Satan is very much a part of popular culture in the West. His story has heavily influenced the portrayal of evil in film, as we shall see, but the devil also makes his appearance in our music, including the blues and its offspring, rock-n’-roll. The profound influence of Robert Johnson, a Delta blues (or country blues) performer of the 1930s (who made just two recording sessions in 1936 and 1937), was not fully felt until the re-release of several recordings in 1961 (which the likes of Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Zeppelin, and others have expressly identified as a profound influence on their work).<\/p>\n
The powers of evil make their appearance in a variety of ways in Johnson’s songs, some with more frightening effect than others (all of Johnson’s music is “haunting” in some way). In a devil-made-me-do-it sort of way, “Me and the Devil Blues” expresses the notion that some evil power outside of Johnson is responsible for his more violent behaviour towards a woman friend:<\/p>\n
Early this mornin’
\nwhen you knocked upon my door
\nEarly this mornin’, ooh
\nwhen you knocked upon my door
\nAnd I said, “Hello, Satan,”
\nI believe it’s time to go.”<\/p>\n
Me and the Devil
\nwas walkin’ side by side
\nMe and the Devil, ooh
\nwas walkin’ side by side
\nAnd I’m goin’ to beat my woman
\nuntil I get satisfied<\/p>\n
. . .<\/p>\n
You may bury my body
\ndown by the highway side
\nspoken: Baby, I don’t care where you bury my
\nbody when I’m dead and gone
\nYou may bury my body, ooh
\ndown by the highway side
\nSo my old evil spirit
\ncan catch a Greyhound bus and ride<\/p>\n
Less disturbing, in some ways, are songs like “Hellhound on my trail”, which nonetheless express Johnson’s angst in raw terms drawn from ideas associated with the powers of hell and the hell-hound successor of Cerberus (the guard-dog of the underworld in some Greek mythology) :<\/p>\n
I gotta keep movin’
\nI gotta keep movin’
\nBlues fallin’ down like hail
\nBlues fallin’ down like hail
\nUmm mmmm mmm mmmmmm
\nBlues fallin’ down like hail
\nBlues fallin’ down like hail
\nAnd the days keeps on worryin’ me
\nthere’s a hellhound on my trail
\nhellhound on my trail
\nhellhound on my trail. . .<\/p>\n
All I needs is my sweet woman
\nand to keep my company hey hey hey hey
\nmy company<\/p>\n
The notion that the crossroads or intersection outside of town was a magical place where the-powers-that-be were especially potent has a long history. But a specific legend grew up in the context of the emergence of the blues which also attached itself to Johnson himself. In particular, there was the notion that in order to gain exceptional skill at playing the blues, a person might meet the devil at the crossroads and make a deal, with the soul being the precious item in the devil’s sight. The lyrics in Johnson’s own “Cross road blues” apparently have very little, if anything, to do with this notion:<\/p>\n
I went down to the crossroad
\nfell down on my knees
\nI went down to the crossroad
\nfell down on my knees
\nAsked the lord above “Have mercy now
\nsave poor Bob if you please”<\/p>\n
Still, the overall legend nonetheless attached itself to this performer, who was known for playing the guitar like noone else could. (This is partly because of the shared name with Tommy Johnson, another blues artist who supposedly claimed that he did<\/em> sell his soul to the devil). It is this legend of selling one’s soul for exceptional guitar skills that is enacted in Oh Brother Where Art Thou?<\/em> (2000).<\/p>\n Selling one’s soul to the devil has a much longer history going back to medieval legends that Goethe<\/a> incorporated in his eighteenth century poetic story of Faust<\/a><\/em>, as we will see later. The film The Devil and Daniel Webster<\/a> (1941) re-tells a similar tale in a new setting, with Jabez Stone making a contract with Mr. Scratch, the devil (a remake with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin ran into financial difficulties and is yet to be released):<\/p>\n [examining the contract] The legend of selling one’s soul, which continues as part of Satan’s story, is also reflected in the Simpsons episode in which poor Homer sells his soul to the devil for a doughnut (Treehouse of Horror IV). In this case, though, Homer actually robs the devil of his due in the long run.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Satan is very much a part of popular culture in the West. His story has heavily influenced the portrayal of evil in film, as we shall see, but the devil also makes his appearance in our music, including the blues and its offspring, rock-n’-roll. The profound influence of Robert Johnson, a Delta blues (or country […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,467],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history-of-satan","category-religions-of-the-ancient-mediterranean-blog-archive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philipharland.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philipharland.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philipharland.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philipharland.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philipharland.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.philipharland.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13697,"href":"https:\/\/www.philipharland.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions\/13697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philipharland.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philipharland.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philipharland.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nJabez Stone: What does it mean here, about my soul?
\nMr. Scratch: Why should that worry you? A soul? A soul is nothing. Can you see it, smell it, touch it? No. This soul, your soul is nothing against seven years of good luck. You’ll have money and all that money can buy..<\/p>\n