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."
They crossed over the border, the hour before dawn
Moving in lines through the day
Most of our planes were destroyed on the ground where they lay
Waiting for orders we held in the wood
Word from the front never came
By evening the sound of the gunfire was miles away
Ah, softly we move through the shadows, slip away through the trees
Crossing their lines in the mists in the fields on our hands and on our knees
And all that I ever was able to see
The fire in the air glowing red, silhouetting the smoke on the breeze
All summer they drove us back through the Ukraine
Smolensk and Viasma soon fell
By autumn we stood with our backs to the town of Orel
Closer and closer to Moscow they come
Riding the wind like a bell
General Guderian stands at the crest of the hill
Winter brought with her the rains, oceans of mud filled the roads
Gluing the tracks of their tanks to the ground while the sky filled with snow
And all that I ever was able to see
The fire in the air glowing red silhouetting the snow on the breeze
In the footsteps of Napoleon the shadow figures stagger through the winter
Falling back before the gates of Moscow, standing in the wings like an avenger
And far away behind their lines the partisans are stirring in the forest
Coming unexpectedly upon their outposts, growing like a promise
You'll never know, you'll never know which way to turn, which way to look you'll never see us
As we're stealing through the blackness of the night
You'll never know, you'll never hear us
And the evening sings in a voice of amber, the dawn is surely coming
The morning roads leads to Stalingrad, and the sky is softly humming
Two broken Tigers on fire in the night
Flicker their souls to the wind
We wait in the lines for the final approach to begin
It's been almost four years that I've carried a gun
At home it will almost be spring
The flames of the Tigers are lighting the road to Berlin
Ah, quickly we move through the ruins that bow to the ground
The old men and children they send out to face us, they can't slow us down
And all that I ever was able to see the eyes of the city are opening
Now it's the end of the dream
I'm coming home, I'm coming home, now you can taste it in the wind, the war is over
And I listen to the clicking of the train-wheels as we roll across the border
And now they ask me of the time that I was caught behind their lines and taken prisoner
"They only held me for a day, a lucky break," I say they turn and listen closer
I'll never know, I'll never know why I was taken from the line and all the others
To board a special train and journey deep into the heart of holy Russia
And it's cold and damp in the transit camp, and the air is still and sullen
And the pale sun of October whispers the snow will soon be coming
And I wonder when I'll be home again and the morning answers "Never"
And the evening sighs, and the steely Russian skies go on forever
Moving in lines through the day
Most of our planes were destroyed on the ground where they lay
Waiting for orders we held in the wood
Word from the front never came
By evening the sound of the gunfire was miles away
Ah, softly we move through the shadows, slip away through the trees
Crossing their lines in the mists in the fields on our hands and on our knees
And all that I ever was able to see
The fire in the air glowing red, silhouetting the smoke on the breeze
All summer they drove us back through the Ukraine
Smolensk and Viasma soon fell
By autumn we stood with our backs to the town of Orel
Closer and closer to Moscow they come
Riding the wind like a bell
General Guderian stands at the crest of the hill
Winter brought with her the rains, oceans of mud filled the roads
Gluing the tracks of their tanks to the ground while the sky filled with snow
And all that I ever was able to see
The fire in the air glowing red silhouetting the snow on the breeze
In the footsteps of Napoleon the shadow figures stagger through the winter
Falling back before the gates of Moscow, standing in the wings like an avenger
And far away behind their lines the partisans are stirring in the forest
Coming unexpectedly upon their outposts, growing like a promise
You'll never know, you'll never know which way to turn, which way to look you'll never see us
As we're stealing through the blackness of the night
You'll never know, you'll never hear us
And the evening sings in a voice of amber, the dawn is surely coming
The morning roads leads to Stalingrad, and the sky is softly humming
Two broken Tigers on fire in the night
Flicker their souls to the wind
We wait in the lines for the final approach to begin
It's been almost four years that I've carried a gun
At home it will almost be spring
The flames of the Tigers are lighting the road to Berlin
Ah, quickly we move through the ruins that bow to the ground
The old men and children they send out to face us, they can't slow us down
And all that I ever was able to see the eyes of the city are opening
Now it's the end of the dream
I'm coming home, I'm coming home, now you can taste it in the wind, the war is over
And I listen to the clicking of the train-wheels as we roll across the border
And now they ask me of the time that I was caught behind their lines and taken prisoner
"They only held me for a day, a lucky break," I say they turn and listen closer
I'll never know, I'll never know why I was taken from the line and all the others
To board a special train and journey deep into the heart of holy Russia
And it's cold and damp in the transit camp, and the air is still and sullen
And the pale sun of October whispers the snow will soon be coming
And I wonder when I'll be home again and the morning answers "Never"
And the evening sighs, and the steely Russian skies go on forever
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Actually, there is no change in perspective. It seems as if there might be because all of a sudden Al Stewart speaks of a push towards Berlin, but this is still the voice of a Soviet soldier. "The flames of the tiger..." conjures the turnaround in the favor of Russian army as they pushed back the Germans at Stalingrad and kept pushing, all the way to Berlin.
Another line that takes on a new meaning if you assume no perspective change is, "The old men and children they send out to face us, they can't slow us down..." These are not the Russian villagers fighting for Stalingrad - these are the German and Austrian people fighting off the Soviet troops.
The mention of capture and being sent to Siberia was not, actually, from a German's perspective. A Soviet soldier that had been captured by Germans and managed to escape was seen as a potential traitor, and treated as such - including a sort of forced exile. The unfortunate soul who says "I'm coming home, I'm coming home..." is quite mistaken - as he admits later, he will likely never see his home again.
This is a very vivid and beautiful song, as so many of Stewart's songs are. It is truly able to capture the spirit of the years of fighting in WWII in the Russian winter.
The line "Two broken tigers on fire in the night" reminds me of William Blake's famous poem "Tiger, tiger, burning bright; In the forests of the night..."
The second to last verse is intriguing but I doubt it means anything. The Soviet soldier is caught behind German lines and taken prisoner, then stands in a line with other Soviet prisoners, then the Germans take him alone from the lines and put on a train to Russia. Then apparently he comes back to Germany, the war ends (in April), and in October he and other Soviet soldiers are on a train back to the Soviet Union.
It's true that when Soviet soldiers became lost from their units and snuck back across the front line, sometimes other Soviet soldiers shot them suspecting they were spies or traitors. But that scenario doesn't fit the song. I'll bet that if you asked Stewart what the second to last verse means, he'd say "I don't know, it just came to me." Indeed "I'll never know, I'll never know" is in the lyrics. Sometimes songwriters are just inspired. That a line says "holy Russia" suggests a religious or mystical experience. The Nazis had some strange religious fascinations, in my imagination a German general wanted to go to a religious shrine in Russia before it was lost to the Soviet army, and chose a single Soviet prisoner with him, for reasons known only to the general.
That verse DOES mean something. When Stewart talks of standing in lines, or moving in lines, he's talking about formation. In this case, the narrating Russian soldier is talking about standing in formation with the Red Army, preparing to make the final approach on Berlin. This is done to point out that the narrator had fought for the Red Army for the entirity of the war (the first verse tells us he was there, on the front, when the Germans crossed the border into Russia. This sets up the final injustice that this young man endures -- lifetime (although probably a brief lifetime) imprisonment by the country that he fought so long for. (When he was "taken from the line" to "journey deep into the heart of holy Russia", it was by the Russians, not by the Germans!<br /> <br /> This is based on facts! Stalin, with his massive paranoia, sent millions of his own soldiers to concentration camps after the war, including those that had been taken prisioner by the Germans! One site suggests that several million Russian soldiers were killed by the Comunists, after the war. I've heard this story from other sources than the internet & do believe it to be true. It fits in perfectly with what I know about Stalin!<br /> <br /> I think Stewart wrote, not just this verse, but the whole song, as a salute to the Russian soldiers and people who paid such a high price, not just fighting the Germans, but trying to live under the rule of the Communists! I don't have them now, but I've seen figures where, over the course of their leadership, Stalin was responsible for significantly more death than Hitler. Of course, he had many more years to accomplish this. Both were pure evil, in fact, some people like to talk of the political spectrum as a line with liberals on the left & conservatives on the right. At the far right of this line would be facists and at the far left would be communists. I like to think of it as an alomst closed circle instead, where, if you go too far to either the right or left, you come back to the same evil tactics and interpretations as those you claim to be your worst enemy! This CLEARLY describs Hitler and Stalin!
@TDK Stewart read dozens of books to research this song, and while it\'s not up on his site anymore, he used to have about ten pages of notes on this song alone, including this part:\r\n\r\n"And now they ask me of the time I was caught behind their lines and taken prisoner ..."\r\n\r\nThe Germans viewed captured Russians as slave labor, and they were treated very poorly. As German labor became scarce, they were forced to work in armament factories and mines.\r\n\r\nSome 5,750,000 Russians were taken prisoner during the war. Barely 1 million were found alive at the end. Two million died in captivity from starvation, exposure and disease. A million were released during the war, some of them to serve in collaborator units set up by the German Army. Another million were never accounted for. According to the Germans 67,000 were executed, although it is believed that the actual number is far higher.\r\n\r\n"They only held me for a day, a lucky break I say ...."\r\n\r\nRussian prisoners of war who managed to escape their captors really did not fare much better. Fearing these men had been co-opted, Stalin ordered that they all be sent into a sort of internal exile in Siberia.\r\n\r\nAlso, Mark Stoler, on his blog Things Have Changed, has a full take on this song, including this:\r\n\r\nIn his epic account of the German-Soviet war, Absolute War, Chris Bellamy writes that "the Red Army was the only one in the world where being taken prisoner counted as desertion and treason". Stalin believed any soldier who allowed himself to be captured was a traitor and counter-revolutionary and that Russians exposed to Westerners for any length of time became a danger to the Soviet state, because they were potentially infected with subversive views. Bellamy adds: "The Soviet government and military command had absolutely no interest in what happened to Soviet people in German captivity. When prisoners of war who survived were released the end of the war, they were usually sent to the Gulag or shot, and the same fate even befell many who had fought and crawled their way out of German encirclements during the war."
This song is about the german campaign "Barbarossa" during WWII, told through the eyes of a soviet soldier. Stewart tells it with such passion and imagery. I love the the lyric "Two broken Tigers on fire in the night, flicker their souls to the wind", because you can just picture it so vividly. great song.
Is it my imagination or does the pospective change from a russian to a german soldier half way through the song?
Its your Imagination. The Song maintains its "Russian" Perspective... however, I can understand your confusion. The second verse it refers to the German Commander, General Heinz Wilhelm Guderian, who had captured Smolensk in 1941, and was ready to launch the final assault on Moscow. He was ordered to turn south and attack Kiev. The order, issued by Adolph Hitler himself, was seen by Guderian as a mistake, but when he protested the move, he lost all influence with Hitler and was releived of his command in December of that year.<br /> The song refers to these events, very briefly... hence your confusion.<br /> An interesting Idea, though! It shows you are Listening and Trying!<br /> Please keep it up! Music needs open minds, or we will all fall victim to the Lady Gaga's of the world!
Amazing. People don't realize Stalin felt any soldier of his who had been captured by the a western army had also been "contaminated" by that contact and had to be separated from others so they would not contaminate others.......
A complete course on the eastern front in World War II could be constructed around this song. The imagery is profound. The ironies of deep loyalty and love of the Russian peasant/soldier for his country and its utter betrayal and disregard for him reflect the relationship of citizen to leadership in Russia for centuries. I still listen to this song almost daily; no song past or present has ever captured a story in song so completely and vividly.
Sorry guys and gals but HelloDru,SebastianToombs, and Mackwheaton are exactly right and nail it perfectly
mackwheaton has hit the nail on the head- this song is probably Stewart's enduring legacy, his masterwork. In a few verses, and with the accompanying very moving music<br /> Stewart has created a song that people will probably be listening to for decades into the future. His history is right, his take on the character and tenacity of the Russian soldier is right, his take on the fatalism embodied in the national character of Russians is right. Read some Alexander Solszenitsyn for an expert's take on the above, particularly "August 1914". Stewart has captured the essence of a tragic era and transformed it into a combination of verse and music that is unforgettable.
It's pretty obvious that the soldier gets sent to a prison at the end due to Stalin's paranoia. The soldier said it was a lucky break, which the interrogators possibly interpreted (or simply chose to twist it) as a confession that he enjoyed his time with the Germans, and he is therefore a traitor. Read up on Soviet Russia. Whether you choose to look at it this way or not is your choice, but it's obvious that this was Al Stewart's meaning.
Not one of you dimwits have this right. The song synopsises a Russian soldier's experience in WW2. ALL of WW2. It starts with the early days of the German Blitzkreig of 1941, describing the swift advance of German troops into Western Russia, and the waiting tactic adopted by the ill-prepared Soviet troops. <br /> The lyric continues through the battles of Stalingrad and the failure of the Nazis to take Moscow, resulting in the retreat and pursuit of the German forces, culminating with the German collapse and the capture of Berlin in 1945.<br /> At some point in the narrators' service, he was captured, but had 'a lucky break' and was able to escape after being held for a day. He innocently reveals this on a homebound train, only to be overheard by NKVD operatives. He is singled out as one of thousands of Russian soldiers to be sent to Siberian Gulag work camps. This practice was Stalin's way of dealing with the huge number of returning servicemen. To allow them to return to civilian life would have placed too large a burden on the Soviet economy. <br /> Now, go read a book.
Actually theoriginalmodelguy, the NKVD took the soldier because of Order No. 270. Soviet soldiers were required to fight to the death rather than surrender, and those that did choose to surrender over fight to the death were killed or taken away and their families could also suffer the same fate. <br /> <br /> I suggest you take your own advice and read a book.
Any soldier that spent five years in the Soviet army would know better than to admit he was ever taken prisoner. Deny, deny, deny!
Thanks to hellodru for best explaining the song, especially for setting it straight to a few of the commenters that the entire story is from the perspective of the doomed Soviet soldier.
First half of the song, Nazi's push East through the Soviet Union almost to Moscow.
Second half, turning point at Stalingrad, Soviets push the Nazis West all the way back to Berlin.
Sad ironic ending is the heartwrenching fate of the narrator, sent to a delolate transit camp "deep into the heart of holy Russia" by the paranoid Soviet regime he fought for simply because he was once captured by the Germans
Didn't notice it mentioned in the comments I read but I thought I might add that the lines that allude to "tigers" that everyone seems to love (I get chills) refer to the Tiger Tank, the German army's huge and fearsome armored war machine from WWII.
As a history buff and a music lover, I would just like to express my great love and admiration for this magnificent song with it's poetic beauty, imagery, and the dead-on accuracy of it's many historical references. Bravo Al.
c.
I think it was inspired as a tribute to Russian partisans (back in WW I this meant Russians loyal to Czar and opposed to communism). Partisan Russians often refer to Russia as "holy Russia" and as "Mother Russia".
At the time this song was written, the world had been reading Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's "The Gulag Archipelago". Solzhenitsyn had fought for the Soviets in WW II, been decorated, and was arrested near the end of the war and sent to a labour camp "deep into the heart of holy Russia" for 8 years.
Al Stewart obviously knew his military history and imagined himself a young homesick Soviet soldier. Solzhenitsyn himself was free in the US for years and a bit of a celebrity - still, homesick, he returned to holy Russia near the end of his days, calling for a return to the Russian monarchy and lamenting the soullessness of post-wall Russia.
The song describes that deep attachment to the Russian empire despite its problems.
I here a few lyrics differently. Here is my transliteration:
They crossed over the border the hour before dawn Moving in lines through the day Most of our planes were destroyed on the ground t'were they lay Waiting for orders we held in the wood Word from the front never came By evening the sound of the gunfire was miles away
Ah softly we move through the shadows, slip away through the trees Crossing their lines in the mist in the fields on our hands and our knees
And all that I ever Was able to see The fire in the air, glowing red Silhouetting the smoke on the breeze
All summer they drove us back through the Ukraine Smolensk and Viasma soon fell By Autumn we stood with our backs to the town of Orel Closer and closer to Moscow they come Riding the wind like a bell General Guderian stands at the crest of the hill
Winter brought with it the rains, oceans of mud filled the roads Gluing the tracks of their tanks to the ground, while the skies filled with snow
And all that I ever Was able to see The fire in the air, glowing red Silhouetting the snow on the breeze
In the footsteps of Napoleon, the shadow figures stagger through the winter Falling back before the gates of Moscow, standing in the wings like an avenger And far away behind their lines, the partisans are stirring in the forest Coming unexpectedly upon their outpost, growing like a promise You'll never know, you'll never know, which way to turn, which way to look you'll never see us As we're stealing through the blackness of the night you'll never know, you'll never hear us
And the evening sings in a voice of amber, the dawn is surely coming The morning road leads to Stalingrad and the sky is softly humming
Two broken tigers on fire in the night Flicker their souls to the wind We wait in the lines for the final approach to begin It's been almost four years that I've carried a gun At home, it will almost be spring The flames of the tigers are lighting the road to Berlin
Ah quickly we move through the ruins that bow to the ground The old men and children they send out to face us, they can't slow us down
And all that I ever Was able to see The eyes of the city are opening now It's the end of the dream
I'm coming home, I'm coming home , now you can taste it in the wind the war is over And I listen to the clicking of the train wheels as we roll across the border And now they ask me of the time when I was caught behind their lines and taken prisoner They only held me for a day, a lucky break I say They turn and listen closer I'll never know, I'll never know, why I was taken from the line with all the others to board a special train and journey deep into the heart of holy Russia
And it's cold and damp in the transit camp and the air is still and sullen and the pale sun of October whispers the snow will soon be coming And I wonder when I'll be home again and the morning answers never And the evening sighs and the steely Russian skies go on forever...
theoriginalmodelguy has it mostly right regarding the lyrics; his take on the state of the post-war Soviet economy is probably the stupidest I've ever seen. Read a few books yourself, modelguy.