Welcome back to Tales from the Turntable! Over these past few months, we’ve explored quite a few different musical urban legends, from Paul McCartney’s alleged death and replacement to Klaatu’s true identity. This week, we’ll be looking at an urban legend that has spanned centuries in music — a myth that can be found in all kinds of music by a myriad of artists. It’s one of my favorite musical myths: satanic messaging hidden in music.
From the beginning of human culture, religion and music have been intertwined. Many believed all art to be a way of communicating with a higher power, while some used music as a method of worshiping. As religion grew among the population and music became more complex, the relationship between religion and music grew stronger.
Across the world, music is a method of expression; it expresses faith, emotion and even fear. In the 11th century, musical theorist Guido of Arezzo classified the augmented fifth interval (also known as a tritone) as the most dissonant interval between two notes. Though its use was common throughout music around the world, many musicians, specifically in Europe, found the tritone to be almost unlistenable, like some kind of act of the devil.
In 1702, German composer Andreas Werckmeister cited the phrase “mi contra fa est diabolus in musica,” a Latin phrase meaning “mi against fa is the devil in music,” (“mi” and “fa” are common terms used to denote scale degrees in music, called solfege). Werckmeister cited the phrase as a saying from the “old authorities” of harmonic composition. Many believe that the tritone was banned from many parts of Europe around this time for its association with the occult; however, this claim has been proven false.
As superstition surrounding the tritone dissipated, composers often used it to create tension or unease in their music. Hungarian composer Franz Liszt used the tritone as a way of symbolizing the devil in “Dante Sonata,” a musical adaptation of Dante’s “Divine Comedy.” English composer Gustav Holst abundantly used the tritone in his “Planets” series, most notably in “Mars, the Bringer of War,” where the tritone creates an instability in the orchestra, akin to a raging battle.
Throughout the centuries, many were unsettled or even frightened by the idea of the devil in music; however, most never took it seriously, until the evolution of blues music and later rock and metal. During the second half of the 20th century, there were several “satanic panics” brought on by all kinds of media, but music seemed to be the biggest cause of mass hysteria.
Around the 1960s, rumors surrounding musicians selling their souls to the devil for impeccable skill were spurred across the United States. The myth was first associated with 19th century violinist Niccolo Paganini, due to his virtuosic speed and unbelievable technique. Most noteworthy, blues guitarist Robert Johnson fell victim to this myth after his untimely demise at 27 years old (which also sparked the “27 club” phenomenon). Johnson was said to be a mediocre guitarist at a young age; however, he suddenly experiences an exponential growth in skill after a supposed meeting with the devil at a local crossroads. Johnson references Satan often in his music, through songs like “Me and the Devil Blues” and “Crossroads.”
Into the 1970s with the birth of rock and metal, the rumor became associated with virtuosic musicians like Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, David Bowie and Black Sabbath’s Ozzy Osbourne. Black Sabbath in particular became noteworthy for their unapologetic use of occult imagery. In the opener to their debut record aptly titled “Black Sabbath,” the band bashes the listener over the head with a distorted tritone, heavy rain ambiance and shouted lyrics about a meeting with a demon. Many titled this song and its accompanying album as the birth of metal.
In the mid-1980s, then-Tennessee senator Al Gore and his wife Tipper Gore assembled the Parents Music Resource Center, or PMRC, to prevent children from being exposed to mature or otherwise unsavory music. The PMRC quickly went after bands that used satanic imagery as unsafe for children, along with vulgar songwriters like Frank Zappa. Bands like Slayer, and once again Ozzy Osbourne, were lambasted for negatively influencing children through their music. While many bands had their albums branded with a parental advisory sticker, leading to fewer sales and fewer music stores willing to sell their records, it didn’t stop most musicians from including occult imagery in their music
40 years on, the devil still lives in some people’s music, and satanic panics are still a regular occurrence. In 2021, Lil Nas X was accused of promoting Satan through his music and sneakers, which included a small amount of his blood. Though times may change, and music will change with it, musicians still find inspiration in the darkest of places.