"And the cold winds blow,
He was brave but he's laid low
By her body in the island mist,
I saw him give her one last cold
kiss...one last cold kiss."

So what is it? Some allegorical journey through the stormy seas of unrequited love? Some phony, folky make-believe rhyming? A new Neil Diamond Top 40 masterpiece?

You'd never guess in a million years, but it's the chorus line from one of the better cuts on the new Mountain album "Flowers Of Evil". Mountain? But aren't they a hard rock group? Everyone knows the lyrics don't mean anything in hard rock. The big noise is for the boppers and acid freaks...the intellectuals listen to folk music.

Such assumptions are obviously no more valid in the present day than moral justifications of the Vietnam war.

The Mountain cut is called "One Last Cold Kiss" and it concerns the trials and tragedies of a pair of swans. Not the most likely subject of inspiration for a rock lyric, I'll admit, but certainly a valid one, particularly when you hear the background story from Mountain producer-bass guitarist, Felix Pappalardi.

"The song is based on a true story from Nantucket of two swans who had been mates since cygnethood. Two years ago the female swan was destructively cut down by a hunter with a bow and arrow.

Mountain are a unique band, and their originality lies not only in the desire to protect the fauns of America and the hearts of a pair of swans. A lot of credit for their particular platform must go to Pappalardi, who seems hell bent on becoming a rock legend in his own time.

Pappalardi was the producer and sometime mentor of Cream, one of the first groups to put the high-flying extravaganza of the Liverpool invasion into some kind of perspective.

Cream curdled in 1969 and the three members have slowly drifted apart. Ginger Baker has been moving between Britain and darkest Africa, presumably picking up some tips from the local drummers. Eric Clapton appears to be hiding away in his exquisite manor house in Surrey, darting out now and then to keep the blood flowing (as on Bangla Desh). And Jack Bruce has been into all sorts of jazz trips and the latest word is that he and Mountain's Leslie West and Corky Laing have teamed up to create an instant supergroup.

"But I don't know if the notes got to him. Everyone says he's not well.

"Ginger Baker...somehow he's different. He's my age - 32, 33. He is what he is, and does what he does. If he wants to get off, let him get off.

"But Eric...he's so young and he's got so much left. There is so much freedom available to him. It's sad. I've often wanted to just pick up the phone and call him and say 'Hi'. I'd hate to see anything happen to him." Pappalardi paused for a moment to collect his commiserations.

"Jack Bruce I'm still seeing. I expect at some future time that our paths will cross again. It's inevitable. Our musical interests are so alike. I did the "Songs for a Tailor" album with Jack after Cream broke up. It was terribly underrated, to the point of being a shame. Neither Jack nor I needed the bread...We just did it because we wanted to do it. It was such an incredible LP...I looked on it's lack of any real acceptance as a catastrophe."

Despite an exhausting touring schedule, Pappalardi somehow finds the time and energy to continue producing other artists. "I just finished a new album for Atlantic and Mylon (the jacket quotes Pappalardi as saying: 'I will have made three albums during this year. Two will have been of Mountain and this is the third'.). There's also a new David Rea album which I produced, and I think it's very strong."

Pappalardi is a long-time supporter of the unique merits of Canadian musicians and he was in fact the producer of the only two albums (both outstanding) recorded by the Kensington Market. Although neither LP was a giant seller in Canada or anywhere else, they remain as two of the finest examples of Canadian rock in the Sixties.

"I have a great deal of pride in those two albums," Pappalardi freely admits. "Regardless of what they sold, they were really good records. The first one had some beautiful things on it, in particular 'Aunt Violet's Knee'.

"The second album album, Aardvark, was done completel;y in Canada except for the final mix. It was the Market at their heaviest. John Mills Cockell added greatly to the album, too. I'm stubborn, but I believe in him. He's a unique musician. It's not so much what he plays, but his concept of Music.

"I've been listening to his two albums with Syrinx in the past few weeks, and I'm bent on getting him on our Windfall label.

As for Flowers, "They've released 'Roll Over, Beethoven' as a single, by some sort of popular demand. That's what they do, man. I'm not and never have been...a singles maker. I'm an album maker. I've had several gold singles but they came from albums...they weren't made as singles."

When we rapped, Mountain were puffing their way to the end of a lengthy tour. Pappalardi was looking forward to a break prior to a planned European visit.

"Right now I'm getting a little tired of being on the road. But then you take two weeks off, and you're ready to go out again. It's a very wierd circular thing."

Pappalardi and his lady live on a small farm in Nantucket. "That's really home," says Pappalardi. It's a unique place because it seems like a century ago. There are no traffic lights and no neon signs. Some of the houses there were built before Bach was born. It's very much like England.

"We do most of our writing at the farm. All of the studio tunes on 'Flowers Of Evil' came from there. It's the only place where we can close the gate, take a deep breath and do something."