Mountain's end

July 2^nd – Of course, rock-song recordings often have a profound meaning; the lyrics, the phrasing, the work of the musicians in portraying for the listener the emotive, dynamic proposition of the song…but there are also rock-song recordings where the bulk of the music is OK or just passable but which contain a single vocal phrasing or single, sometimes repeated, musical anecdote that startles and makes the recording stick in the memory. Oftentimes these are referred to as the hook and, like a series of lines strung together at the outset of a book or a series of images seen at the opening of a film, this is the doorway in.

I remember being in Sligo, touring a show. On a day off I went to see the film, Intermission, saw it about a month before it went out on general release…why is that? I mean, why do they use Sligo as a try-out area? You can see movies there that don’t come out for months afterwards…I mean, months… Anyway, Intermission; anybody? That opening? In a chemist’s was it? A shop of some sorts anyhow. That’s the kind of hook I’m referring to.

An ending to a song, like the ending to book or film, is one of the most important decisions you’ll ever make as a creator. It can work for or against; cases in point and as an echo of yesterday’s guff.

End of LOTR film 3? Too long, too downbeat? Right empathy? Correct closure?

End of ‘Usual Suspects’? Spot on? Too revelatory for its own good?

Endings to songs were no different. Any self-respecting band in the 60’s/70’s looked at and listened to the best in the business and stole. It’s a hard thing to do, the live performance fade out. It can leave the whole band looking and feeling foolish as the music fades to an uncertain close and the audience give a smattering of insecure applause; nothing worse.

Endings for Performers; first things first. These can be a series of endings (comedy punch lines) or a series of red herrings in a mystery or the closing of a piece of music or theatre. Think of the audience as a flock of stray sheep, you are their sheepdog and it’s up to you to show them where the pen (ending) is; drive them to it by any circuitous route you like but, in the end, they have to go into the pen; the ending is when you close the gate to that pen (signal for applause/laughter/shock/gasp/whatever).

Many of the bands around at the time (60/70) got the abrupt, single chord ending off to a tea; simple, obvious, overstated ending;

‘Now we’re playing’ (no applause)…‘Now we’re not’ (applause). Thank you. Next number. Off we go. ‘Now we’re playing’ (no applause, step and repeat).

It was Mountain (band not geological feature) however who penned the sheep the best on their recording of Nantucket Sleighride. The tune is, by all standards, a cracker, I think, but it’s the ending that clinches it. Anyone remember the politics show, Weekend World? That’s the tune that was used as the ending, and you knew exactly where you stood in the position of that programme when they played it; you were at the end.

Felix Pappalardi (the family-sized man whom Mountain were named after) was their bass guitarist and writer of the song, Great Big Tits. He was shot and killed by his wife, Gail in 1983. Now, was this possibly because she felt either threatened or embarrassed by having or not having the aforementioned large appendages; who knows? (Pure conjecture there, sorry; need to know when to end…)……….