The OCD Chronicles: Rainbow-"Man On The Silver Mountain"

Here’s a riddle: what do you get when you’re a wheel, the sun, black, white, the day and the night?
Answer: you get “The Man Of The Silver Mountain.”
Look, nobody said that Ronnie James Dio was a poet. In fact, the guy has a tendency to use a lot of the same imagery over and over. While most people would be content with writing one song about rainbows, Ronnie has written a couple (“Rainbow In The Dark” and “Catch The Rainbow.”). In fact, Ronnie joined up with awesome Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore and formed a fucking band called Rainbow.
And right out of the gate, the duo wrote a song about an imaginary dude whose name everyone screams and who needs to be made holy again.
I have two versions of this song: the original studio album version that everyone’s familiar with and the eleven-minute long live version from On Stage.
It was Brad Company that introduced me to this version, presumably over a few hits of weed some night. That’s really the only way one can fully appreciate Ronnie James Dio’s improvisational wordplay at the end of the track.
You see, it’s a medley, beginning with “Man On The Silver Mountain” until it slows down until Ritchie breaks out a slow blues piece. RJD comes back in and the band breaks into an up-tempo rocker about a bad luck woman that’s “starstruck.” Dio reaches the end of that song and then begins to croon about how we all need some love.
Unexpectedly, Dio then changes gears and then starts singing how he’s the man….you’re the man…hell, we’re all the man on the silver mountain!
It’s as fine a piece of nonsensical vocal scatting as you’ll ever hear and ranks just behind the Guess Who’s drunken ramblings of roast beef.
As stupid as the lyrics to “Man On The Silver Mountain may be, they do speak the truth. The song is good enough that it certainly does “lift your spirit higher.”

Check out the badass rainbow lighting rig they used during Rainbow's 1977 tour.

Speaking of badass: that badass on drums is none other than the late Cozy Powell.

Speaking of dumbass: that dumbass on keyboards is none other than future Planet P Project founder Tony Corey. If you'd like to see to see some passionate comments from Tony Carey fans calling me a dumb-ass, please check out one of Glam-Racket's most popular reviews: Planet P Project's Pink World.