Charlie Daniels, the man who wrote and performed The Devil Went Down to Georgia, has hit out at Guitar Hero III for perverting his song and allowing the Devil to win.
Daniels is angry because the song is “supposed to be a lighthearted novelty about a fiddling contest between a country boy and the devil and the devil always loses. That is not the case with the Guitar Hero version which comes complete with a horned, guitar-playing devil who battles the player and very often wins.” Daniels has never heard of artistic license, methinks.
He finds the idea of child being “exposed” to this “world” of Guitar Hero III disturbing, because I guess comical representations of shades-wearing, guitar strumming Devils called Lou are a surefire way to tranform innocent children into hardcore Satanists who drink cold chicken blood.
He also has a problem with the game in general, exposing his old-man confusion with such statements as “Actually the game really has a dark side complete with grotesque monsters on stage with the band, strange, eerie lighting effects and all manner of weird things popping up on the stage.” Oh no, the lights! The scary colored lights and weird popping things! Git mah gun, Billy-Joe!
He also randomly asks us to “pray for the troops” at the end. He’s odd.
If Daniels doesn’t like it, maybe he shouldn’t have lost the rights to the song. But he has, so he’s going to have to live with it. I honestly thought of all games, Guitar Hero III might be safe from the “save the chilluns” crowd, but I was wrong. Hilarious.
