Where's the Devil (When You Need Him?)

Album: Believe (2004)
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Songfacts®:

  • "Where's the Devil" tells the story of a young man who has died and is now spinning in his grave because his beloved is about to marry another man. While lead singer JD Wilkes describes it as "another one of those 'nobody loves me, boo hoo hoo' kind of songs," he acknowledges that what sets it apart from other "girl left me, found someone new" tunes is the way the story is told.

    In our interview with Wilkes, he said, "That's the story, but it's all in the turns of a phrase. Tom Waits, what he does is he has all these clever one-liners and wordplay, and I'm also doing that. 'The warlord of all bloodshed's under the floorboard of the woodshed.' That's one of those 'I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy' things. Those kind of things float my boat and I'm always looking for new ones, those little sayings that are fun to play with."

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