Words by Emily Rigz.
Hello world! Thanks for taking some time out to read this story! I really do mean that :)
I released a single and video clip a few weeks ago called Big Scary Mountain. I personally love hearing the story behind people’s songs so I’m going to share what this song’s about with you, if you like.
Last month, when Emily Rigz shared Big Scary Mountain, we were immediately entranced. So we asked her to share the story behind the track.
Big Scary Mountain is about turning around and saying “fuck you!” to everything and everyone in your life who has tried to keep you trodden down for their own personal needs and insecurities.
The idea of a big scary mountain is something I took out of the Bible, of all weird places (Mount Sinai, if you’re interested, just Google it). Because I came from a very religious background, for me, religion (and a lot of religious people) was the thing that needed to keep me trodden down and my voice shut up.
I think everyone has a big scary mountain; something you are getting fed up with having a certain amount of control over your life, something you also feel powerless to change.
I was raised in a very religious and conservative Christian denomination. This came with a whole ton of restrictions on who I had to be. I had to enjoy the company of only the other people in the church, I had to choose a man (yes, only a man for a woman in an extremely homophobic environment) to marry from the church, I was discouraged from having any friends outside of the church, reading any philosophical or science related books that hadn’t come from within this particular denomination.
This is really just the tip of the iceberg and I’ll try not to go on and on forever with the details. Anyway, I ended up leaving this particular denomination and joining a smaller but waaay worse religious cult. These days were not pretty; my lifestyle was controlled extremely and I was savagely mentally unwell. I could write a book about this time of my life. It took me a long time to recover.
This was the big scary mountain in my life. The thing I thought I could never conquer. Not just the extreme things I had experienced but this belief I had that I could never actually just be who I am because of my religion (spoiler: who I am is radically different from the typical, conservative Christian wife of the 1950’s).
Fast forward about 7 years. I’m sitting in my lounge room with my 12 string and mucking around with riffs. As I’m playing, this song comes out of nowhere and it’s loaded with the aggression I feel at taking that big scary mountain from my life and lighting it on fucking fire!
If you want to watch the clip you can also read the lyrics in the subtitles.
You can find me on Facebook as well if you’d like to be part of this creative journey with me and the amazing people I work with. Thanks for reading.
Big Scary Mountain is available now. Watch the video above.
