The Devil Went Down To Georgia

Submission 12,228

About

"The Devil Went Down To Georgia" is a famous 1979 Bluegrass song by the Charlie Daniels Band. Its popularity has made it widely parodied and discussed online.

Origin

The song was first released on May 21st, 1979 under Epic Records. It was Billboard's 50th top song overall for 1979^[2] and was in the top 10 for seven weeks and in the top 40 for 12 weeks.^[3] The song itself describes the Devil as needing a soul, and challenges a fiddler named Johnny to see who plays better. If Johnny wins, the Devil will give him a golden fiddle, but if he loses, the Devil get's his soul. Despite the Devil being known to manipulate, cheat and lie in most stories where he is involved, Johnny wins the contest by simply playing better and wins the Golden Fiddle without no strings attached.

Spread

A cover of the song by Steve Ouimette appeared on the 2007 video game Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. On February 23, 2008, YouTuber Jordan Miller uploaded the song to YouTube. Despite it not being from an official outlet, the video gained over 18 million views within nine years (shown below, left).^[6] On June 16th, 2009 the band Primus uploaded their cover of their son to their VEVO youtube account. This cover gained over 13 million views within eight years (shown below, right).^[7]

The song has also been covered and parodies by many others, including Futurama, The Muppets and Robot Chicken (ex: shown below).

The song has also generated online discussion about its plot. On November 11th 2011 the Humor website Cracked published the article "5 Fictional Devils Who Kind of Seem Like Good Guys" ^[3], noting that "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" has no twist with Johnny winning the bet fair and square and without the Devil cursing him in any way. On August 14th, 2013, Redditor RuafaolGaiscioch submitted a post to /r/FanTheories^[8] in which he outlined that he believes the Devil won the fiddling contes, tricking Johnny into thinking he won such that his pride would be inflated for the rest of his life, condemning his soul to hell. The theory gained 920 upvotes.