Great Rock/Metal Albums of 1985: Mountain- Go for Your Life

Here’s another example of how radio can be misleading. When it was announced locally that Mountain would be supporting Canadian greats Triumph, local radio started playing their most well known hit, “Mississippi Queen.” The result was many people like me thought it was a brand new single from their latest album, “Go For Your Life.” It was only when I got the album and the big single was missing from it, I learned that “Mississippi Queen” was released in 1970. Maybe it was a ploy to get people to buy the album, I don’t know. What I do know is “Mississippi Queen” was a fantastic song in 1970,  again in 1985 and it still rocks today.

This means that the multi-million dollar question here is: Does the album stand up on its own? My answer is a definite yes! It might have been fifteen years since they recorded that big single and eleven since their previous album but their sound hadn’t changed much. The only ‘modern’ sounding track, at least for 1985, was “Spark” because it begins with a bit of synthesizer before it becomes a radio ready blues charged rock song. Why this song was never released as a single totally baffles me.

As for the rest of “Go for Your Life,” it is a pure mean hard rocking album. While, I wouldn’t quite call it heavy metal, though many did back then, there are a lot of tracks here that simply cook. In fact, once again, I have found it difficult to pick a favourite track because there is something about each one. Leslie West shows he can do some very exciting things with his guitar and there are some very interesting riffs throughout. One that should be noted is “Shimmy on the Footlights.” However, they can change things up as well as noted in the blues based “I Love Young Girls.” Of course, if a band put out a song with that title these days, there would be a police investigation. Another point of note is the closing track, the short but near ballad like “Little Bit of Insanity” which was in memory of former band member Felix Pappalardi, who was shot and killed by his ex wife in 1983. The track does complete what was for me a surprisingly good album.

Track Listing:

1. Hard Times
2. Spark
3. She Loves Her Rock (And She Loves it Hard)
4. Bardot Damage
5. Shimmy On the Footlights
6. I Love Young Girls
7. Makin’ It In Your Car
8. Babes in the Woods
9. Little Bit of Insanity

Mountain

Leslie West- guitar, vocals

Mark Clarke- bass

Corky Laing- drums

Additional Musicians

Chuck Kirkpatrick- backing vocals

Eric Johnson- synthesizer on “Spark”

Miller Anderson- slide guitar on “Makin’ It In Your Car

Listen and decide if this song would have made a decent single

Thought I’d throw in the 1970 classic for good measure

Every time I listen to “Go For Your Life,” I ask myself, why wasn’t Mountain bigger than what they were? As the album proves, they certainly had the chops to do so. I wish I had gone to see them when they supported Triumph. That would have been a great concert to have written about in “Rock and Roll Children.”

Next post: Venom- Possessed

To download Rock and Roll Children, go to: https://fkidshelves.ml/print/free-download-rock-and-roll-children-by-michael-d-lefevre-pdf.html