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The Story Of Billy The Mountain
The Mothers of Invention
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๐ฌ๐ง English ยท Original
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Lyrics
Original
Translation
Bilingual
Thank you
All right
Hey, shut up
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I just wanna tell you something about the next piece we're gonna play
Because it's got a complicated plot
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We're gonna tell you the story of Billy the Mountain now
Billy is a nice mountain that lives in California
In the middle of the Mojave Desert between the two towns of Rosamond and Gorman
And he lives there with his wife, Ethel
Ethel is a tree growing off of his shoulder
And he's lived in the desert for many, many years
And during that time, he's been ripped off by the commercial establishment
You know how they are, those motherfuckers, always ripping you off
Oh, power to the mountains!
Right, right (free Ethel!)
So, this mountain
They've been ripping him off by taking pictures of him, you know
And using it for postcards and stuff
And he had lost all faith in the commercial establishment
Until one day, a man in a checkered suit drove up in a Lincoln Continental
And laid a huge bulging envelope at the corner of Billy the Mountain
Right where his foot is supposed to be
And in the envelope was his royalties for all of those postcards he had posed for
Now, let me backtrack a little bit so that you can project into this better
You have to imagine what Billy looks like
He's shaped like this
He goes up, over, a little lump there, down, a little hunch on this side, out that way, and down
There's his foot over here
Ethel grows off of his shoulder right over there
Little branches stick up like that
Billy has two big caves for eyes, and he has his jaw, which is a cliff, and it sticks out in the front
And whenever he talks, the cliff goes up and down about 30 feet, and dust and boulders hack out of it
So this will help you to imagine what's going on
So what happens when Billy finds out that he's got his royalties
He tells his nice wife Ethel that they are finally gonna take a vacation
And he proceeds to walk from California to New York
Destroying most of the United States in the process
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But our story isn't one of total destruction, of course
Because it's-, we have a little social commentary in there, too
Because you always have to put those things in
And when he gets just outside of Columbus, Ohio
He gets a notice to report for an induction physical
And so his wife says she wouldn't let him go (I'll not let you go, Billy)
And he spews up some boulders and covers up the draft notice
And he thinks nobody is gonna care, you know, that he doesn't wanna join the Army
But the government finds out about it, and they're really pissed off
So they figure the best way to deal with him is instead of sending in the National Guard
They're gonna send a superhero of the current economic slump
A very wonderful person that you'll meet later
His name is Studebaker Hawk
And they send Studebaker Hawk flying to New York to reason with the rampaging mountain
I won't tell you what happens in the end, but here's the overture to Billy the Mountain
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