“Three Days”
by Jane’s Addiction
from the album Ritual de lo Habitual
1990
Buy the album on Amazon

The first song that came to mind when Chris picked Power Songs as this month’s theme was “Three Days.”  Last year, while prepping for my move to Texas, I found a big cache of MiniDisc mixes I had assembled back in the late 90s.  One of the cover labels read Epix of Rök.  At the center of that mix was this almost eleven-minute monster of a song.  So I’m going on record and saying that “Three Days” is a Power Epic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Bg5oZnkN5I

I skipped over this song when I first got the album because it was just so slow and weird at the beginning.  Over time I caught bits and pieces of Jane’s songs in the background and thought  oh that’s neat and oh, I like that. But then I could never find the song.  Eventually I was in the room when “Three Days” played out in its entirety and it floored me.  All those riffs and rhythyms and lyrics where in one song.  The Song.

“Three Days” is like a damn orchestral piece with individual movements, so it hits you with not one, or two, but five power punches.  At 3:20 into the song Perry starts laying it out:

True hunting is over.
No herds to follow.
Without game, men prey on each other.
The family weakens by the bite we swallow…

True leaders gone,
Of land and people.
We choose no kin but adopted strangers.
The family weakens by the length we travel…

All of us with wings…
All of us with wings…
All of us with wings!
All of us with wings!
All of us with wings!
All of us with wings!

…all the while Eric Avery and Stephen Perkins are laying down this almost tribal bass and drum groove with Dave Navarro coming in to  lay down a killer guitar solo.  And you’re like well fuck yeah man.  Nailed it.  Guess we’re done here.

Then he does another solo.  Fuck.

Then Perkins comes in and just starts beating the shit out of his kit and you’re like.  Okay.

And then at 7:08 on the nose they start building back up again. I thought they were done.  What are they building to… what’s going on?

Erotic Jesus

Fuck

..with his Marys.
Loves his Marys.
Bits of puzzle,
Fitting each other.

At 8:14 you get a reprieve from the pummeling.  The song is coming to an end.

Wait.

What the fuck is happening?

Why are they building up again?

Oh my Marys!
Never wonder…
Night is shelter
For nudity’s shiver…All now with wings…

Fuck me.

Now, one, two, three, four

Oh, we’re all fucked now.  He’s counting down.

And then Dave lays down another blistering solo. Indeed, fucking all of us.  And then it’s over.

Or maybe I’ll listen to it one more time.

Bonus Live Clip: With Flea on bass, but still pretty epic.