Songfacts®:

• An early Earth, Wind & Fire song, "Evil" is very uplifting despite the title. It was written by their two main vocalists, Phillip Bailey and Maurice White, with White singing lead on the track. In the first verse, evil is overpowering, with no love to be found. But in the second verse, beauty tries to break through. At the end of the song, through prayer and love, the light breaks through the evil.
  
  A lot of Earth, Wind & Fire's music is about looking inward to find our best selves and discover our true callings. "Evil" shows that it's never easy, but possible if we're persistent.
• The percussion instrument that sounds a little like a harpsichord on this song is a Kalimba, played by Maurice White. A Kalimba is a very small piano played with the thumbs; it's rooted in an African instrument called a mbira. White had been playing Kalimba since forming the band in the late '60s, but "Evil" was the first song where it was a lead instrument. The next year, Earth, Wind & Fire released "Kalimba Story," which is about how White started playing the instrument and why it is so important to him.
• "Evil" was the lead single from the band's fourth album, Head To The Sky. It charted at #50 in the US, their highest placement to that point, and helped the album sell over a million copies. Earth, Wind & Fire was quickly building a following , and a few years later became one of the most popular bands in America. Their first big hit was "Shining Star," which went to #1 in 1975.