our mother the mountain | Through the Shattered Lens

Townes Van Zandt lived a troubled life, characterized by constant alcoholism, drug abuse, and failed relationships. He finally passed away of heart failure in a state of delirium tremens on January 1, 1997, at the age of 52, cryptically 44 years to the day after the death of perhaps his greatest influence, Hank Williams, under similar circumstances. As a song writer his music was inconsistent, but at his finest moments he tapped into his inner demons with an acute awareness that he was living more in dream than reality. He created his own folklore both in life and in song. The latter was quite deliberate, emerging sometimes from scratch and sometimes with attention to older legends. Narrated in the first person, always at night, bridging a gap between sleep and consciousness, he painted strikingly vivid images of personal confrontations with foul spirits and terrifying monsters physically imbued with emotional states which could never take on material form outside of a dream, or a song.

To call Spider Song a metaphor would do it a disservice. Of course it is about overcoming some inner demon, whatever that may be, and yes, through the battle against the spider we gain some insight into Van Zandt’s personal struggles, but that’s trivial. He’s not just beating that old dead horse again. The spider begins “in his dreams”, and at no point does it definitively leave them, yet the song is structured in such a way that Van Zandt’s dreams come to characterize more and more a real, physical monster encountered collectively by the narrator and the audience. What you get is a subtle transition from a nearly explicit metaphor (it’s in his dreams) to, by the end, momentary belief that a real, heroic, pitched battle against a giant spider is about to ensue. You don’t fully forget that the spider originated as a sort of representation of emotional states of fear, depression, or whatever you read into the first few stanzas of the song, but nevertheless here it stands, a menacing physical object. No, this song should not be regarded as a metaphor. Rather, our recognition of metaphor is employed to, over time, trick the senses into visualizing something supernatural.

Our Mother The Mountain is laden with hints at the supernatural from the outset: The woman’s esoteric claim to have come from her mother the mountain, her mysterious medallion, the refrain “singing tu-a-lu-ra-lai-o” with an emphasis on “lu-ra-lai”… “Lorelei”… The music feels like a dream, and the lyrics too, until the narrator stops observing the dream and tries to interact, reaching for her hand. The woman’s response is a manifest nightmare–a completely nonsensical appeal to pure foreboding terror captured in her physical actions. The narrator never sees her again, but he swears that it wasn’t just a dream, and as the listener you can’t help but believe him.

Spider Song

There is a spider in my dreams
Long and silent is his name
Cold as lightning is his smile
Final is his sting

His curse is deep as seven skies
Boys, I wouldn’t tell you lies
The legends say he never sleeps
and he’s never hungry long

He’s got us boys, I believe it’s true
But I’m fighting til he lays me down
Run his foul black body through
Cleave him all asunder

Think of your women, won’t you boys
Think of your mother growing old
Think about your darling son
Spit in the spider’s eye

Up at ease, against him ride
We’ll not take him by surprise
Give a scream down in your dreams
Let him know we’re coming

There is a spider in my dreams
Long and silent is his name
Cold as lightning is his smile
Final is his sting

Our Mother The Mountain

My lover comes to me with a rose on her bosom
The moon’s dancing purple all through her black hair
And her lady’s-in-waiting, she’ll stand ‘neath my window
And the sun will rise soon on the false and the fair
Singing tu-a-lu-ra-lai-o

She tells me she comes from My Mother The Mountain
And her skin fits her tightly, and her lips do not lie
She silently slips from her throat a medallion
Slowly she twirls it in front of my eyes
Singing tu-a-lu-ra-lai-o

I watch her, I love her, and I long for to touch her
The satin she’s wearing is shimmering blue
And outside my window her ladies are sleeping
My dogs are gone hunting; their howling is through
Singing tu-a-lu-ra-lai-o

So I reach for her hand, and her eyes turn to poison
And her hair turns to splinters, and her flesh turns to brine
She leaps ‘cross the room. She stands in the window
and screams that my first-born will surely be blind.
Singing tu-a-lu-ra-lai-o

Then she throws herself out to the black of the nightfall
She’s parted her lips, but she makes not a sound
I fly down the stairway and I run to the garden
No trace of my true love is there to be found
Singing tu-a-lu-ra-lai-o

So walk these hills lightly, and watch who you’re loving
By Mother The Mountain I swear that it’s true
And love not a woman with hair black as midnight
and a dress made of satin all shimmering blue
Singing tu-a-lu-ra-lai-o