Liverpool’s five-piece band The Shipbuilders return with their latest single, Hills of Mexico, drawing inspiration from the Spanish Civil War and Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bells Toll, a novel that features a young guerilla fighter named Maria who befriends and falls in love with an American anti-fascist, Robert Jordan, who travels to Spain to fight on the side of the Loyalists in the Civil War.
The songs protagnist shares Jordan’s mission of blowing up a bridge, while also dreaming of the distant hills of Mexico and Marie:
Taking shelter in the mountain’s shadow
The hunger of loneliness leaving me hollow
Keeping an eye on the beacons on the ridge
for at first light, we storm the posts and blow the bridgeThinking of Marie and the promises I keep
Am I facing the eternal sleep?
On nights like these I would offer up a prayer
But since we’ve killed God there’s no-one thereAnd so do I dare to let my dreams go
to the hills of Mexico?
Speaking of the song, singer-songwriter Matty Loughlin-Day explains:
“I’ve long had a fascination with the Spanish Civil War and ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ is essential. Whilst reading the book, so many powerful lines and images jumped out at me and smacked me in the face, so in writing this song, I wanted to capture the sense of drama, adrenaline and anticipation that comes across in the text. Hemingway is my favourite author and so I also wanted to try and emulate his style of writing by being economic and using as few lines as possible to portray mammoth sentiments, in this case, rebellion, heroics and pondering about how our actions now ring through into eternity…
Danny Lee was given the brief that I wanted this to feel like a soundtrack for an epic film and his direction was to create guitar parts that sound urgent, dramatic and have a sense of longing. It’s probably the song that so far has best captured the sound in my head.”
The song features on their upcoming, second album, This Blue Earth (July 11th, 2025).
https://www.the-shipbuilders.com