Happy New Year and welcome to the best blog on the planet about music!! It's Tuesday's Musical Notes comin' atcha from our palatial 2nd story offices in the heartland of the United States!!! I'm your host, Randy Cross and for the next little while, we have the opportunity to bond over one of the most precious gifts God ever gave to mankind, music. Each week we break down a song, a classic from the 80s, a closet oldie that we've not been exposed to, or a new offering from an aspiring artist. We then take that song and research its origins, trivia, and the artist who recorded it. Then after a little mind-bending, we take the song to a different level of meaning. A perspective that perhaps you've never considered. And we wrap all of this musical goodness in a package we like to call Tuesday's Musical Notes! Welcome!
Today's song is one for the record books as it comes from one of the biggest soundtracks of all time. Let's get started with this head bobbin', to tappin', feet shufflin' classic from 1984 as we cut loose footloose...Everybody cut, everybody cut...
Songs from the soundtrack to the movie Footloose are part of one of the most easily recognized packages of songs in recorded history. This iconic record saw 6 of its 9 original tracks go into the top 40 of Billboard's Hot 100, 3 of those 6 shuffled up to the top 10, and 2 strutted all the way to #1. ("Footloose" and "Let's Hear It for the Boy" by Deniece Williams). On the strength of its singles, the album quickly found its way to the top spot of the Billboard 200 chart for full-length records. At one point, more people owned the soundtrack than had seen the movie. We suspect that statistic has changed in the 37 years since its release. Wait...what? 37 years???
The first single from the soundtrack was the title cut from the movie. It was co-written and sung by soundtrack legend Kenny Loggins (Tuesday's Musical Notes - "I'm Alright" (Kenny Loggins), "The Songs That Made Kenny Loggins The “King Of Movie Soundtracks” - August 25, 2016, by Velina at myrockmixtape.com, ) Upon its release it instantly hit the charts and only took 3 months to find its way to the top spot, where it spent 3 weeks. It was the #4 song of the year for 1984 and it along with the aforementioned "Let's Hear It for the Boy" were nominated in the 1985 Academy Award Best Original Song category, neither of them won the award ("I Just Called to Say I Love You" from The Woman in Red by Stevie Wonder (Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Superstition" (Stevie Wonder)) beat them both).
"Footloose" has been placed in the American Film Institute's AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs list at #96 and in 2018 it was added for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or artistically significant". Significant is right as "Footloose" is one of those songs that can instantly cause you to get up and move regardless of your age, skin color, or your ability to have any rhythm at all, and nobody judges because "Footloose" is the song in which you must bust a move. "Everybody cut, everybody cut..."
The movie's and song's premise is the celebration of life as expressed through dancing. Not a professional or ballroom expression of dance, but a free-form, uninhibited movement of the body. This expression is encouraged throughout the Bible as our bodies were created to worship God. "Our Time to Dance" - from Footloose While there are several decrees about many other things, there aren't any admonitions against dancing in the biggest listing of rules and regulations in the Bible, Leviticus.
Leviticus - New American Standard Bible/The Amplified Bible/King James Version of the Bible parallel
Tuesday's Musical Notes encourages you to find a plan and an accountability group to help you read the Bible... You might find some surprising things inside and besides...it does a body good!!! For those who read the Bible annually, Leviticus tends to be that book that gets a little heavy-handed and at times causes some to fall by the wayside on their New Years' resolution to read the Bible. Some of the maxims seem archaic and applicable only to an ancient society that was roaming around the desert. But in context, we must remember this infant nation had been under the influence of the Egyptians for over 400 years. God was calling them out of slavery and to a higher standard by which to live. That higher standard was emblematic of the holiness of God and they were to serve as an example of His character to the world.
As we read through Leviticus, we must attempt to absorb it through the lens of a nation that had NO legal statutes whatsoever. The ten commandments given in Exodus were specific, yet also general commands. Leviticus breaks the ten commandments down to the nuance of holiness that God expected of His people. He provides boundaries for every possible situation in which the Israelites might find themselves. We must keep in mind that He provides these directives in accordance to HIS nature, not theirs.
As we have stated before, through the guidance of Holy Spirit, the Bible should be the instrument of conviction for the reader as they navigate read it. This especially applies to the rules of Leviticus. Far too many times, well-intentioned believers have used Leviticus as a mode of judgment on those we are called to love. Judging is not our job. Applying a rule to someone's life to convict them and make them feel guilty is not our job. Yes, we can and should hold others accountable, but nowhere in the Bible does it command a believer to act as judge and jury in the conviction of sins. We are to disciple, mentor, and encourage others to read the Bible allowing it to do what it is intended to do in the process of convicting one of their lostness. We are then to disciple, mentor, and encourage them to find those passages where God is waiting for them with open arms to provide salvation. Finally, we are to disciple, mentor, and encourage others to become more like Jesus.
Speaking of Jesus, many would say that we don't have to follow the rules and regs of Leviticus because Jesus told us that He fulfilled the law and that we are no longer beholden to it. This "New Testament" church idea is far from the truth. Here is what Jesus said regarding His relationship to the law:
What does that mean? It means that Jesus, by living a perfect life, never broke any of the rules that are laid out in Leviticus, and in doing this the law was fulfilled by His obedience to it. As Holy Spirit enters our life at salvation, He brings the desire for us to become like Jesus, because of this desire, why wouldn't we want to do the very best that we can to live under the rules of Leviticus.
As believers, we must be cautious of becoming the hypocrites we are accused of being sometimes by picking and choosing the Levitical instructions that we want to apply to our life and everyone else's. Jesus fulfilled ALL of these laws. If He is our example, we should find ways to follow those laws.
As we read Leviticus, it will convict us of things we, not others, do wrong about specific things at specific times in our, not others, life. Hopefully, as we mature as believers, these rules will become less and less convicting allowing us to celebrate our lives in Jesus and to cut loose...footloose...kick off the Sunday shoes...
'Til Tuesday,
Serving HIM by serving You,
randy
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