The Story Of Billy The Mountain

FZ: Thank you! Alright. Hey! Shut up. It's just I wanna tell you something about the next piece we're gonna play because it's got a complicated plot. 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 Ethell. Ethell 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 . . . Eh. Oh. Power to the mountains! Right.

Mark: Free yourself!

FZ: Right. So, this mountain uh, they w— They've been ripping him off by taking pictures of him, you know, and using him for postcards and stuff. And he'd 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'd posed for. Now let me backtrack a little bit so 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 the side, out of that way. And down. It's his foot over here. Ethell grows out 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 thirty feet and dust and boulders hack out of it. So this'll help you to imagine what's going on. So what happens when Billy finds out that he's got his royalties is that he tells his nice wife Ethell 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 . . . But our story isn't one of total destruction of course, because we have a little social commentary in there too 'cause you always have to put those things in. And when they— When he gets just outside of Columbus, Ohio, he gets a notice to report for an induction physical. And so uh, his wife says she wouldn't let him go.

Howard: "I won't let you go, Billy!"

FZ: And he spews up some boulders and cow— and covers up the draft notice. And he thinks nobody has— it was gonna care, you know, that he doesn't want to 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 Hoch. And they send Studebaker Hoch 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."

Recordings

• The Mothers 1971