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."
Hangman, we played rubber soul with a razor blade
Behind the church, hiding place,
It was a long joke 'til the punch line came.
Can you read my mind, read my mind
Follow along to the end of the song
Hangman, we played double dutch with a hand grenade
Behind the church, hiding place.
Apathetic to the devil's face.
Wear the sheriff's badge put your toys away
They let us go saying let us pray
Hangman, we played hide and seek on the fire escape
Through the smoke we saw the flame
It was a long wait 'til the firetruck came
On the count of three
Jump with me on the count of three
One two one two three go!
Hangman, we played blind man's bluff with the ninth brigade
Throw the brick through the windowpane,
Double dutch 'til they stop the game,
'Til the cops show up, hand cuff stunned
They let us go but we lost one
Hangman ,we played blind man's bluff 'til they stopped the game
Youth without youth, born without time,
Youth without youth, can you read my mind?
Behind the church, hiding place,
It was a long joke 'til the punch line came.
Can you read my mind, read my mind
Follow along to the end of the song
Hangman, we played double dutch with a hand grenade
Behind the church, hiding place.
Apathetic to the devil's face.
Wear the sheriff's badge put your toys away
They let us go saying let us pray
Hangman, we played hide and seek on the fire escape
Through the smoke we saw the flame
It was a long wait 'til the firetruck came
On the count of three
Jump with me on the count of three
One two one two three go!
Hangman, we played blind man's bluff with the ninth brigade
Throw the brick through the windowpane,
Double dutch 'til they stop the game,
'Til the cops show up, hand cuff stunned
They let us go but we lost one
Hangman ,we played blind man's bluff 'til they stopped the game
Youth without youth, born without time,
Youth without youth, can you read my mind?
Lyrics submitted by dustybreeze
Youth Without Youth Lyrics as written by James Shaw Emily Haines
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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---Excerpts from Emily and Jimmy's commentary on this song--- soundcloud.com/metric-band/youth-without-youth-commentary
Emily: It started as just one verse - a story, a very slow, sad story about the decaying social state through the eyes of a depraved child. The song developed into several verses, which captured the growth of this child, the evolution of this child into a teenager who goes from playing simple children’s games to smashing a window with a brick and getting arrested, and being in handcuffs. So it seems to be oddly timely with the general sense of malaise and discontent, so it's kind of one those songs that wrote itself.
Jimmy: We wanted to express some sort of form of anger and resentment, and the feeling of being pissed off because you don't get to experience the youth that maybe you should feel entitled to.
Emily: Sonically, we went for kind of a seventies sleaze. It’s always a good way to disguise any kind of political statement.
Jimmy: Or morose sadness.
Together, they advise to forget the rather cynical content of the song when listening to it and to "get into the seventies sleaze. The Gary glitter beat. Put on a tank top. Put some gel in your hair. Hit the town. Dance around. Have fun."
Gotta love these two. :)
Thanks Lady! Yes, you noted that there was kind of timely evolution of a person's point of view..., yeah..:)...
So at first it seems as if they played hangman using a rubber soul (like a shoe) and a razor blade... this seems awkward. the Hangman refrain is repeated in every main verse.... and they are playing other games. there is no game called rubber soul that I have ever heard of or could find on google.
But my very first thought was, what if, in their childish innocence, tried playing the Beatles LP Rubber Soul with a razor blade, trying to mimic a record player's needle.
Can you imagine? That is the kind of secret children would keep, ruining a valuable album like that.
Double dutch is a game with two skip ropes and what you do is use 2 jump ropes and jump over both of them while you skip what it is meaning the to play double dutch with a hand grenade is reffering to the military.
playing blind mans bluff on the fire escape means to be a fireman
basically song means what its called youth with out youth
ok i meant hide and seek on the fire escape im sorry i mis interpretted that but still your still playing hideand seek in smoke when your a frie manno one can see you <br /> <br /> blind mans bluff with the fire bregade again a soldier thing
They won't ruin their careers by telling you what the song is about or they wrote it high and don't understand what their subconscious minds delivered. Most likely the latter.
The hangman is sung in a similar manner to "Anna Molly" by Incubus. Anna Molly or Anomaly?
Hangman, hey man or hymen?
"Hangman we played rubber soul with a razor blade"
Hangman is a coat hanger and an abortionist, the rubber soul is a condom and the blade is an allegory for murder and destroying one's rubber (relative morality) soul.
"It was a long joke till the punch line came."
A long joke is a penis, and then it came.
"Hangman we played double dutch with a hand grenade"
Once again the hangman is both an abortionist and a coat hanger.
Double dutch is not just a rope game. It is slang regarding using a condom and the pill at the same time to prevent pregnancy. The fact that they were using a hand grenade means there was no protection.
"They let us go but we lost one"
She lost a child as it got torn to pieces by a mass murdering hangman (abortionist/coat hanger).
"Can you read my mind?"
This song equates abortion with murder. Whether it was a conscious decision or drug influenced is unknown but the deeper meaning is in there.
For this song to be secretly equating abortion as murder is highly unlikely in my opinion because Emily Haines publicly supported charities that advocate the woman’s right to choose. “Rubber Soul” refers to the Beatles album, not a condom.
It’s about a group of depraved kids living in a decaying society. As they grow up, their twisted “games” begin causing harm to the rest of society. It also seems that through the years, one of their friends died as a result of their carelessness, or maybe police brutality (“they let us go but we lost one”). What the song is saying is that society’s nature is self-sustaining; the kids are influenced by the surrounding calamity, and eventually become the ones causing it, even for themselves. What this could mean in relation to the title is that we should all embrace the inner youthful optimism in ourselves more, because if we try to be muscle-heads, it might just rob children of their lives.
I take “Hangman” to mean they are telling this story as a sort of defense to someone judging them, like a sentencing hearing. Hangman being the title of someone who is prejudice from the get go and only looking to punish without empathy.
I agree “rubber soul” possibly Beatles reference. If I remember correctly, that album title came from the Stones as a sort of dig on their previous work maybe trying to be soulful without any real context behind it. I take this to mean as youth they were pushing their limits in the name of fun, until the games resulted in real consequences. Playing a rubber album with a razor blade; rubber is tough but the blade will cut eventually. Eventually you reap what you soul, if you are playing with life so callously it will catch up to you. Possible drug connotations, like people dabbling think it won’t catch up with them but it always does. Or possibly just the dumb things kids do for fun that would be criminal if older and caught.
The next verses similar motif but just escalating as the kids grow. Until “blind man’s bluff with the ninth brigade”. The angst sort of seams to be becoming more focused into legitimate protest, culminating at the very height into going directly against authority at the expense of being arrested and seeing loved ones perish.
The repetition of some of the games from the earlier verses seams to bring the whole story home, in that they are pleading for mercy from the hangman because they were youth deprived of opportunity and left to their own devices to find some of entertainment that the more privileged would associate with being young. I think of my youth how at times there was flirtation with rebellion and lawlessness, but being a bit more privileged provided more wholesome means to enjoy my childhood. Not everyone has that.