One of our favorite songs growing up was John Denver’s
“Country roads, take me home to the place I belong
West Virginia mountain mamma take me home, country roads’
It was however not West Virginia but the State of Minnesota that we came to call ‘home’, where another folk singer of that era, Bob Dylan hailed from. With numbers such as Blowin’ in the Wind and Masters of War he became synonymous with songs protesting against war.
But such protest songs are as ‘old as the hills.’
In the 14 Psalms of Ascent the starting point for the songs of the pilgrimage upwards to Jerusalem is ‘’ I am a man of peace, but when I speak they are for war.(Ps.120)
(Although I know some of my readers may still be skeptical about this, this could be a Donald Trump quote given how history records he is the only one of the last 6 presidents to not succumb to the industrial military complex and lead this nation into another war!)
In the subsequent psalm 121, the songwriter lifts his eyes ‘to the hills’, the pagan ‘high places’ and asks the question, “Where does my help come from?’ He answers, not from any of these lesser gods, but from ‘The Lord, The Maker of heaven and earth.’ He will ascend to Jerusalem where God had at that time ‘placed his name’ to worship the one true God in a temple made of stone.
In The New Jerusalem that comes down out of heaven, (Revelation 21,22) God has placed his name on (and in) ‘the foreheads’ of the believers, who together form the temple of ‘living stones’ where God is to be celebrated in song.
A version of another ‘protest song’ by the psalmist, Psalm 73, appears on my Ascent of the Bright Hostage album. Always With You, however does not leave us frustrated with how the wicked seem ‘to get away with it’ The psalmist receives the revelation of their end, and of the blessedness that is his of intimately knowing his God. Listen and enjoy🙂
In the last few days, another ‘protest song’ has burst into the public awareness from ‘the hills’ of West Virginia, a State known for its beautiful mountains but also as the ‘poor neighbor’ of Virginia. The song speaks about the Rich Men North of Richmond, in neighboring Virginia. It is a reference to Washington DC and all the corrupt leadership there that is now being exposed, that has for long oppressed and impoverished the ordinary working people.
I am posting Dr Steve Turley’s report of the song here because at one point Oliver Anthony introduces his song to an audience by reading another of that ‘protest song’ psalmist’s writings from Psalm 37……..
Interestingly only a few weeks ago we met and got to know our first West Virginian friend. He was the suitor of one of our spiritual daughters who had lived with us. She wanted us to meet her young man. I must say we were mightily impressed. We prayed with them and prophesied to Vincent about his name, that he was indeed called to be a Victor!
When I think of the songwriter Oliver I think of Oliver Twist and how he was put upon by the evil Fagan. But the end of that story has the ‘Please can I have some more sir?’ righteous beggar, seeing justice done and in the end receiving his inheritance.
Such are the ‘great reversal’ days of ‘Twist’ in which we live! Hallelujah!
‘For the power of the wicked will be broken, but the Lord upholds the righteous. The days of the blameless are known to the Lord and their inheritance will endure for ever.’ (Ps. 37:17.18)