Top 20 Hills and Mountain songs - PART ONE

Hi Everyone

This week’s theme is top 20 Hills and Mountain songs. I know that in the past, some have commented on my theme inspirations, and this one is no exception. I have just returned from a holiday with my wife, down to Tasmania. Amongst other things, we went to the Fed Cup tennis while we were there. Sitting in the tennis stadium, my seats faced the impressive looking mountains in that area. So that is the reason for the topic. And, you have to let me make one dodgy joke before we start – these are hill songs, not to be confused with Hillsong, the church movement!!!

Ok, onto the list. It’s a top twenty, and will be over two weeks. Here are 20-11.

20 - Big Rock Candy Mountain – Harry McClintock
An old, old song that came to my attention on the “O Brother Were Art Thou?” soundtrack. It is a country song about a hobo’s idea of paradise (eg. In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, The jails are made of tin. And you can walk right out again, As soon as you are in.)

19 - Hamilton Hill – Basement Birds
In earlier posts I have talked about enjoying the Basement Birds album, but this song is interesting because its an instrumental, the only instrumental on their album. When I went to see them live, before they started this song they introduced it by saying to the crowd “if you know the words to this next track, please sing along!”. Funny stuff.

18 - The Mountain – Hoodoo Gurus
This track comes from the Hoodoo Guru’s sixth studio album “Crank”, which contains the well known song “The Right Time”. The last track is a great song, “The Mountain”, which is pretty much exactly what you would expect from the Hoodoo Gurus…power rock, lovely stuff.

17 - Mountain – Chocolate Starfish
Does anyone remember Chocolate Starfish? They were huge for about five minutes in the nineties, having a hit with a cover of “You’re So Vain”, and also this song, “Mountain”, a great ballad. My wife recently picked up a 90’s compilation CD and we rediscovered this track. Great song.

16 - Its All Downhill from Here – Paul Kelly
From Kelly’s excellent “Comedy” album, I have often wondered if this song was autobiographical or not. The lyrics might indicate that its about struggling to adjust with being famous: “I was taught not to speak to strangers, But strangers always seemed to know my name, And they bought and sold my pleasure, my disgust and my shame.” But maybe I am on completely the wrong tram with that hypothesis.

15 - Lone Pine Hill – Justin Townes Earle
I was given Justin Townes Earle’s album “The Good Life” last year, and I really enjoy it. It’s a country album, containing a host of tracks that sound like they are old country standards, although most were actually written by Earle. This one is described by allmuisc.com as a “period gunman’s saga”.

14 - High on a Mountain Top – Loretta Lynn
I discussed Lynn’s “Van Lear Rose” in an earlier post, and this is another from that album, which was produced by Jack White from the White Stripes. This is probably a more traditional country sounding song than many others on the album, very enjoyable though.

13 - Misty Mountain Hop – Led Zeppelin
Some people may be shocked that this classic rock track is only #13 on my list, but the truth is, I actually don’t know the song very well. Led Zep IV has been on my must get albums list for some time, but I have just never got around to it. To be honest with you, I am not exactly sure where I have heard this song, probably on the radio, maybe at a friend’s place. Probably with more listens, it would shoot much higher up on the list.

12 - Mountain Dew – The Pogues
A traditional Irish folk song, this version was a bonus track on their album “If I should fall from grace with god”, the song is actually an ode to a drink (“But give me enough of the rare old stuff, That's made near Galway Bay, Come gougers all from Donegal, Sligo and Leitrim too, We'll give them the slip and we'll take a sip, Of the real old mountain dew.) For another piece of trivia, the classic Pogues song “Fairytale of New York” makes mention of this traditional Irish folk song (“And then he sang a song, The Rare Auld Mountain Dew, I turned my face away, And dreamed about you.”)

11 - Ain’t No Mountain High Enough – Jimmy Barnes
Ok, I know I have committed a big sin by including the Aussie rockers version on the list, and not the original Motown version, but the truth is that I am more familiar with Barnesy’s version, and he does a good enough job with it. The first concert I ever went to was Jimmy Barnes for his “Soul Deep” tour, which was where he covered all these great soul tracks.


So there is part one, the top ten is coming up next week. To give you a bit of a hint, there are six hills, and four mountains in the top ten. Six songs are by Aussies, two Brits, and two Americans. One group appears twice in the top ten.

As always, feel free to leave your questions, criticisms, comments, thoughts or suggestions…