29) Ain't No Mountain High Enough - Part 4

Hello and welcome to another episode of Learning English with Lyrics, I am your host Jake, and today we are finally wrapping up our breakdown of the song "Ain't No Mountain High Enough", performed by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. If this is your first time listening to this podcast, it's nice to meet you! Sort of. One very quick note: before you listen to this episode, I would highly recommend going back and listening to an earlier episode titled "Introduction" before continuing today's episode. It gives a quick explanation of how this podcast works, and will help you as you listen. To everyone else, welcome back! If you haven't listened to Parts 1, 2, and 3 of this series, I'd recommend going back and listening to them before continuing.

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Alright, enough talk, let's finish this thing up!

Today's episode is going to be a little bit different than usual. The song ends on a series of back and forths between our two singers. There are a lot of little phrases here and it's going to feel a bit disjointed and maybe a little bit random, but we're  going to work through them one at a time, pretty quickly. A lot of these phrases are very simple, so we're not going to spend a lot of time on each one, especially since we have quite a few to cover today. For our new listeners, this isn't normally how the podcast goes, but I think it will still be a valuable time together.

We have a  transcript for every episode, and for this one in particular, I recommend having it front of you as you listen. It's going to help you follow along as we're jumping from line to line fairly quickly.

Alright, in the next line, one of our singers says "Oh no darling!". This is simply him insisting once again that, there ain't no mountain high enough to keep him from getting to her! We won't spend any more time on that line.

This next series of lines says "No wind, no rain..." and then something I can't quite make out, that is, I don't really know what she's saying here. I checked on lyrics sites to find out what exactly the lyrics are, and they all say different things. I'm not really sure what I'm hearing so...I don't know. In another version of the song, the singer says "winter's cold", so we'll say that's what's correct. Whether she says "no" or "nor" is unclear, but we will choose the one that fits grammatically. Which one do you think it is? "No winter's cold" or "nor winter's cold"? No wind...no rain...the correct answer is......."No winter's cold!". The reason? Well, for one it matches the sequence. "No wind, no rain, no winter's cold."  But, actually to use the word "nor" we actually need to use the word "neither" before it.  We would have to say something like, "Neither rain, nor winter's cold". Since we don't have the word "Neither" anywhere, we'll assume she said "no".

So, once again, this is just one of our singers listing things that won't keep them apart. "No wind, no rain, no winter's cold" is just a shortened way of saying "There is no wind, no rain, no winter's cold". There is no wind, no rain, no winter's cold...to do what? Well the implication is the same as everything else in this song. There are none of these things that can "keep me from getting to you babe."

The prhase "Winter's cold" might sound a bit strange maybe, but it's simply the possessive form of "winter" and the word cold. So it's the cold that belongs to winter. Basically, it's saying it's the particular type of cold that belongs exclusively to winter. Extreme cold!

The next line, "Can't stop me baby" is a separate phrase, disconnected from our previous three lines. Why do we say that? Well, this goes back to what we talked about a few episodes again. We also want to avoid having a double negative. In this case, we don't want say "There is no wind that can't stop me". That would mean that ANY wind can stop them, which is the exact opposite thing that the song is trying to say. If we wanted to connect them together, we'd need to change one half of it. Either "The wind can't stop me" or "There is no wind that can stop me." Either one works, but it's the second one that fits our song's meaning better.

So, we'll just assume that "Can't stop me baby" is just a standalone phrase that is just another emphasis on nothing being able to stop them. Easy stuff!

Then one of our singers says "Cause you are my goal!". This one is again, pretty straightforward. "Cause" is of course a shortening of the word "Because" and a goal is simply an objective. Something you are trying to get to or achieve. So "Because you are my objective."

Now we get into some fun phrases.

The next two lines say "If you're ever in trouble, I'll be there on the double."

What does it mean to "be there on the double"? "On the double" is an idiom that comes from the military. It means to march two times faster. So, if someone will be there "on the double" that means they will get there as fast as they can. It can also be used as a command. For example, if you tell your child to get ready to go, and they are moving slowly, you could say "On the double!". That would tell them that you want them to move faster!

The next line says "Just send for me". To "send" for someone is kind of a confusing phrase. Normally, when we talk about sending something or someone, that means that we are having it or them delivered TO someone. For example, if I send a letter to you, the letter will be delivered to you.

To send FOR someone means that you want that person to come to where you are. This phrase is just a bit old-fashioned. The idea is that you are sending someone, a servant or a messenger, to notify the other person that you want them to come to where you are. Obviously in the modern day, it seems strange to have someone in between your message and the person you want to send it to. Rarely do we have a situation where you would send for someone anymore. But it's good to know this phrase, because you will see it in literature quite a bit, and might even hear it on shows and movies.

Next we have the lines "My love is alive, way down in my heart, although we are miles apart". "My love is alive" is just a poetic way of saying that their love is active, it's passionate, it still exists! If their love was dead, that would mean it doesn't exist anymore. This is followed by the line "Way down in my heart". The heart is the center of someone...their core. Their deepest place. This is the place where someone's most valuable and precious things are stored.

"Down" in someone's heart can describe a further depth. Not only IN their heart, but DOWN in their heart. So a deep place within their deepest place. OR it could just be saying that since the heart is a deep place, that to store something in there means that it is stored "down" or "deep down"

The word "way" here is an intensifier. It intensifies or amplifies the word it's attached to. "Way down" means really far down. I wouldn't say it's old-fashioned, but there are really only certain words and phrases it's used with nowadays. "Way down", "Way far away", "Way cool", "Way out of left field"...I'll let you research that last one on your own.

The next few lines say "If you ever need a helping hand, I'll be there on the double, just as fast as I can." What exactly is a "helping" hand? Well, to give someone a hand, or a helping hand, means that you simply do something that helps someone. In this case, if someone needs a helping hand, that means they need someone to do something to help them. It's just another way to say that you need someone to help you. We've already talked about "on the double", and the line "just as fast as I can" means exactly the same thing.

Finally, we have a line that leads us right back to our chorus..."Don't you know that there..." and of course it will be followed by "ain't no mountain high enough."

What does the question "Don't you know that there ain't no mountain high enough?" mean? It might seem straightforward, but there's actually a bit of subtlety here. When you ask "Don't you know?" you're really saying, "This is something that you should know, and I'm surprised that you don't know it." In this case, the singer is basically saying, "Isn't it obvious?" "You should know this!" We know that they have expressed their love and care very clearly, so it should be obvious that there is nothing that will keep them from coming to help.

And that's our song! We talked about a lot of little phrases in this episode. Next time we'll slow back down again. I hope that you guys enjoyed working through this song together. Join us next time as we start on our next song! I'll talk to you then.

As always, you can find the transcript for this episode in the description. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate it and subscribe, wherever you're listening to it! And of course, don't forget to tell your friends about us!We post a new episode every Wednesday! We also have even more English learning related content on Instagram, just search for the username "lelpodcast". Finally, if you have any questions, comments, critiques, or suggestions for songs, don't hesitate to send us a message to any of our social media accounts, or to our email address "[email protected]". We hope to hear from you soon!