Album:    Laughs,
Giraffes & Epitaphs

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Composer:   Ed Hooke
Date of Composition/Copyright:   1987
Date of Recording:    1994-1995

Commentary
Back to being an impressionable schoolboy for the origins of this song.  Tales of Pompei, a city buried under the ash of  the erupting volcano Vesuvius.  The theme and structure of this song are similar to those of Clocks, Cobwebs & Chalk - both feature 'flashbacks' - or 'flashforwardses',depending on how you choose to look at them.

Musically this song features "a swarm of Bs" in the "the higher they climb" section, as well as a snippet from a certain national anthem which suggests an alternative historical context.

We have conquered Rumble Mountain.

Fine cloth and sweet wines have we.

- shaped and fashioned precious metals

- trained the land and tamed the sea.

Thus read the inscriptions in books

on shelves in houses in the dead town

where dwelt the people now forgotten

since Rumble Mountain shook them down.

 Glittering treasures we have gathered

- sown seeds and reaped from the fields

- coined the faces of our leaders

- suckled young with honey and cream.

Such words emblazoned stone tablets

and torn papyrus found in the buried town

of a long past civilisation

since Rumble Mountain shook them down.

And the higher we climb the nearer comes the sky.

World history archivers will marvel at this hour.

We stand outside the shadows cast by heads that shake and sigh.

Such bountiful harvests do produce a few grapes that are sour.

Nature learned to be our servant.

Her offerings we graciously receive.

The rumbles of our humble mountain

serve to fanfare all that we achieve.

These faded impressions adorned

the walls in streets in what was once a town.

Whoever dwelt there is long forgotten now

since Rumble Mountain shook them down.