Top Twenty Devil Songs

Following on from last week's #fridayflash story, The Devil Wants Your Small Change, here are 20 songs about Old Nick...





20. Robert Johnson - Me & The Devil Blues

He sold his soul to the devil, just to play songs like this.

19. Bruce Springsteen - Devils & Dust

The best track from my least favourite Springsteen album.

What if what you do to survive
Kills the things you love

Nice harmonica.

18. Marty Robbins - Devil Woman

The cooler song with this title. Don't worry, we'll get to the uncooler one in a moment.

17. Superman Revenge Squad - The Devil Has Two Hands

If Star Wars single-handedly killed decent cinema
Then MTV single-handedly killed music
And the devil has two hands, he uses one to shove all these bands onto the telly, and the other one to stab them in the back

And Coca-Cola owns Christmas these days, I’d start a riot but might miss Eastenders, and that would be too much of a price to pay
And everything I love is mass-produced and meant to last a day; my favourite records started life an a glint in some sweat shop owner's eye

16. Skip James - Devil Got My Woman

The song Steve Buscemi gets all worked up about in the movie Ghost World.

15. Modest Mouse - This Devil's Workday

MM trying to sound like Tom Waits... again.

14. John Martyn - I'd Rather Be The Devil

I'd rather be the devil
Than I would be my woman's man

13. Wild Beasts - The Devil's Crayon

I saw Wild Beasts live once, in a support slot. I hated them.

On record though, they're growing on me.

12. Suzi Quatro - Devil Gate Drive

Ah those leather pants and white boots.

11. Luke Haines - All The English Devils

Where Mrs. Beeton meets Nobby Stiles - only in a Luke Haines lyric.

10. Cliff Richard - Devil Woman

Look, everyone, it's Cliff!

Or, if you prefer, the Flight of the Conchords parody... guest starring Chloe from 24.



9. INXS - Devil Inside

Before Michael Hutchence did his last dance, I was a huge INXS fan. It all seems like such a long time ago...

8. Gil Scott Heron - Me & The Devil

If anyone knows the darkness in men's souls, it's GSH...

7. Elvis - You're The Devil In Disguise

Oh yes you are.

6. The Lawrence Arms - The Devil's Taking Names

A literary punk band? Really?

5. The Smiths - Handsome Devil

Let me get my hands on your mammary glands
And let me get your head on the conjugal bed
I say, I say, I say...

That sweet-tongued devil... maybe Morrissey wouldn't be so unlucky in love if he changed his chat up lines.

4. Billie Holliday - That Ole Devil Called Love

See also Alison Moyet, the second greatest version of this classic.

3. Shed Seven - Devil In Your Shoes

Some may scoff at such a high placing for the Sheds... but this is their finest hour. Give them their due.

2. The Charlie Daniels Band - The Devil Went Down To Georgia

Johnny, rosin up your bow and play your fiddle hard.
'Cos hells broke loose in Georgia and the devil deals the cards.
And if you win you get this shiny fiddle made of gold.
But if you lose, the devil gets your soul.

I really wanted this to be Number One.

Fire on the mountain, run boys, run.
The devil's in the house of the risin' sun.
Chicken in the bread pan, pickin' out dough.
"Granny, does your dog bite?"
"No, child, no."

1. Rolling Stones - Sympathy For The Devil

When you search for "The Rolling Stones" on youtube, this is the first track that comes up. For good reason...



So... what will I be damned to hell for all eternity for not including?

Top Ten Television Songs

Well, I did radio, it only follows I continue with a list of my favourite songs about the idiot box...

Special mention goes to two bands names after TVs - Television Personalities and Television. If I ever do a Top Ten about tents, Marquee Moon will be number one.

For any Blur fans wondering where Graham Coxon's Coffee & TV is, I'm saving that for the Coffee Top Ten. No, seriously.


10. The Handsome Family - All The TVs In Town

You can’t see the stars
Above the city skyline
But sometimes the air shines like gold
Under the yellow street lights

The psychotics in the park
Howling up at the sky
And the silent airplanes
Slowly drifting by

Sometimes it all seems to glow
As bright as the lights
From all the TVs in town

But when I wake up scared
In those still summer nights
When the air hangs like snakes
Around flashing neon signs

It seems like there’s nothing
Along these broken roads
But blinking lights on creaking metal poles

Ah, Rennie Sparks. Lyrical poet.

9. I Am Kloot - 86 TVs

I really should pick up the new I Am Kloot album. The reviews seem to suggest they're finally ready for their Elbow moment (years spent flogging a horse that only a few people realise isn't dead... until said horse is reborn as a stallion).

8. Billy Joel - Sleeping With The Television On

I am the product of a misspent youth spent listening to Billy Joel records. See also 'Close To The Borderline' in which Billy sagely notes, "I don't change channels so they must change me".

7. Pulp - TV Movie

Without you my life has become a hangover without end
A movie made for TV: bad dialogue,
Bad acting, no interest.
Too long with no story & no sex.

See also Clem Snide's Made For TV Movie, Everclear's TV Show and Bruce's TV Movie.

6. Mansun - Television

Overblown, theatrical instrumentation? Check.

Pretentious lyrics? Check.

Every album a concept album> Check.

So why did Muse become massive and Mansun disappear? Paul Draper was robbed.

5. Airborne Toxic Event - I Don't Want To Be On TV

I don't.

I've worked with a TV crew twice in my life, recording two separate documentaries, and both times I've found them peopled by arrogant tosspots who thought everybody else existed purely to do their bidding.

Apologies if you work in TV and you're the exception to that rule.

4. Ned's Atomic Dustbin - Kill Your Television

Music blogger Friend Of Rachel Worth over at Cathedrals Of Sounds has a regular feature in which he names Bands That Should Have Been Bigger Than The Beatles. I thoroughly agree with many of his suggestions, including Spearmint, Furniture and The Pearlfishers. Even if they'd never released a record, Ned's Atomic Dustbin deserve pop sainthood for their name alone.

3. Bruce Springsteen - 57 Channels (And Nothing On)

The early 90s is generally considered Bruce's creative nadir. Releasing two albums on the same day is always a sign that something's up (see also GnR - though Use Your Illusion I & II were slightly less disappointing than Lucky Town and Human Touch). This is probably the best track he recorded between Tunnel Of Love and The Rising, and the lyrics hint at just why his mojo went astray.

I bought a bourgeois house in the Hollywood hills
With a truckload of hundred thousand dollar bills
Man came by to hook up my cable TV
We settled in for the night my baby and me
We switched 'round and 'round 'til half-past dawn
There was fifty-seven channels and nothin' on

Never trust any artist who's so content the only thing they've got to complain about is "there's nowt worth watching on TV".

2. Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy - Television, The Drug Of The Nation

This was one of the toughest Top Ten decisions I've had to face. Which is the better television tune, the Disposable Heroes... or the track that - by toss of a coin alone - made it to Number One? Both are essential listening, and yet they're also somewhat surprising choices that venture a little further from my usual whiteboy indie/rock safety zone.

T.V. is the reason why less than ten percent of our nation reads books daily...

1. Gil Scott Heron - The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock
news and no pictures of hairy armed women
liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose.
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb,
Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom
Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink, or the Rare Earth.
The revolution will not be televised.

No, the theme song will be written by Gil Scott Heron... and lo, it shall be genius.



So... which TV track would have you refusing to change the channel?