There’s plenty of stories from other countries about the cunning hero outsmarting the fae or similar. Just that in America, the hero always wins vs other countries where there are also many stories where the hero gets killed.
A famous legend in my culture is of a humpbacked man stumbling across some magical fuckers and they take pity on him and take away the hump in his back. He is so happy and chirpy he sings their praises and jumps with glee, so they give him a worse hump for being an annoying cunt.
But america is special
/s
Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allen Poe, two of America’s most famous writers, both based their bodies of work on people paying the price of losing to temptation/sin. Although to be fair I couldn’t think of any popular songs about that.
I know it’s not a popular take, but I don’t like Poe or Hawthorne. I always felt like their shallow exploration of death/edgy topics really only appealed to the immature or unintelligent reader.
I can see their work on a shelf between The Nightmare Before Christmas and a Dashboard Confessional CD- maybe a Jr High textbook as well.
I wouldn’t use them as an example.
Well, the problem isn’t that your take is unpopular, it’s that it’s confusing. You say they only appeal to the unintelligent or immature but you also say you don’t like them. I’m sure you can see the contradiction.
It’s unpopular because instead of just saying you don’t like them or personally think they lack depth you go straight to insulting their readers and fans.
Im sure they can’t hold a candle to your own peerless prose, king.
Thats only because they write with emotion in mind, in my opinion. They are trying to evoke feelings and cause dissonance, not lay out an intellectual thesis on the subject.
Johnny admits to knowing that taking the bet was a sin and commits it anyway. Johnny gets the golden fiddle, but the devil gets his soul in the end anyway. What’s 60 more years to an eternal being? The song can still be a cautionary tale you just need to finish it.
Johnny admits to knowing that taking the bet was a sin and commits it anyway.
No, he admits that it might be a sin.
The boy said, “My name’s Johnny and it might be a sin
But I’m gon’ take your bet, you’re gonna regret, I’m the best there’s ever been”That means he’s acknowledging its a sin but he will do it anyways. You are thinking it says it might be a sin or might not, but thats not how the sentence goes.
I definitely read it as an acknowledgement of a risk rather than an admission of wrong.
Either way he’s saying it doesnt make a difference, if it was a sin or not he’d still do it.
There’s a big difference between saying “I understand this is a sin, but I’m doing it anyway” versus “I think this might be a sin, but I’m doing it anyway.”
The sentence can be interpreted either way.
Point kinda holds, though. Ignoring the long-term consequences for short-term gain seems to also feature heavily in America.
The county was founded by generations of people who came here with little thought to long term consequences, so it tracks
ah yes, that short term Constitution that never held up /s
That was the second one. The first one was the Articles of Confederation. Lasted 8 years.
Hell, even the constitution is like a handful of good ideas, some terrible ones, and a README about how to make a pull request to add more features.
Yep only in America
🙄
Eh? The wager was Johnny either gets the fiddle or loses his soul, why would he go to hell anyway?
No human is without sin, after all.
Exactly. Johnny wins the contest, so he gets the fiddle. If he had lost, he would have forfeited his soul.
Win or lose, taking the bet at all is a sin, and Johnny aknowleges this in the song. Plenty of protestants (the target audience) see this as reason enough to go to hell.
Now you could argue about forgiveness or confession or whatever the fuck but the stage has been set for Johnny to go to hell even though he won.
“Here’s your fiddle. See you in 80 years”.
I think its a cautionary tale about using evil even when you think you’re good and right. The devil doesnt play fair, and always wins.
It’s not a protestant belief that a single sin makes you irredeemable and sends you to hell.
Nor a Catholic belief…
They didnt say that. Do we still call these strawmen?
Yes they did.
Win or lose, taking the bet at all is a sin, and Johnny aknowleges this in the song. Plenty of protestants (the target audience) see this as reason enough to go to hell.
[…]
“Here’s your fiddle. See you in 80 years”.
Well, Daniels wrote a sequel in which the devil comes back to try again. That pretty much negates this theory.
Also, Daniels wrote it in the middle of a recording session for the sole reason that he realized they forgot to write a fiddle song for the album they were recording. So I wouldn’t ascribe too much intention to anything.
It’s rooted in the tradition of American machismo and braggadocio. Hyperbole is a huge part of the American oral tradition. You go to any small town in the Southern US and the old timers will have some tall tales that beggar belief and they will tell them too you as if it were the gospel with no winks or nods.
I think Devil Went Down to Georgia is supposed to be viewed as a boast by Johnny himself. “I’m a really good fiddle player.” “Oh yeah?” “Yeah, this one time I beat the Devil himself.” “I told you once you sonofabitch, I’m the best there’s ever been.”
American machismo and braggadocio
machismo and braggadocio
machismo
braggadocio
Do you know where these words came from? Americans have neither when compared.
First of all I wasn’t comparing. 2nd of all it is incredibly stupid to argue that American machismo doesn’t exist. Compared to fucking what?
The devil in the song is in a bind and ready to make a deal, which is a little different from other Faustian tales.
Maybe the lesson is that you don’t make good music when you’re under pressure.
Or that gold fiddles sound bad.
The devils part sounded better IMO.
Of course he sounded better, he had a whole band backing him up!
The Devil trying to cheat the contest is baked into the song musically.
Something else worth noting - the licks the Devil plays on the fiddle sound good but are easy to play. Johnny’s licks are legitimately complex. He beat that sucker fair and square.
To add to this, the lyrics during the section where Johnny plays are about four traditional fiddle songs that aren’t played in the song itself: Fire on the Mountain, The House of the Rising Sun, Ida Red, and Granny Will Your Dog Bite. I think in the same way that the lyrics of Tenacious D - Tribute make it clear that Tribute is a representation of the greatest song in the world and not the greatest song itself, the music we hear from Johnny’s section is supposed to represent but not be the music he played to beat the Devil.
I could see that. This song could very well be some sort of anti devil music propaganda equating heavier rock/metal with devil music. Charlie Daniels is not exactly an admirable person. His song song Simple Man is in support of lynching.
According to conventional wisdom, Johnny damned himself by accepting the bet in the first place. The devil “loses”, but that just cements Johnny’s sin of pride.
The devil might not have gotten Johnny’s soul the day of the contest, but make no mistake, he does eventually get the soul.
Nah. Conventional wisdom says he can either
- the the priest all about it and do some chants
- find himself a baptizer and spend the rest of his time Jesusing real hard.
Johnny’s options will depend on his local wise man, but I suspect either way he’ll also be strongly encouraged to buy some merch.
he’ll also be strongly encouraged to buy some merch.
Eh, they usually don’t see merch as much as ask you to subscribe to their crowdfunding (ideally for 10% of your total income) for performative Jesusing done bi-weekly.
Yes and no. While the rules are all made up, and different people can just make up more rules, the standard rules say that any deal with the devil, even this bet, is a sin, an unforgivable sin. Adding in the sin of pride, which means Johnny is unlikely to ever repent, and the devil got a soul.
Also, there’s a sequel song with a bunch of big names on the project, Johnny went down due to the sin of pride.
Christianity’s whole thing is that no sin is unforgivable (except deliberate rejection of the Holy Spirit’s work/testimony about Jesus (Mark 3:20-28))
Again, the rules are made up, but there are a dozen listed sins that are unforgivable. You just have to look for them.
However, a deal with the devil is automatically considered blasphemy against God, and thus an unforgivable sin. Add in the sin of Pride, and Johnny is damned.
Well if you’re religious. There’s a whole class of individuals in the South that get off on showing the religious just how little they care for the tenets of Christianity. In addition to playing a mean fiddle, Johnny probably swears like a sailor and has extramarital sex whenever he can.
The song came out in 1979. The Southern Rebel was a big concept in the culture.
So this is cautionary tale of failing US educational system by OP?
If you ignore all the folk tales about people one upping the devil or the local equivalent… everywhere, yes, it’s a uniquely American trait.
Don’t those involve creative approaches and tricking or otherwise outsmarting the devil or local equivalent?
This is just Johnny being better than the devil and having a massive ego about it. That specific situation tends to be punished.
Johnny having a massive ego about it is a great sin of Pride, and so the devil ends up getting his soul anyway.
What are you even talking about? That’s not reflected in the lyrics of the song at all and a single sin doesn’t condemn someone to hell.
It’s not pride if you give fair warning that you just actually are that good. The devil was the boastful one challenging someone and not being able to back it up
The boy said, “My name’s Johnny and it might be a sin
But I’m gon’ take your bet and you’re gonna regret
I’m the best there’s ever been”He’s boasting about it before, and gloating about it after. But the devil is expected to sin, so it doesn’t matter. Johnny on the other hand knows he’s being boastful, and goes and does it anyway.
As a professional baseball(?) player once said, “It’s not bragging if you can do it.”
Reminds me of when Bobby Newport stole Knope’s heartwarming tale of support in the face of failure, but changed it and said “…And I won!”
the moral of the story was don’t trust celery man
I think the underlying realization for The Devil Went Down to Georgia is more that Americans will listen to good music even if they don’t agree with the lyrics.
The same goes for Imagine by John Lennon, for example.
What part of the lyrics of Devil Went Down to Georgia do you think people are disagreeing with?
the same part that OP is complaining about
I don’t understand your point. People don’t agree with the song because they believe the lyrics would be different if it were written somewhere else? I’m confused what you’re trying to say.
The hero of the song bets his soul against a golden fiddle that he can beat the devil in a fiddling contest because of his pride. People wouldn’t agree that this is a good thing. For example, most people wouldn’t teach their children this story as if Johnny was a hero, but that’s how he’s portrayed in the song.
This is the best I can explain it. If you keep asking the same questions past this point, I’m going to assume you’re just trolling me.
If you keep asking the same questions past this point, I’m going to assume you’re just trolling me.
Goodness gracious. I literally just didn’t understand your point. 🙄
Gonna have to agree with the one replying to ya here - you did not explain what you meant at all.
I love lyrics but i’ve found that most people I talk to about lyrics have no idea or don’t pay attention
Yup this is my experience as well, it makes me sad honestly.
Imagine regularly gets changed to exclude the most ‘objectionable’ lines.
I loved Cee-Lo until his cover of it at [some event I forgot]. He changed “and no religion” to “and all religions” which…just totally butchers the meaning of the song. It’s about a world where people are good to each other just because
I’m not an angry atheist but that really, really bugged me. Really spitting on his grave.
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But he could imagine following them perhaps.
It’s a cautionary tale of the Devil’s hubris. 😌
Says the person with the Superman profile pic.
I heard this song playing in a restaurant at lunch today then I come home to find this. Freakin’ weird.
We’ve been trying to send you hidden messages all day.
That uniquely “American” trait is just called optimism by people who don’t fixate on a mythical monoculture.
This is not optimism. It’s more irreverence. Which is honestly something we need more of these days. Everyone’s so goddamn serious.
But Americans are, like, really optimistic.
Most Americans haven’t read Candide these days. It used to be much more popular
We are Americans! Arrogance is our life’s blood, ambition is our food and drink, but most of all, hubris is the air we breathe!
https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Quintessons_(Transformers)
I was just going to throw the quote away, but now it’s getting to me. Why does the idea of Americans as Quintessons work so well? They’re ruled by capricious five-faced nutters, and their five faces are known as “death, wrath, laughter, bitterness, and doubt”. The only thing we haven’t got going for us is superintelligence, but in fairness Quintessons have acted pretty stupid sometimes.
Perhaps the devil who went down to Georgia was Johnny all along … and in the end he got the soul he wanted to take.
