Uh, Weekly Song? Episode 22 - Prince

Prince and the Revolution - Mountains (Extended Version)

Hi folks,

Yes, we’re back! “We” being me with the so-called A Weekly Song, now redubbed “Uh, Weekly Song?” on account of the fact that it isn’t any more. I’ll get up to the intended 52 episodes, but it ain’t gonna be weekly.

It being a new year and a new decade, I thought you, dear reader, might need something uplifting. I know I do. I have a friend who marvels at my optimism and general ability to not despair when despair seems an entirely reasonable state-of-mind to embrace. Why am I like that? A lifelong sufferer of depression, I’ve learned many tricks over the years to ward off the dread Black Dog who’ll make a feast of your wellbeing if you let him. Not giving into my own potential pessimism seems to be a side effect of using those tools – and music helps. Music is certainly one of the campfires of civilization that throws out a circle of light to help keep darkness at bay.

Last Thanksgiving 2019, my family and I visited the Hudson Valley in upstate New York, a beautiful part of the world that just happens to feature a fair few record stores in various locations. I found this copy of the 12” single of Mountains by Prince in Rhino Records, New Palz, NY.

When I left the UK to come to live in the USA back in 2009, I boxed up my vinyl record collection into two parts, one intended for storage, the other for a charity shop. Unfortunately, the person who was “helping” me took almost all the boxes to the charity shop and with them went my precious collection of 80s Prince 12” singles, including my original copy of the Mountains 12”. Only a box of cherished super-rare items escaped – all that remains of the music collection of my youth*.

In the 80s, Prince releasing a single was an event. He was kind of the Bowie of the 80s – constantly changing and evolving and putting out an extraordinary run of hit singles and albums, and his singles always had great b-sides. Maybe they were potential album tracks that didn’t quite fit, but their quality was at least a match for the a-side, albeit of an entirely different flavour. Often they were new songs, occasionally they were instrumentals or remixes, but they were always worth having. Additionally, an a-side might be given an extended remix, which was the treatment a couple of singles that hailed from the album Parade received.

If you know and enjoy your Prince, you’ll know Parade, and you’ll know the track Mountains. Here’s the incredibly eighties video on YouTube, complete with blue screen fringing worse than any early seventies Doctor Who special effect.

What you may not have heard, at least recently, is the extended version. The shorter album (and single version) of the song ends at around the 4-minute mark and the song fades. On the 12-inch single, there’s a burst of brass and the track continues into a full-on jazz-funk workout for a further ecstatic five-and-a-half minutes. I won’t try to describe - listen here and crank up the volume. It is one of my favourite Prince tracks, and a cure-all for despondency. Track down a digital version if you can and keep in your own anti-gloom playlist.

I love this track for its sense of optimism and overcoming impossible odds. I don’t really know what it’s about – the lyrics conjure up some oddly mythological imagery – but that’s what I get from it, and I hope you do too.

Here’s to 2020, here’s to the 2020s, here’s to the human race not destroying itself, the planet Earth and all the other life that shares it with us. Impossible optimism, eh? It’s great! Thanks, Prince.

Notes

*I still have my original pressings of New Order’s Blue Monday (bought on the first day of release), Scott Walker’s Scott 3 and 4, some French Nina Simone LPs and a few other rarities. These things matter. What could I do – go and ask the charity shop for the missing items back? That would’ve been horribly churlish. I hope they sold ‘em for loads. Nevertheless, good cause or no, it was something of a bittersweet parting. Fortunately, in the age of the Internet, reacquiring a much-missed track is a very easy thing - more or less the click of a button away.

Which is how most of my Prince collection now exists… as digital downloads, plus a few of my favourites of his 80s albums on vinyl or CD. Archaic formats perhaps, but boy, they sound good.

The b-side of the extended version of Mountains is Alexa de Paris, an opulent instrumental that you can hear here. I’d love to see a collection of all the 80s b-sides released.

Here’s The Revolution doing Mountains live.

Once upon a time in a land called Fantasy

Seventeen mountains stood so high

The sea surrounded them and together they would be

The only thing that ever made you cry

You said the devil told you that another mountain would appear

Every time somebody broke your heart

He said the sea would one day overflow with all your tears

And love will always leave you lonely

I say it's only mountains and the sea

Love will conquer if you just believe (oh, yeah)

It's only mountains

And the sea

There's nothing greater, you and me

Once upon a time in a haystack of despair

Happiness sometime hard to find (yeah)

Africa divided, hijack in the air

It's enough to make you want to lose your mind

I say it's only mountains and the sea

Love…