Shadows On The Mountainside
Background
The haunting composition emerged as one of several treasured gems from The Edges Of Twilight that The Tea Party introduced it to their audience a full year before the album hit shelves. The atmospheric piece first hit the airwaves in April 1994 during an intimate live performance on Australia's Triple J radio station. In August 1994 the band played a 2 set gig at Germany's WDR Rockpalast of which Shadows On The Moiuntainside was one. During live renditions, the band occasionally expanded the composition with an additional verse—one that listeners would not find on the studio recording.
The extra verse goes:
Arm in arm this ancient river flows
and it's twisted through the stangest life I've known
Bert Jansch and John Renbourn served as significant inspirations for many of Tea Party's acoustic compositions, including 'Shadows On The Mountainside' the beginning of which directly reproduces Renbourn's track 'The Hermit'.
At live gigs, Jeff Martin often tells the story of how he and the band drove through the Canadian Rocky Mountains for the first time during the Splendor Solis Tour after taking mushrooms from a fan. It was under the influence of drugs that he got the inspiration for the song.
The Wbsters Falls where the video was shot.
Shadows On The Moundside was released as a promo single in Australia. The band also shot a video with director Jeff Renfrew at Websters Falls in Dundas (Canada), which was never shown on the Canadian music channel 'Much Music', but appeared for the first time on the Alhambra EP, which had a multimedia part.
Releases
Promo (Australia)
01. Shadows on the Mountainside
Label: EMI - CDRP 334
Format: CD, Single, Promo
Released: 1995
video
Band commentary on the video
Bands Commentary