In 1979 Charlie Daniels released The Devil Went Down to Georgia. It’s remained popular for nearly 30 years, and there’s no sign that people will ever grow tired of singing it.
The Devil Went Down To Georgia
The melody comes from a song called Lonesome Fiddle Blues. Charlie raised the song an octave and put words to the melody. The Devil Went Down to Georgia Reached number three on the Billboard hot 100. It’s the top all-time seller for songs with the state in the name.
Here’s the plot. The devil goes to Georgia to look for some souls. He’ll make a deal. He happens upon a young fiddler named Johnny, to whom he offers one of these deals. It takes the form of a fiddle contest. Johnny gets a golden fiddle if he wins. The assumption is that the fiddle is worth a fortune. If the devil wins, however, Johnny loses his soul.
The Devil Went Down To Georgia
The devil goes first, and he’s a hard act to follow. Demons come from hell to help him put on a rock ‘n roll extravaganza. Johnny may be in trouble. Johnny’s work with a simple fiddle is even better. Both Johnny and the Devil agree. The devil hands over the Golden fiddle. Johnny teases is the devil, telling him he’s open for a rematch at any time. In the original version of the song, son of a gun was replaced by a more colorful phrase.
There have been countless remakes and parodies of the song. There’s a Spanish version called “El Diablo bajo a Georgia”. The cartoon Futurama features a contest between the main characters and the robot Devil. The humans cheat by attacking the robot Devil with the Golden fiddle. There’s a very clever music video of the song on Youtube titled “Primus – The Devil Went Down to Georgia”. The story is well animated. There was even a sequel by Charlie Daniels. It was called “The Devil Comes Back to Georgia”.
The Devil Went Down To Georgia
The Devil Went Down to Georgia is a song that people sing. Give it a try, you’ll know why the title has a ring.