Re: Why Does Everyone Hate Take the Devil
"Take The Devil" is one of my favorites from the first album. I latched onto it the first time I heard it. In my opinion, it's lack of popularity is most likely from lack of exposure. I never heard it on the radio even back in 1972 when FM radio would play a lot of album tracks.
Re: Why Does Everyone Hate Take the Devil
A hearty welcome, Walrus1964! :)
I personally love TTD for a couple of reasons similar to those that have been mentioned before. First, the song is a deep track from the Eagles' catalog. If I had to list my top ten fave songs, only one of the A-sides (LITFL) would be on it. The B, C, D, E-sides are the songs that I truly prefer, because they're not played repetitively on popular radio or by the band in concert. Second, Randy's voice is steady and strong without nary a falsetto until the very end. I think his vocal on TTD is deeper than on any other song. He's known too much for his very high tenor, and TTD showcases a wider range. The only gripe I have is how Randy overemphasizes the word "patiently." For some reason, that minute part just grates on me, but I still love the song nonetheless.
Re: Why Does Everyone Hate Take the Devil
Quote:
Originally Posted by
UndertheWire
Yes, that's the part from 2:23 to 2:35 that I mentioned. It's impressive.
Ooops, I must have read your post in a hurry. I totally missed the "2:23 to 2:35" bit!
Re: Why Does Everyone Hate Take the Devil
Quote:
Originally Posted by
NOLA
A hearty welcome, Walrus1964! :)
I personally love TTD for a couple of reasons similar to those that have been mentioned before. First, the song is a deep track from the Eagles' catalog. If I had to list my top ten fave songs, only one of the A-sides (LITFL) would be on it. The B, C, D, E-sides are the songs that I truly prefer, because they're not played repetitively on popular radio or by the band in concert. Second, Randy's voice is steady and strong without nary a falsetto until the very end. I think his vocal on TTD is deeper than on any other song. He's known too much for his very high tenor, and TTD showcases a wider range. The only gripe I have is how Randy overemphasizes the word "patiently." For some reason, that minute part just grates on me, but I still love the song nonetheless.
A fantastic point.
Re: Why Does Everyone Hate Take the Devil
Quote:
Originally Posted by
UndertheWire
I like the atmosphere. The intro makes me think of Witchy Woman, my favourite on the album. I also like Randy singing low and slightly growly.
I dig it too. It's kind of a sister song to "Witchy Woman." The dark, ominous ambience is very cool.
Re: Why Does Everyone Hate Take the Devil
Walrus, first of all, welcome to the Border! Great place to be if you love the Eagles!
As far as TTD, I really like the song and agree with everyone that said that it's probably just because it's a deeper track and people just don't know it.
Re: Why Does Everyone Hate Take the Devil
I think mainly Randy's melodic singing makes this a good song, IMO. I also think lyrically, maybe not a lot of people can relate? But like someone else mentioned, the singing and atmosphere just evoke that desolate album cover shot too. I would NOT say this song is filler or anything.
Re: Why Does Everyone Hate Take the Devil
Quote:
Originally Posted by
NOLA
A hearty welcome, Walrus1964! :)
I personally love TTD for a couple of reasons similar to those that have been mentioned before. First, the song is a deep track from the Eagles' catalog. If I had to list my top ten fave songs, only one of the A-sides (LITFL) would be on it. The B, C, D, E-sides are the songs that I truly prefer, because they're not played repetitively on popular radio or by the band in concert. Second, Randy's voice is steady and strong without nary a falsetto until the very end. I think his vocal on TTD is deeper than on any other song. He's known too much for his very high tenor, and TTD showcases a wider range. The only gripe I have is how Randy overemphasizes the word "patiently." For some reason, that minute part just grates on me, but I still love the song nonetheless.
Me too; and the pronunciation. He sings it 'paSHONtly' when given the vowel sound he should have tried to sing 'paSHENTly'. However I do like the song. It's far superior to Randy's other track on this album, Tryin', and I also prefer it to both his On The Border tracks. I like the guitar work which has a really ominous feel about it. And the 'God, will you lead me where I roam' part really drives the song on.
Re: Why Does Everyone Hate Take the Devil
Personally Take The Devil is one of my top songs sung by Randy. I too love the vocal range. :thumbsup:
Re: Why Does Everyone Hate Take the Devil
First off I have to say thank you to Walrus1964 for creating this thread! 8) I make no secret of my love of Take The Devil. It is in my top 25 Eagles songs and would at the very least be in my top three Randy vocals. The vocals, music and lyrics all come together and to me, it is up there with the 'big three' hits from the debut album, and probably the most underrated of all their songs. I was thinking about the Eagles debut album recently and how it can split into two halves of five songs each, the 'country rock' half and the 'rock' half, and of the latter half (to me this consists of WW, Chug, Nightingale, TTD and Tryin'), I think this joins WW as the best song in this group.
I agree with most of the praise that other fans of this song have suggested so far. I can see why not everyone thinks that that the lyrics of this song are especially relatable, but I find it to be very powerful - I think it is something to do with the sense of being alone in the wilderness trying to avoid temptation. I love Randy's lead vocal and I am glad that people have pointed out the great section from 2:23 to 2:35. The guitar work also sounds great (I have no technical expertise so can only comment on how I feel about guitar parts and whether they work on a particular song), I like the first solo quite a bit but the second is even better - the 'dum dum da dum dum dum' part is absolutely fantastic, really powerful stuff to my mind.
I also agree that the song is probably unknown rather than hated by casual Eagles fans - anyone who has listened only to the Greatest Hits or any of the compilation albums will never have heard this song, it has not been played live as far as I'm aware either - in short, you have to know the debut album to hear it, and anyone who just wants to hear the debut album's three hits could be forgiven for not knowing of its existence.
One criticism that can be made of the song is that it lacks a 'hook', although I must admit this doesn't personally concern me. I feel that hooks are at most the icing on the cake of a song, not something that actually makes one great - I can think of songs which have memorable hooks which I feel are otherwise special (I would say that TTD is pretty much the direct opposite of this). You could say the same about Bitter Creek, which I also love - I think these two songs share several characteristics, both being rather dark and brooding, not especially relatable and neither is sung by Don or Glenn - these things probably prevented either song from ever being hit, but I love both and rate them very highly.