Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Right Back Where We Started From" (Maxine Nightingale)

         

      

Hi there!!!  Welcome to Tuesday, November 10th.  It is the 314th day of the year. It is also the 45th Tuesday of the year!!!  That means there are 44 classic songs that Tuesday's Musical Notes have featured this year so far.  Wow!!! How the time flies! Maybe one of your favorites was featured.  Want to find out?  All of those classics are listed in the archives that you can find in the archive.  It's located in the upper right hand corner of the blog.  Do ya see it?                                 
We're so glad that you chose to spend a few moments with us this week as we feature one of the biggest one hit wonders of all time!!!  There is a huge possibility that after you read the title to today's Notes, you have been humming the tune or belting out with gusto this song from 1975 that features 2 former members of Electric Light Orchestra who played as studio musicians on this #2 smash hit!  Here's ELO's bass player, Mike DeAlbuquerque and violinist, Wilfred Gibson with lead vocalist Maxine Nightingale taking us back to the Bicentennial with:

"Right Back Where We Started From" by Maxine Nightingale from the 1976 album Right Back Where We Started From

Maxine Nightingale was so completely done with being a lead vocalist that she insisted that the "Right Back Where We Started From" single be released under a pseudonym.  She also had to be convinced to receive royalties from the song rather than the standard of $45 that session musicians received as payment for demo work.  It is a good thing she did because according to DeAlbuqurque, the song was 1 of 4 demo recordings that were done in that 3 hour session. It also just so happened to be the most successful.  "Right Back Where We Started From" went straight to single production from the demo...and sold over 1 million copies from February of 1976, (when it was released in the United States) to April 1976, peaking at #2 on Billboard's Hot 100, not with the pseudonym's name, but with Maxine Nightingale's name as the artist.  You read that correctly.  "Right Back Where We Started From" is one of the only demo recordings to go platinum.  It would be Nightingale's only top 10 hit in the US and would go to all the way to #1 in the Cash Box and Record World magazine charts. 

The song has become iconic for Hockey fans as it was featured in the Paul Newman film Slap Shot.  Say you know it from somewhere and your sure it's not hockey?   You may very well recognize it from the soundtracks of 10 other films (Yours, Mine, and Ours, College Road Trip, Shrek Forever After, etc.) as well as the many covers that have been recorded since '76.  

"Right Back Where We Started From" joins a collective of top hits in the "Joy" music genre for the compendium that is Tuesday's Musical Notes. The defining attribute of such a song is that from the moment of its opening refrain, a smile begins to grow on the listener's face.  By the time of the nearly always required "drum break" chorus, the listener is fully engaged in singing the infectious melody at the top of their lungs and possibly even dancing just a bit...  You know the songs we mean... Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Walking On Sunshine",  Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Three Little Birds", Tuesday's Musical Notes - "You Can Call Me Al", Tuesday's Musical Notes - "ABC"  Yes, these songs make us smile and immediately have an impact on our view of life at that moment.  These are songs that return us to simpler, happier times.  They even have the potential to take us right back to where we started from.

Life is hard.  There are challenges that we face every day that have the ability to knock the wind out of our sails.  Situations transpire that take us from "Happy! Happy! Joy! Joy!" to "Nobody knows the trouble I've seen..." We can persevere during these times or we can flounder.  Everyone will have a floundering moment.  Its ok to be sad, angry, confused, and disappointed, however, one thing we cannot allow to happen is for our joy to be stolen.  What do we mean by that?

 
“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”- Mahatma Ghandi

This quote is unfortunate.  It serves as an indictment and a challenge.  One contemplates the Christians that Ghandi experienced for him to come to this conclusion.  What was it about these Christians that ruined Ghandi's perception of Christianity?  Did they not show love to one another?  John 13:34-35 King James Version/ The Message paraphrase parallel.  Did they not show love and respect towards God?  Matthew 22:34-40  While these are the most important things that Christians' lives could have demonstrated to Ghandi, we think there is another question to ask.  Was the "joy of their salvation" on display in the lives of the Christians in which Ghandi encountered?  Ponder that for just a moment.  The Bible tells us at the moment of our "salvation", our "conversion", our "giving of ourselves to the Lordship of Jesus" we are given spiritual gifts.  While our gifts differ, their should be some commonality among all believers, one of those being the condition that is "Joy Unspeakable and full of glory"!

In Psalm 51,(New King James Version/The Message paraphrase parallel) David laments and repents of his affair with Bathsheba.   Read the entirety of David's story here:  2 Samuel 11-12:25 New International Version/The Message parallel  In his grief, David cries out to God to restore the "joy" of his salvation.  This phrase has the potential to be world changing.  You see, so many "Christians", "believers", "Jesus Freaks", walk around with less joy in their lives than they should have.  They allow the fact that we live in a fallen world and are sin filled creatures to be a distraction from the joy filled life that we have because of our restoration through Jesus!  That is Good News!!!  That is the Gospel!!! That is something about which we can have much joy!!!  Even as Christ followers we will sin.  We will make mistakes.  We will be tempted.  During these times we must make a choice.  We can choose to act defeated or we can choose to get right back to where we started from and remember our joy!  His love is good, His love is always strong.   Even in our sin (which we must repent from, of, and for), we have the faith, knowledge, and assurance of our salvation because Jesus secured in on the cross. This blessed assurance is far more than an emotion indicating that we are happy.  It is a lifestyle that permeates everything we do.  

As we go about our lives, we will come across our "Ghandi".  What will he say about our Christianity based on that encounter? 

"Joy" by The Rend Collective from the 2010 album The Art Of Celebration

'Til Tuesday

Serving HIM by serving you,

Randy