Friday, April 17, 2009

'Fourth Man in the Fire ' the title song for True Blood Season One Episode Eight

I recently did a Season 2 Spoiler show for my Blogtalk radio show, where we looked at what we might know about the upcoming episode by knowing examining the title song for that episode.

I can't tell you how many emails I received from folks saying they felt so stupid for not realizing that the True Blood episodes were named for songs. It's OK but I thought it might be a good idea to look back at the song, the artist and the lyrics for each of last season's episode title songs.


So let's look back to Season 1, Ep 8: Fourth Man in the Fire which originally aired : 10/26/2008
The Fourth Man was written by Arthur "Guitar Boogie" Smith

Arthur Smith (born April 1, 1921 in Clinton, South Carolina) is an American musician and songwriter.

Arthur Smith was a textile mill worker who became a celebrated and respected country music instrumental composer, guitarist, fiddler, and banjo player who had a major hit with the instrumental, "Guitar Boogie." In 1955, Arthur Smith composed a banjo instrumental he called "Feudin' Banjos" and recorded the song with five-string banjo player Don Reno. Later the composition appeared in the popular 1972 film Deliverance as "Dueling Banjos" played by Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandel. Not given credit, Smith had to proceed with legal action that eventually gave him songwriting credit and back royalties.
It was a landmark copyright infringement suit.

As a composer, Arthur Smith has nearly 500 copyrights. Among his copyrights, Smith has over 100 active inspirational and/or gospel music compositions including million sellers "The Fourth Man" and "I Saw A Man."

Fourth Man version we hear in True Blood is from the Johnny Cash album, Strawberry Cake.
Strawberry Cake is a live album by country singer Johnny Cash, released on Columbia Records in 1976. In it, Cash tells stories about the recording of each song, and also the history of the United States, in a precursor of sorts to the VH1 Storytellers series.

Lyrics

Here is a story from the Good Book we know
A story 'bout a miracle that happened long ago
We hope that you'll take courage when temptation you meet
There's somebody watchin' you who's strong when you're weak.

They wouldn't bend
They held on to the will of God so we are told
They wouldn't bow
They would not bow their knees to Idols made of gold
They wouldn't burn
They were protected by the Fourth Man in the fire
They wouldn't bend
They wouldn't bow, they wouldn't burn.

Now the prophet Daniel tells about
Three men who walked with God
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego
Before the wicked king they stood
And the king commanded them bound and thrown
Into the fiery furnace that day
But the fire was so hot that the men were slain
That forced them on their way.

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