I always thought the devil won, not because of the music but because Johnny made a deal with the devil. Johnny corrupted his own soul. Also Johnny was pretty Prideful. “My Name’s Johnny and it might be a sin, but I’ll take your be, your gonna regreat, Cause I’m the best that’s ever been.” Heh.
The devil going to get Johnny’s’ soul, but just not right then.
Even if you think the devil played better than Johnny, the devil thought that Johnny played better.
“The devil bowed his head, because he knew that he’d been beat.”
Or it could be the devil is messing with Johnny, since he is going to get the boy’s soul anyway.
Now I’m getting flashbacks to sitting on the lawn in front of Stone Mountain in GA, watching the laser show. “Devil Went Down to GA” is a standard, as are “Proud to be an American” and “Dixie”.
And yeah, the Devil kicked Johnny’s ass all over the state. It wasn’t just the Band of Demons, either – Johnny had backup singers, too. The Devil just had better presentation; he knew how to work that hickory stump, he had the whole fire and the evil hiss down, and that awesome bass line. As Gcat points out, it’s kind of a lame competition: Johnny wins a solid gold fiddle which has gotta be kinda heavy and have lousy resonance, while the Devil just wins the soul of some arrogant redneck. Johnny’s on the way to hell anyway from all the sins he keeps breaking, he cusses and he’s prideful and he’s confused about chickens in breadpatches and such. You know that he’s going to die in an accident in his truck or maybe in some domestic dispute, and he’s going to hell and spend the whole time just lording it over the Devil how he won that stupid contest.
I would want to see the Devil vs. Alison Krauss. I think she’d win that one and either way she’d be cute as a button doing it.
But the whole point of the song is that it was a bet: soul vs. shiny fiddle made of gold. And Johnny won, so the devil didn’t get Johnny’s soul (though clearly most of us think he should). It might have been “a sin” but it wasn’t a fait accompli.
I liked Futurama’s parody of it: Robot Satan challenges the Planet Express crew to a fiddling duel for Bender’s soul. Robot Satan goes first, then it’s the Planet Express crew’s turn, so Leela picks up the solid gold fiddle,
bashes the devil’s head in with it, and they run away.
That’s what always bugged me about this song. Who’s judging this contest? It’s on the honor system? The Devil is just going to cave in and accept defeat like that? Come on! He’s the Devil!!! Surely he would have disputed any claim to victory by Johnny, or filed a protest, or pitched a conniption fit or something!
And aniother thing: where’s the fine print? Where’s the catch? Bargains with the Devil always have a catch.
Johnny, better get that fiddle appraised. It’s brass, I’m thinking.
For some reason I had the subtitles on when I saw this, when Robot Devil plays - with extra robot arms appearing and general inhuman ability - the subtitles just say “consumate fiddling”, in fact it’s my favorite Futurama line…
I’m afraid I have to disagree. Without the band of demons, the devil’s violin was mediocre at best. The ensemble in its entirety kicked Johnny’s butt, don’t get me wrong, but if you go by straight fiddle-to-fiddle competition, I say Johnny won fair and square.
Johnny had technical brilliance, but the devil won hands down; he just had —I dunno—more soul in his playing. Those who favor technical brilliance will soon find themselves poo-poo-ing much of the Beatles’ catalogue.
I’ll send you the cleaning bill, Bucky—or, maybe I’ll just whine about how I really did a spit-take and had to clean up.
