TRACK #399:

Devil by Tom Rodhe

We don’t talk about The Devil much around these parts. I’m sure I’ve said this before, but I’m not that into him, as character. Or even as real entity vying for my eternal soul, honestly. I’m not into that either. But just as a matter of subject, he’s not terribly interesting to me.

Now, I like movies about The Devil, or probably more accurately, I like movies about the goddamn nutjobs that lick goat asshole or pour blood onto naked women out of some misguided loyalty to a being that, by all accounts, shouldn’t be trusted for even a second. Dumb shit cultists and their dumb shit rituals are interesting to me. But The Devil himself? Naw, not so much.

And listen, I know this holiday gets all wrapped up with him, what with the paganism and Christian fundamentalists crying bloody murder over the whole affair, but this just isn’t a day I largely associate with The Devil. Maybe that’s my naïveté. But look, I like Draculas and Mummies and Haunted Houses and shit. I like Witches and candy and Jack O’lanterns and maybe you’ll say all that occult paganism is Satanic and in service of The Devil, and the mere separation of the two in my mind is but the very trick Satan has pulled on me. Ok. Fine. Go off. That doesn’t mean I gotta talk about him or give a shit.

So anyway, all of that is to say we don’t have a lot of songs about The Devil on the playlist. But when I was looking for songs to round out this Classic Monster block, I figured the Devil might be due to get his due.

After auditioning a pile of possible Devil tracks, I finally landed on this one from Tom Rodhe because, well I dunno really. I guess because it kind of a fun, danceable tune, but probably more because it’s absolutely ridiculous. What is he even talking about in this song? And what’s with that voice? It’s completely goofy and I love every second of it.

Now Tom Rodhe only ever released this single, but Tom ROD released plenty of other singles and even a 1978 LP called Understand. None of that quite sounds like Devil, though. In fact, most of it just kinda sounds like disco-tinged late 70’s AOR. It’s pretty standard sounding stuff. So what’s with Devil? It’s seems to materialize out of nowhere and then Tom, either Rodhe or Rod, never releases another song again. It’s strange.

Here’s Tom Rod looking all damp for some reason. What’s going on here? Is this a lip gloss ad? Was this photo taken in the middle of a boxing match that Tom was involved in, what gives? I don’t like the way he’s staring at us either. I just kinda want him to leave us all alone. Or at least go back to looking like he does in the other EPs, which is way less intense.

I think he’s French. I’ve seen him sing in French anyway. I know that doesn’t necessarily mean he is French, but it seems more likely than him being Polish. There’s not a lot of information on the guy it seems. You can find his songs easily enough, they’re all over YouTube, but information in another thing. Even weird tidbits of info that one can usually glean from comment sections is non-existent here. It’s kinda weird actually. He’s got tons of videos, all a number of years old at this point, that basically have ZERO comments and it’s strange to see. There is one notable exception, which is this video for Tom’s Lady Gonna Run Away, where the poster gets 1 comment and proceeds to launch into a 12 response thread that goes completely unanswered, where the poster even wishes him a Happy Easter for no reason. I got a real kick outta that.

But really I’m talking about all kinds of things here that aren’t really this song right now, so I’m gonna wrap this up by saying, I used samples from the Highway to Heaven episode I Was A Middle Aged Werewolf, which is a fun episode. Unfortunately, I haven’t thrown it up on the TeleWeen page yet, so if you wanna check it out, here’s a direct link. It’s definitely a fun one to watch this Halloween. Watch the other one from Season 2 though first, as this is sort of the sillier follow up to that Halloween episode.

Now, here’s a song about The Devil, I think anyway. It’s Tom Rodhe with Devil!