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 write heresies and sign my name,
publish and perish all the same.
You ask why should I not stay?
Your sobrieties are all a shame
If you have pills on the candle flame.
Tell me, where's your doubter's face?
Your anxieties caught in a pill
Makes you feel like you can feel
When your religion is all DeMille
Just wash it down, wash the lies out from the real.
With your doubts, it's all the same
Now you see how it feels to say,
"I fell off my name."
Your computer says your time is gone
You've been idle for too long.
You give up now, and turn away
And when the virus makes your blood start to decay
With your doubts, it's all the same
Now you see how it feels to say,
"I fell off my name."
publish and perish all the same.
You ask why should I not stay?
Your sobrieties are all a shame
If you have pills on the candle flame.
Tell me, where's your doubter's face?
Your anxieties caught in a pill
Makes you feel like you can feel
When your religion is all DeMille
Just wash it down, wash the lies out from the real.
With your doubts, it's all the same
Now you see how it feels to say,
"I fell off my name."
Your computer says your time is gone
You've been idle for too long.
You give up now, and turn away
And when the virus makes your blood start to decay
With your doubts, it's all the same
Now you see how it feels to say,
"I fell off my name."
Lyrics submitted by eatMUSIC87
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Mountain Song
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction
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Wu-Tang Clan
Wu-Tang Clan
This song is written as the perspective of the boys in the street, as a whole, and what path they are going to choose as they get older and grow into men. (This is why the music video takes place in an orphanage.) The seen, and unseen collective suffering is imbedded in the boys’ mind, consciously or subconsciously, and is haunting them. Which path will the boys choose? Issac Hayes is the voice of reason, maybe God, the angel on his shoulder, or the voice of his forefathers from beyond the grave who can see the big picture and are pleading with the boys not to continue the violence and pattern of killing their brothers, but to rise above. The most beautiful song and has so many levels. Racism towards African Americans in America would not exist if everyone sat down and listened to this song and understood the history behind the words. The power, fear, pleading in RZA and Ghostface voices are genuine and powerful. Issac Hayes’ strong voice makes the perfect strong father figure, who is possibly from beyond the grave.
Blue
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Blue” is a song about a love that is persisting in the discomfort of the person experiencing the emotion. Ed Sheeran reflects on love lost, and although he wishes his former partner find happiness, he cannot but admit his feelings are still very much there. He expresses the realization that he might never find another on this stringed instrumental by Aaron Dessner.
Page
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
There aren’t many things that’ll hurt more than giving love a chance against your better judgement only to have your heart crushed yet again. Ed Sheeran tells such a story on “Page.” On this track, he is devastated to have lost his lover and even more saddened by the feeling that he may never move on from this.
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.
"The self that is wholly comprehended by civilization resolves itself in an element of the inhumanity which from the beginning has aspired to evade civilization. The primordial fear of losing one's own name is realized…"
—Horkheimer and Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment
I listened to the whole album fairly regularly for a couple of years or so, but didn't think much about the lyrics. But there was something about this one phrase "now you know how it feels to say I fell off my name" that grabbed me, but I was mystified as to what it meant. Until one day.
To make a long story short, I grew up Mormon, and over a long period of time a lot of things built up to one moment in which I realized that the religion was... let's say... less than true. As for why this matters to this song, there's a tradition of describing baptism as "taking upon yourself the name of Jesus Christ." When I lost my faith, I simultaneously lost the appellation. And not just "Christian" or "Mormon" moniker, but also the tradition that had been in family for a fair number of generations. It felt like I had fallen off the train that my whole network was built on, and that I didn't have anyone left. I had lost my identity.
The next time I listened to this song, I was stunned to realize that I actually had come to know how it feels to say I had fallen off my name.
For more, see: "when your religion is all DeMille." This guy is best known for The Ten Commandments (the classic). This line is a comment on how some people approach religion as in the way it is presented in that movie (or as in Samson and Delilah). That is, literally and dramatically, and even melodramatically.
In trying to piece together what parts of my Mormon heritage I could live on while embracing, and which parts I would have to discard, these lines fit well:
Just wash it down, wash the lies out from the real. With your doubts, it's all the same.
And it fits so well. I have no confidence in anything I learned in my Mormon upbringing. I still see that there are probably some good lessons I learned and good experiences I had, but it all just feels so misguided.
Anyway, this stuff sounds so pitch-perfect to my feelings that I decided to look up information on the guy singing the song. Lo and behold, this guy was raised Mormon too. He published in Dialogue for a while (a Mormon academic journal), and he's a professor at Yale these days.
see: "I write heresies and sign my name, publish and perish all the same."
("Publish or perish" being the old mantra of the yet-untenured university professor.)
Small world.
Wow. I was raised a JW and have had much the similar experience. Loved what you said about "wash the lies out from the real". Took me a while to learn that lesson but oh so true. I no longer have any faith but I always strive to live my life according to the "law of love".
i think this song is beautiful but i can't figure out what the heck it means. sort of sounds like something about the relationship between our corporeal selves and our virtual selves?
How does one fall off their own name? It's not like it's that high off the ground. Wear a helmet. Or some elbowpads because I always fall on my elbows when I fall off my bike.