Grateful Dead – Fire On The Mountain

I like a couple of Fire on the Mountain songs: The Marshall Tucker Band and this one. They’re two totally different songs, but both are really good. I want to thank Jim for this because he sent me some information about this song in an email. 

Fire on the Mountain’s music was primarily written by one of the Grateful Dead’s drummers, Mickey Hart, with lyrics by the band’s lyricist, Robert Hunter. The song’s groove reflects Hart’s rhythm sensibilities, while Hunter’s lyrics (as with most of his) are open to interpretation and rich with imagery.

The song initially existed as an instrumental titled Happiness is Drumming, which appeared on Mickey Hart’s 1976 solo album, Diga. The instrumental version already contained the core melody.  The song evolved into the version that the Grateful Dead began performing live in 1977 and eventually included on their 1978 album Shakedown Street.

The first time I heard the song was a live video of The Grateful Dead playing in Egypt in 1978. I’ve watched that concert many times, and it’s fantastic. This song was one of the songs that got me into the band. When they played it live, the song was frequently paired with Scarlet Begonias. 

The Dead didn’t always do commercially huge songs but some songs like this one…should have been at least released as a single. 

Robert Hunter: “Written at Mickey Hart’s ranch in heated inspiration as the surrounding hills blazed and the fire approached the recording studio where we were working.”

Fire On The Mountain

Long distance runner, what you standin’ there for?Get up, get out, get out of the doorYou’re playin’ cold music on the barroom floorDrowned in your laughter and dead to the coreThere’s a dragon with matches that’s loose on the townTakes a whole pail of water just to cool him down

Fire! Fire on the mountainFire! Fire on the mountainFire! Fire on the mountainFire! Fire on the mountain

Almost ablaze, still you don’t feel the heatIt takes all you got just to stay on the beatYou say it’s a livin’, we all gotta eatBut you’re here alone, there’s no one to competeIf Mercy’s a business, I wish it for youMore than just ashes when your dreams come true

Fire! Fire on the mountainFire! Fire on the mountainFire! Fire on the mountainFire! Fire on the mountain

Long distance runner, what you holdin’ out for?Caught in slow motion in a dash for the doorThe flame from your stage has now spread to the floorYou gave all you had, why you wanna give more?The more that you give, the more it will takeTo the thin line beyond, which you really can’t fake

Fire! Fire on the mountainFire! Fire on the mountainFire! Fire on the mountainFire! Fire on the mountain

…

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

39 thoughts on “Grateful Dead – Fire On The Mountain”

  2. Pingback: Grateful Dead – Fire On The Mountain – MobsterTiger

  3. “Fire On the Mountain” is among the Dead’s songs I really dig. I can also forgive them for jamming on for 9 plus minutes! 🙂

    I’m likely getting to hear a neat rendition of the Marshall Tucker Band’s “Fire On the Mountain” this evening and plan to have more on this gig on Monday!

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      1. It’s a new band headed by a longtime music friend. They are doing a mix of mostly deeper Neil Young cuts, covers by a few other artists (including Marshall Tucker) and own songs. Tonight, they’re premiering a bunch of new original songs that will be on their debut album they’re hoping to put out in April. I’m planning to have a concert review for Monday. 🙂

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      3. John has sent me raw mixes of some of their new songs, which broadly fall into the Americana, root s rock and outlaw country genres – all sounds pretty neat to my ears!

        I can definitely hear a Neil Young influence, which isn’t surprising since John has been a Neil Young tribute artist for many years. I’ve been to many of his Neil tribute shows.

        Tonight is going to be different. It’s the first time I’m going to see him with this band. While they are all longtime Jersey musicians, they’ve only been together in this formation for less than a year.

        Definitely excited about it, as you can probably tell! 🙂

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      4. Oh cool….that is more to look forward to as well. That is a good release because it would be fun playing covers but playing originals is where the love is for songwriters.
        Have a great time Christian!

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  4. I was wondering when you were gonna get to the ‘Dead’…nice article. I never saw them in concert but in my time in the ‘Bay Area’ (family base between 1986-2007…lived there multiple times) I did see Jerry Garcia do a free all day concert in Golden Gate Park in ’88. I’ve gotta a story about the Grateful Dead from when I was living in the ‘jock’ dorm at Boise State in the fall of ’82 & they did a concert on our campus…kind of funny.

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    1. Too bad you didn’t get to see them but you did get to see Jerry Garcia which is cool.
      Wait…they played at your college but you didn’t go?

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      1. Lol…I was a freshman baseball player & we (athletes) had to work security for all of the concerts at that time. The ‘Dead Heads’ had gotten into our dorms & were sleeping on our walkways & in our common areas. A couple got into my dorm room…lol. That concert I didn’t go/work the concert but I heard the music & wasn’t into it at that time in my life. Later in the decade I had been living in the ‘Bay Area’ & was more open minded & knew who they were by then. I was pretty sheltered in in Eastern Idaho from ’74-’82 so that scene wasn’t something that I was familiar with in the fall of ’82…lol. One of my dear friends when I went to UC in the 90’s is/was a ‘Dead Head’…our Mother’s went to high school together (late 50’s in Cincy) but didn’t know each other. Good dude, he’s a Terrapin (University of Maryland). Steve got a kick out of my story from ’82.

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      2. That is funny! In your dorm room as well lol. Yea that whole scene would be very different than what average concert goers were used to.

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      3. Lol…ya’…but, I learned that they were kind open minded people but I just didn’t understand why they did that at the time…lol. By the late 80’s I was very much familiar. I hung in Berkeley & the Haight in S.F. in those days.

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  5. One of my favorite (among many) GD tunes. I don’t think I’d ever seen any Egypt footage. I’d always heard (partly from books by band members)that those shows were terrible. Sounds pretty good here. As a bassist, I’m sure you appreciate how the bass leads the way here.

    Mickey Hart didn’t get a lot of composer credits, but this and “Playin’ in the Band” (which he recorded as “The Main Ten” on his 1972 album Rolling Thunder) are two big ones.

    Rolling Thunder includes a who’s who of Bay Area musicians, including the Tower of Power horns, John Cipollina , David Freiberg (Quicksilver – Freiberg also of the AIrplane), Barry Melton (Country Joe & the Fish), Paul Kantner, Grace Slick, (Jefferson Airplane), Bill Champlin (Sons of Champlin), Sam Andrew (Big Brother and the Holding Company), Greg Errico (Sly & the Family Stone), Stephen Stills, members of the Grateful Dead, and tabla players Alla Rakha and Zakir Hussain. (Someone stole this album from me in 1974. I regret never getting another copy.)

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    1. Youtube has that complete concert I believe. It was a very cool idea for them to do a concert there.
      Wasn’t that around the time that Hart quit? He wasn’t on their 72 tour. I have never heard that album before. He did get a lot of talent on there.

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      1. I’ll have to check that out. Yes, that was during Mickey’s hiatus from the band. The album also has a version of “Greatest Story Ever Told”, titled “Pump Song” – Weir, Hart, and Robert Hunter are credited. Both “Greatest Story…” and “Playin’…” are also on Weir’s 1972 solo album Ace. Garcia’s solo album also came out that year – definitely a good year for them in the studio.

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      2. Ok I hought I remembered that from Kreutzmann’s book Deal. I’m listening to the original version of Pump Song right now…sounds really good.
        I’m also listening to some of his drum tracks on here…he had some interesting rhythms on this and a different way of presenting them.

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      1. it could have had potential there, would have likely hit the charts even if not become a biggie. But they weren’t huge on putting out 7″s , were they? Just a few here and there is my impression at least

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  7. I had this friend Cliff who went to art school and my father commissioned him to paint a picture on this 4 feet by 8 feet piece of plywood, because my sister was getting married, and he wanted to hang it in the screened in porch.  Cliff painted a red barn on the left side of the painting with a road leading up to it from a pasture that went past a pond and my dad loved it.  I used to sleep out in the screenhouse, and I would look at the painting all the time and after the Grateful Dead recorded Mars Hotel, I asked Cliff if he could add some more stuff to this painting.  In my head I saw the barn as Micky Heart’s barn, so I got Cliff to add a saucer like spaceship that landed in the meadow and the Dead walking down the path in their Mars Hotel suits to jam in the barn.

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      1. When I left my parents’ house, and they sold it to move to the Poconos, they gave it away to another friend of mine who is a drummer. He has it in his garage, but I haven’t seen him in years, and I would love to have a photograph of it.

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      3. I shared it because I told you that this song was written at Micky Heart’s barn, when they saw the surrounding hills blazed and the fire approached the recording studio where we were working.

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    1. When I reconnect with the Dead it’s not the two big albums I listen to…it’s “Wake of the Flood”… I like that album a lot….and when I hear “Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo” I’m a happy man.

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