The Best Version of "The Devil Went Down to Georgia."

Charlie Daniels died yesterday at 83. While his conservative beliefs have come into focus with his death, he is best remembered as the musician behind “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.” If you’ve never heard it for some reason, it’s worth giving a listen as a folk tale and fun song.

I’d rather remember Daniels for the music, rather than some of his counter-productive rants on Twitter. (Although, it’s still prevalent enough that it’s worth acknowledging). That being said, there have been plenty of versions of the song since its 1979 release. The first version I really fell in love with was a cover by Steve Ouimette in Guitar Hero III.

There’s also the often-unspoken sequel “The Devil Came Back to Georgia,” which saw Daniels collaborating with Mark O’Connor (who released the song on his Heroes album), Johnny Cash, Travis Tritt and Marty Stuart. It’s sort of corny, but worth listening to, even just for Cash’s performance and the wacky video.

Still neither Ouimette’s cover nor the sequel were what I wanted to highlight. I wanted to show off A-1’s song “Goosebumps,” which Anthony Fantano initially compared to the Daniels song in his 2011 review. In the track, A-1 engages in a rap battle with the devil for his soul over an instrumental based on the theme song to (you guessed it) the Goosebumps TV series theme song.

A-1 raps as both himself and the devil, but differentiates with an autotuned vocal effect. My favorite line in the whole thing is: “There's no way I can win this game/I feel like a T-Rex in a push-up contest.” Its a unique and refreshing take on the concept of going up against the devil.

This whole mixtape is worth looking into, it’s all built on samples from 90’s TV shows. The song “Black Ranger” (sampling The Power Rangers theme song) is great and the track “Golden Girls” (yes, that’s what it’s sampled from) is actually a much more fun take on the original song.

While we’re here, we should also shout out Tenacious D for their take on the concept in “Beezleboss,” which was done very well live.