Tuesday, October 27, 2020

Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Fire on the Mountain" (The Marshall Tucker Band)






Welcome to Tuesday and the best blog on the planet...wait, that's a bit narcissistic...let's try again...Welcome to Tuesday and your favorite blog about music...no that's not quite right either...final answer...Welcome to Tuesday's Musical Notes where you are always sure to find great music and some insight that maybe, just maybe you had never considered before...yup that's it...print it!

Hi!  Welcome to Tuesday's Musical Notes!  We are sure glad you stopped by for this week's entry into the Tuesday Musical Notes world.  

'Round these parts we have come to surmise that Tuesday is 'bout near the best day of the week!  Back in the day when MTV actually showed music videos for all 24 hours of the day, new music releases came out on Tuesday.  It was a day for musicologists to be pannin' for the newest nuggets coming out of places like New York, Los Angeles, Nashville, and Memphis jus' to name a few.  Some of them releases went gold, others, well they didn't fare so well as they soon found themselves in the cut out bin with the fool's gold never to be heard from again.  

Those were the days.  Dependin' on the release and availability, you might even see a little fire on the mountain and lightnin' in the air as folks waited for their favorite music to hit record stores.  Yup, Tuesday's was a great day, and still are because you are here with us and we're talkin' 'bout some great music like today's feature song from The Marshall Tucker Band...


"Fire on the Mountain" is the first top 40 hit for the South Carolina based Marshall Tucker Band.  They are considered one of the innovators of Southern Rock and continue to tour with founding member, vocalist Doug Gray.  

The Marshall Tucker Band established the "Progressive Country" sound (country foundation with jazz improvisation built on top, according to founding member Toy Caldwell, "The Marshall Tucker Band" wikipedia.org).  Formed in 1972 by brothers Caldwell and his brother Tommy, The Marshall Tucker band has seen 7 singles hit The Hot 100, with 2, including "Fire on the Mountain" (peaking at #38), breaking into the top 40. (1977's "Heard it in a Love Song" went as far as 14 on US charts).  Their first hit single (topping out at #108) was "Can't You See" which was used in the opening and closing credits for the Kevin Costner 2008 movie Swing Vote.  "Can't You See" isn't featured in the trailer, but let's take a look any way as there's only 7 more days of the craziness that is the 2020 Presidential election after all...


"Can't You See" has continued to be utilized in the movies as recently as 2017's I, Tonya, about ice skater Tonya Harding.

"Fire on the Mountain" tells the story of what happened in many cases during the American Gold Rush in the western portion of the country.  In this instance, a family relocated to go stake their claim, only to see the father killed over a worthless mining and panning spot.  The writer of the song, George McCorkle, penned it for inclusion on his friend Charlie Daniel's November 28, 1974 record  Fire on the Mountain.   Daniels decined to use the song, but contributed his fiddle playing on the track.  

"Fire on the Mountain" further established The Marshall Tucker Band (named from a blind piano tuner with which the band rented a rehearsal space) as some of the pioneer's of the 70s Southern Rock scene.  They built on the foundation laid by  The Allman Brothers, and paved the way for Lynyrd Skynrd (Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Simple Man" (Lynyrd Skynyrd)) and .38 Special (Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Teacher, Teacher" (.38 Special))   

This classic song's chorus, "...Fire on the mountain, lightning in the air..." also reminds us of a scene with which we have discussed much lately.


After commandment number ten is given, the Israelites can not handle the idea of God speaking to them directly anymore, and there was way too much going on at the top of that mountain as far as they were concerned.  The begged Moses to ask God to stop speaking directly to them.  At this point, God decides to only speak directly to Moses, abating some of the fear of the Hebrews.  

Thus ends the first telling of the ten commandments.  Just in case you missed any of them let's recap:









9) You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor (lie) (Exodus 20:16 NASB;AMP;KJV, Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Liar" (Three Dog Night))


With God's guidance and the Ten Commandments as a moral and ethical code, the Israelites now had all they needed to insure success as they journeyed to the Promised Land.  But just like everything else God gives man, it gets turned inside, outside, upside-down, when humans get a hold of it.  By the time of Jesus, only 1300-1600 years later , the Jewish Law had grown from 10 commandments to 613 laws that the orthodox Jew would need to follow to be in good standing at the synagogue.  No one person could abide by all of the laws.  (lest we  judge, look what the United States has done with our own legal and ethical systems, also based off of the 10 commandments, in just 244 years)

Let's restate the obvious...No one person could abide by all of those laws. 

I don't know about you, but I havefound it very difficult to keep all of the original ten!  When Jesus began His public ministry, the 10 commandments had been convoluted, marginalized, and manipulated to what men wanted them to say.  Suddenly, the Torah was a book of "Don'ts!!!"  The original intent of the commandments was to provide freedom, not to shackle men with the burden of memorizing and abiding by a bunch of rules that in reality made very little difference to the lives they were leading.  Remember Jesus drills the 10 down to 2;  Love God, Love everybody else.  The Gospel of Jesus according to the tax collector turned apostle, Matthew, chapter 232, verses 36-40 NASB;AMP;KJV

The apostle Paul later emphasizes in his letter to the church in Galatia, the fact that Jesus came to insure the freedom that the ten commandments could never provide.  The apostle Paul's letter to the church in Galatia NASB;AMP;KJV  Notice how Paul contrasts the law as burdensome with following Jesus as being a release from that burden.  The ten commandments were given to us to let us know when we blow it, mess up, miss the mark, sin.  Jesus came to provide the forgiveness from those reminders of our sin.  Jesus came to die as a once and forever sacrifice for the sins that the ten commmandments remind us that we have.  If we turn away from those sins, and accept Jesus' forgiveness, then the ten commandments have done their job in providing us freedom.  If we choose to not accept Jesus sacrifice then we are like the young ruler spoken about in The Gospel of Jesus according to Matthew, chapter 19, verses 16-22 NASB;AMP;KJV, The Gospel of Jesus as written by the apostle Mark, chapter 10, verses 17-22 NASB;AMP;KJV, The Gospel of Jesus according to the Doctor turned apostle, Luke, Chapter 18, verses 18-23 NASB;AMP;KJV.  For a little deeper analysis of these passages the website compellingtruth.com provides an excellent elaboration: "Why did Jesus ask the rich young ruler about obeying the commandments? Can salvation come through obedience to commands?"- compelling truth.org

I don't blame the Israelites for having some trepidation when they saw fire on the mountain and lightning in the air.  They were afraid that they were about to be eliminated from the face of the earth because they were in contact with God.  The commandments that He had just given were already beginning to convict them of their unrighteousness.  I think I would have been pretty intimidated as well.  

Unfortunately, what God had said to them audibly didn't sink in very well as they needed to be repeated a couple of times.  More on that later...but for now take a moment and bask in the freedom that Jesus death, burial, resurrection and return gives us as believers and the fact that we are no longer shackled to 10 or 613 commandments to get close to God.  We have only 2.  

We need only believe in Jesus...pardner!

Serving HIM by Serving You,
randy
<><






 



Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)