got a tight alternative it's best to let it just live!
And raise the octave up to the positive
Even though they try and stop you up
Arteries cloggeded
The Black man targeted that's how they set it off, they said it
But in the end it will be only them that's effected by they negative vibe
I know it hurts, there is no indigestion worse
Than that which comes from having to eat your own words,
I heard two people need not bicker in a burning home
But some people know how to live everybodies life but their own so,
Here's the poem dedicated
To the hatred propagated by the ill-fated
Snakes that's waitin' in grass
Those that talk the most got the least to say
But that ain't nothin' new
And it ain't even really all that
[Repeat: x33]
Bad
Lyrics submitted by Demau Senae
Bad News Lyrics as written by Lateef Kenneth Daumont Xavier Lorenzo Mosley
Lyrics © ROUGH TRADE PUBLISHING, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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End of the first verse is "non-stop talking organisms." lol @ Bad(x33). Nicely done mate.