Music Review - The Charlie Daniels Band - The Devil Went Down To Georgia

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1979 Rightly regarded as one of the greatest country songs of all time, this involves Satan roaming round the countryside in Georgia, USA, looking for souls to steal. He comes across a young arrogant fiddle-playing yokel called Johnny who he challenges to an on the spot music contest, offering Johnny a golden fiddle if Johnny can outplay him, but threatening to take his soul if Johnny loses. Johnny brazenly declares himself the best fiddle player there is, and takes up the challenge. The Devil goes first and plainly plays the better tune, even gaining accompaniment from a band of fiery demons. Johnny plays well, with a lyrical ditty about devils in cornfields, and bizarrely Satan concedes defeat, giving Johnny the golden fiddle and ignoring Johnny’s suggestion of returning for a rematch. It is a great song with great music, but what is bizarre is that Satan never cheats. With no independent witnesses or judges why does he even concede defeat to Johnny? He could easily jut insist that he won. Even as a fair contest, Satan’s rocking hard music set is way cooler than Johnny’s any day too. The devil should have kept both the golden fiddle and Johnny’ soul. Youtube – the song - Arthur Chappell