Devil’s Cry
A song about evil … the Devil is metaphorical
One of the things I intermittently… and relatively unproductively … try to do on this platform is introduce one of my old-ass analog songs to a much younger populace more attuned to today’s electronically produced or “enhanced” sonic textures. Steeped as I was in jazz, blues and soul music during my formative years, my neanderthal sensibilities even predate the ossified preferences of the GenX crowd for the stripped-down and hyper-simplistic punk and grunge aesthetics.
Still, as most of these songs have only been curated in my private stash until recently, they have to sound “new” to somebody. The main difficulty seems to involve the accessibility of SoundCloud through Substack (I’ve so far mostly eschewed uploading to the evil YouTube or Spotify), so let me know if you have problems.
The song linked to below is titled “Devil’s Cry” … the Devil being a metaphor for something very real, which is the tendency for young men to embrace evil in an effort to achieve a modicum of agency over their short, unpromising life trajectories.
It’s not a happy song. It’s not about love. And it’s not a mopey lament about being wronged by a former lover either. So it won’t share common cause with 90 percent of the popular music of any era. But it does get to the heart of why there’s so much evil in the world, engendered by those stepping on others while trying to climb out from under the boot that’s standing on the neck of the rest of humanity. Enjoy (lyrics below, after the SoundCloud link):
https://m.soundcloud.com/biff-thuringer/devils-cry
Devil’s Cry
Music and lyrics by Biff Thuringer
© 1992, Stephen M Hopkins, Thuringer Music
A man can dig ditches
A man can sell insurance
A man can wear some brown on his nose
A man can get a haircut and put on a blue suit
And he can wonder if his attitude shows
He can dream about the future but he won’t get far
Without a personal invitation
From the demon at the center of his desperate heart
If you listen you can hear him cry:
Now you can be a poor man and suffer in your hungry world
Dangle at the end of your chain
Or you can be a rich man wanted by a million girls
Drowning in a sea of cocaine
Now I can see that your a winner, so I’ll make you a deal
(For) the power that my influence buys
‘Cause buddy nothing gives a a winner any bigger thrill
Than dejection in a loser’s eyes
Well, a man can get angry
A man can get religious
A man can stick his thumb out and run
A man can try for office and pretend that he’s good
Or he can get the same respect with a gun
He can try to understand it, but he won’t know why
Without an intimate conversation
With the demon at the center of his two-faced heart
Come on and listen to the devil cry:
Now you can be a weak man and whine about your pitiful life
Hang there like a doll on a string
Or you can be a strong man, sharper than a steel-blade knife
Riding in a stretch limousine
Now you can say it won’t affect you, but you know that it will
The power that my influence buys
‘Cause buddy, nothing gives a player any bigger thrill
Than desire in a young girl’s eyes
Now a man can get married
A man can play the horses
A man can be a government spy
A man can go crazy, or pretend that he’s dumb
Or he can jump into the river and die
He can pray to Baby Jesus on his big white cloud
For a miracle or a favor
While the demon leaves a message in his broken heart
If you listen, you can hear him cry:
Yeah, you can be a small man and dream about a different world
Save up for your summer vacation
Or you can be a real, live hero of a million girls
Buy up all the TV stations
Now you can say it doesn’t matter, but you know that it will
I’m telling you the reason why
‘Cause buddy, nothing gives the devil any bigger thrill
Than some evil in a young man’s eyes