We’re waiting on your answers, Mr. Daniels
I had an entry half-written about how in the hell anyone is supposed to believe the Devil didn’t beat Johnny’s ass in “The Devil Went Down To Georgia,” but Wing directed me to the McSweeney’s piece on the same topic before I got too far into it. And you can ask anyone who’s ever had the misfortune to sit beside me in a bar when that song comes on the jukebox — this has bugged me for years. Johnny’s fiddling isn’t anything special; it’s fine, but it’s nothing the Texas Playboys didn’t do behind Bob Wills on every damn song. You want to beat the Devil, you need to bring a game A-er than standard-issue bluegrass string-sawing. Also, “I done tol’ you once, you son of a bitch, I’m the best that’s ever been”? Take it down a notch, son. Just because you beat the Devil this one time — inexplicably, and in spite of the fact that the demon band’s bass line alone should have engulfed you in searing flames of STFU — doesn’t mean you should taunt the guy.
Tags: curmudgeoning music sites
THANK YOU! GAH – the Devil totally SMOKED Johnny, that has ALWAYS bothered me. Here in SC, the radio-edit changes it to “son of a gun”, which is somehow even more annoying than the original. Wow, I have some serious hostility toward this song, heh.
I’m assuming you’ve heard the sequel song, “The Devil Comes Back to Georgia?” With guest voices Johnny Cash, Travis Tritt, and Marty Stuart?
Ray Wiley Hubbard also addresses this subject in his “Conversations With The Devil.”
Well, it looked like I was gonna be stuck here as far as I could tell
I thought I might as well suck up you know what the hell
I said you know that soung that Charlie Daniels did
About how you went down to Georgia and played fiddle against that kid
He said yeah it broke my heart but you know what are you gonna do
I said to tell you the truth I thought your solo was the better of the two.
http://www.lyricsandsongs.com/song/685668.html
Wondered the same thing for years. My 12 year old could be out earning golden fiddles left and right if that’s all the skill it takes to beat Ol Brimstone. Hopefully I done raised him right so if he DID outplay Lucifer, he’d have the common courtesy and common sense to not get all braggy about it.
Now, if the Devil had cloven hands, I’d expect him to play badly and Johnny to take him down easy. But the song clearly shows otherwise. Make up your damn mind, song.
You know, I always thought that Johnny was like, actually mentally deficient, to gamble eternal torment against a musical instrument. That probably wouldn’t even sound very good.
And also that the demon band was freakin’ badass.
I’m so glad I am not the only one to feel this way. And on the same vein, how come the guy in the “Pina Colada song” wasn’t hurt that his “lady” had beat him to the idea of getting some outside play?? Is it because it was the 70’s and they were all going to key parties anyway??
I’m glad I’m not the only person who ever thought this! Considering I am from (and sadly still live) in Atlanta GA I have heard this song too many times to count. And it pisses me off every time! ;)
God, I’m a northern girl trapped in a southern girls body! Help!
Yes indeedy, to all points, yours and McS’s. However: the folks who love that song are not in it for the logic. Six months spent as an accidental country music taught me one thing: that if you’re stuck doing the New Year’s Eve shift, the drunks who call with requests want Johnny to win. And win. And win.
Also they want David Allan Coe to hitch a ride with the ghost of Hank Williams, Sr., as often as he possibly can. A song that referenced and celebrated both “The Ride” and “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” would sell like hot boiled peanuts (which, yum, btw) at a NASCAR race. It would also ping most people’s BS meters right off the charts, but again: beside the point.
(er: accidental country music *DJ*. two little letters without which my entire sentence makes zero sense.)
Kat, that’s what I always figured. (And the two songs were totally on the same Billboard ’79 CD, hee.) Another thing I didn’t get: “And she said, ‘Aw it’s you.'” Was that “aw” as in “aw, you’re sweet,” or “aw” as in “uch”?
Now all I can think about is Robot Hell. “Please stop singing while I’m singing!”
Drove me nut for years. I thought Futureama was the only media outlet to address it: “Wouldn’t a solid gold fiddle weigh hundreds of pounds and sound crummy?”
And Kat, the extensive sociological problems within the Pina Colada song are addressed in a Mystery Science Theater 3000 skit, in the episode 421, “Monster A Go-Go.” “And since seventy two percent of the population of North America lives in a landlocked state or province, in actuality they have no idea whether or not they enjoy making love at midnight on the dunes on the cape!”
Heh. I have that Billboard ’79 CD!
I wonder if Johnny won because TPTB determined the Devil was cheating by incorporating that rockin’ band o’ demons?
Well he’s the Devil, so surely with a day job that consists of inflicting eternal damnation, suffering, mockery and despair on lost souls, mere taunting would be a bit of light relief, or even his own game presented back to him?
A bit like saying “bless you” to a priest, and therefore no less welcome.
You can’t make love in the dunes on the Cape anyway, it’s National Seashore land and the rangers would roust your ass in about 90 seconds.
“You can’t make love in the dunes on the Cape anyway, it’s National Seashore land and the rangers would roust your ass in about 90 seconds.”
LOL!!!! :-)
Also, I heart the Robot Devil. heeee!
THEY ARE PLAYING DEVIL WENT DOWN TO GEORGIA ON THE RADIO!!!
I love the sound of “Devil”, but I’d be fine if the lyrics instead made it a cautionary tale about dealing with the Devil — because damn right the Devil won that one. Unless the song is meant to be a wink to the listener: “Yeah, for the radio, Johnny ‘won’, wink wink.”
Nah. They’re just sadly confused.
As for “Pina Colada”, I kinda like it despite everything, but I don’t love the message. I think the lyric is “Ah, it’s you” — which is almost as ambiguous, really.
I can’t even think about anybody having a fiddle-off without flashing back to a Robert Earl Keen/Margo Timmins show I attended once, at which a soppy-drunk Vandy fratboy hopped up on a table and attempted some ripsnortin’ air fiddle. My faith in a loving and benevolent God was rewarded tenfold when the table promptly–and LOUDLY–collapsed under him. Thanks again, O Lord.
HEY, I always thought that too! I thought I was insane for worrying so much about it when I was a teenager….
Huh. Apparently Daniels has been asked about this and actually thinks Johnny was better. From Songfacts.com:
It was Daniels who played the fiddle for both the Devil and Johnny, and it was also Daniels who dreamed up what they both would sound like. He explains, “The Devil’s just blowing smoke. If you listen to that, there’s just a bunch of noise. There’s no melody to it, there’s no nothing, it’s just a bunch of noise. Just confusion and stuff. And of course Johnny’s saying something: You can’t beat the Devil without the Lord. I didn’t have that in the song, but I should have.”
Daniels has had people tell him they felt the Devil played a better piece, and to this he says, “If you dissect it and listen to it, that’s the smoke and mirrors thing about the Devil. There’s just nothing there. I mean, there’s nothing. There’s no music involved.”
See, I’ve always figured it was a ’70’s music thing-Peter Frampton doesn’t make any sense either-in fact, I’d be hard put to find any ’70’s pop/rock that does make sense.
I choose to believe that Johnny’s “winning” is actually part of the Devil’s joke: After the song, the Devil leaves to go party with his (obviously better) band, Johnny is left to try and play the golden fiddle, which is not gold at all and will disintegrate in his hands the moment he tries to play it, leaving nothing but the Devil’s eerie cackling laughter in his ears.
This backstory is the only way to stop me from ranting whenever the damn song is played.
My favourite response to this very important issue is by Stephen Lynch in his song ‘Beelz’, which is from the point of view of the campest version of Satan ever. “F**k Charlie Daniels I don;t care if he can fiddle, cause I would not be caught dead in *Georgia*!”
I just liked the song when I was but a child because we could say “bitch” while singing along with the radio without getting an ass-beating…
(Ummm, I like that song, I really really like it, and it never occurred to me that Johnny shouldn’t win. The Devil cain’t win, y’all… can I get a witness? *now I am embarrassed*)
Anyway, here’s a song that is mighty stoopid: “Lonely Boy” by Andrew Gold*. It’s about sibling rivalry, fer cryin’ out loud! Who writes a song about how jelus some guy was when his sister was born? Bizarre.
In the summer of sixty-three
His mother brought him a sister
And she told him we must attend to her needs
She’s so much younger that you
Well he ran down the hall and he cried
Oh how could his parents have lied
When they said he was the only son
He thought he was the only one…
*Trivia on top of trivia: Andrew Gold also wrote “Thank You for Being A Friend”.
Ha, by the time I read the comments, two people have already referenced the awesome Futurama episode! Oh, Leela, and her wise banging the Robot Devil on the head with the gold fiddle move.
“No, but I used to play the drums–they’re kinda similar.” Hee!
I love Daniels’ “smoke and mirrors” routine about how the Devil wasn’t REALLY better, he just SOUNDS better–like people are listening to that song for a musical dissection workshop, or something. How closely did he expect the judges (whoever they were) to listen to the contestants? Was he expecting them to play back each routine on some Infernal Tapedeck and do a note-by-note comparison?
Heh. It’s funny – I just wrote up a free jazz concert for an ethnomusicology seminar, and damn if the instruments didn’t sound just like the Devil’s fiddle.
“The Devil’s just blowing smoke. If you listen to that, there’s just a bunch of noise. There’s no melody to it, there’s no nothing, it’s just a bunch of noise. Just confusion and stuff … If you dissect it and listen to it, that’s the smoke and mirrors thing about the Devil. There’s just nothing there. I mean, there’s nothing. There’s no music involved.”
If by “music” you mean a bland line of perfectly predictable diatonic SNORE.
Good day, Mr. Daniels. I said good day!
JulieT: Yeah, I’m pretty sure electic guitars are off-limits in Appalachian Standardized fiddle tournaments.
michelel: If Charlie Daniels thinks Johnny’s part was better, I’m not sure I dare to argue with him. He’d know which was harder to play, of course, and if you ignore the sweet bass line, the Devil’s song sounds kind of like when my dad started learning the fiddle.
Also: the phrases the band sings during Johnny’s solo (fire on the mountain, et cetera) are all references to old, old standards from Appalachia and the South — squaredance calls, bluegrass and folk songs, children’s rhymes. I think we’re meant to infer that Johnny actually played more than we hear (this is just a tribute, you gotta believe me) and that his connection to his roots and respect for tradition is part of what saves him.
Live performances give a much better chance to do all this dueling-fiddle business, of course — you can have two guys up there sawing away and grinning like fools at each other, stretch it out to like seven minutes, it’s a good time.
And now it’s stuck in my head!
*cries*
Not too long ago, ESPN’s Page 2 published a picture of Lance Armstrong being chased by a guy in a devil costume… and ended up running not one, but TWO parodies of “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” dedicated to Lance. And now I can’t listen to the song without thinking about Lance making a deal with Satan over a yellow jersey.
Whenever I asked about this in my youth (believing that the Devil’s piece even in the song is better than Johnny’s), my brother always informed me, with authority, that it was because the Devil had to have his band of demons join in to sound awesome, whereas Johnny fiddled by his onesies.
Now I believe it was an imposter, because as Stephen Lynch says in his song ‘Beelz,’ speaking as the devil, “Okay, that is bullshit, because I would not be caught dead in GEORGIA.”
My delightful and entertaining friend, Bill, explained it to me years ago. Sadly, his stories are no longer online to entertain me when I get bored.
The summary is this:
The devil realized halfway through the deal that he was going to have to explain to all the demons back in hell that he’d won Johnny’s soul by playing fiddle, which would be horribly embarassing. Also, the devil knew that the ’80s and all those hair bands were coming soon, so he’d soon have all the souls he could handle. So, he decided to throw Johnny a bone and get out of Georgia and away from the rednecks, grits, and good ole boy accent.
And then when goober got a little too mouthy, the devil incinerated him in a pillar of unholy flame. :-)
Eh, I’ve lived in Georgia for the past year, and I agree with Beelz, especially regarding southern Georgia. Blech.
Erin and I had a conversation once about how the song obviously didn’t take place in Augusta or Johnny would have handed over his soul no questions asked in exchange for a ride out of town.
I broke down in Augusta once, made friends with a whole auto-repair waiting room, and thought everyone couldn’t have been nicer, so I’m not sure why everyone says it’s such a hole. The weather was gross but that wasn’t Augusta’s fault.
That’s how I feel about Columbus and points south–the weather sucks right out loud, but that isn’t anyone’s fault. How people here ACT, now, that is their fault, and they need to shape up. Especially with the crappy driving.
I love that song! My husband sings it quite well.