Posted on 10/14/2005 4:41:59 AM PDT by chambley1
Charlie Daniels believes in prayer in school. He's been nominated in the Musician of the Year category for the Christian Country Music Association and he still plays "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" in his concerts.
So the leader of the Charlie Daniels Band was a little surprised to hear the C.D. Hylton High School band director Dennis Brown pulled the 1979 song from its playlist.
"We play it every night. It's our signature song," Daniels said in a telephone interview Thursday.
"We wouldn't dare go off stage without playing that song. People would feel cheated," the 68-year-old Daniels said.
"The Devil Went Down to Georgia" won a Grammy for best country vocal in 1979.
This year, the Hylton marching band is performing a Georgia-themed halftime show to celebrate its upcoming trip to perform at the Peach Bowl in Atlanta in December.
The song was in the band's lineup of Georgia-themed music until a single letter to the editor appeared in the Potomac News & Manassas Journal Messenger. Robert McLean opined that "A high school band director would be fired for playing 'Amazing Grace' but no one bats an eye for the playing of a song about the devil ..."
The letter to the editor generated more letters to the editor and online responses.
Daniels reacted to the reactions to his song.
"My song has nothing to do with Satanism whatsoever," Daniels said before he was to play a concert for the soldiers at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo. "The song's hard to misinterpret if you listen to it."
"There's no dark side to that song," the southern-rocking, bluegrass-picking, gospel-singing Daniels said.
The lyrics of the song describe the devil's attempt to steal the soul of a fiddle playing Georgia boy by challenging him to a fiddling duel. The devil lost.
The song was written as a "put-down" of the devil, Daniels said.
As far as Daniels knows, the song has never before been scratched from a band's repertoire.
Had the Hylton marching band retained the song, it would have been in good company.
"We've done halftimes at Tennessee football games with the whole marching band," Daniels said.
Daniels said he believes in hymns at school.
"If I had my way people would still be praying in school and we could sing 'Amazing Grace' or anything we wanted to," the forthcoming and congenial Daniels said.
"I think it's wrong not to be able to do that and I think it's a misinterpretation of the Constitution to take that away from children," he said.
He said he was proud the band played his song and said his heart went with the band because they couldn't play a song they'd worked to learn.
"If they took the time and the hours and everything to rehearse the song then I think it's a shame they have to pull it because of one letter," Daniels said.
Daniels stopped short of calling Brown's action censorship and was philosophical about the reaction to the song being scratched.
"I think it's a little overreacting myself," Daniels said.
"If I listened to criticisms of me and my music and my career and my songs, I'd still be down in North Carolina cropping tobacco," Daniels said.
It sure is.
And it's just a musical version of an old, old story, anyway.
Which is why this Sandra Day O'Connor seat is so critical.
"The Devil Went Down to Georgia"
I always thought it was about Jimma Carter.
I thought about how that song would sound when arranged for marching band. I shuddered.
Its pretty obvious that the Band Director didnt like the devil losing in the song. Either that or he is a gutless POS.
Charlie Daniels. God's answer to the Dixie Chicks. A real American.
Go Charlie!!!
No, that would be "The Devil Came Out Of Georgia."
Slightly OT:
The one song I've ALWAYS wanted to hear arranged for Marching Band is Led Zepplin's "Black Dog". That guitar riff between the vocals would wear the brass out!
We butchered a lot of songs in marching band. I usually played bass drum (boom boom boom boom) or tenor drum (rat tatatat tatatat tatatat) so everything sounded the same except for the melody.
Even more OT: the best Led Zepplin I've ever heard was a bluegrass version of Stairway to Heaven out on the Shenandoah river.
My 10 year old son took up violin lessons at school and worked hard all of last year towards two primary goals:
1. learn to play the theme to Star Wars and
2. learn to play "The devil went down to Georgia.
IDIOTS!
Well, these are indeed the pre-eminate pinheads of academia. Some people are simply educated FAR beyond their intellectual capacity.
This 23-year-old Evangelical Christian considers "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" the best Country music song ever made. I know I am not alone, either.
Absolutely right. Satan is smarter (not wiser), stronger, more focused, tireless, relentless, merciless, and he's been doing what he does for thousands of years without a letup.
The only way to "beat" the Devil:
And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, "Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothershas been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. 11 And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.I am, BTW, expressing a view on the content of the song, if you take it seriously. Not on Charlie Daniels, nor this particular situation.
(Revelation 12:10-11)
Have you ever heard the "Dread Zeppelin" version of the song? Hilarious, but also probably close to what you're thinking of.
I think the band director needs to get a clue about what country music is all about. It's a ditty, and the devil gets beat.
By the director's standard, CS Lewis shouldn't have written "The Screwtape Letters."
In both Charlie's song and Lewis' book, there's no doubt who the bad guys are.
I once heard Dread Zeppelin play "The Immigrant Song."
One of the funniest things ever.
True enough, though according to 1 John, we have already overcome him.
Regardless, however, "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" is nothing more than a fun country music song with amazing string accompaniments. I don't know very many people who will go up and wager their souls against a fiddle of gold after hearing that song.
Do agree with all you have said. But I alsocan see Charlie
Daniels viewpoint on this. And IMO his song does not claim
that the fiddleplaying boy from Ga. did it all on his own.
That may be inferred -as the song does not explicitly claim
the boys talent were a gift of God.But taking th esong in
context-- I find a reasonable Country reflection of the
story of Job in it's lyric.I am not confident that Charlie
Daniels would say he believes any man can defeat the devil
without God's help.
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