{"id":14998,"date":"2025-10-23T14:55:32","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T18:55:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/millheiser.com\/hokeyblog\/?p=14998"},"modified":"2025-10-23T15:11:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T19:11:09","slug":"buttkickin-halloween-songs-devils-backbone-the-civil-wars-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/millheiser.com\/hokeyblog\/2025\/10\/23\/buttkickin-halloween-songs-devils-backbone-the-civil-wars-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"Buttkickin’ Halloween Songs: “Devil’s Backbone” — The Civil Wars (2013)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Oh Lord, Oh Lord, what have I done?
I’ve fallen in love with a man on the run
Oh Lord, Oh Lord, I’m begging you please
Don’t take that sinner from me
Oh don’t take that sinner from me<\/em>…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Man, Halloween is replete with all kinds of blood-curdling screams aplenty. But sometimes nothing’s more chilling than a whisper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We’re not talking a muted admonition or the like. I mean that low, haunted breath that crawls down your neck when you realize you\u2019ve been following something dangerous for a while now. Which is precisely what The Civil Wars delivers with Devil\u2019s Backbone<\/strong>, a Southern Gothic folk prayer that evokes the divine and submits to the profane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remember when Johnny Van Zant cried out in self-reproaching agony “Lord help me, I can’t change”? That’s the cul-de-sac at the end of an abandoned country road about which Devil’s Backbone<\/strong> is circling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vocalist Joy Williams sets the tone, her voice trembling with confession and lust in a delivery that feels older than sin. But this ain’t a song about demons, murderers, spirits, or monsters. Devil’s Backbone<\/strong> drowns in the kind of love that makes one kneel in church on Sunday and still think about the wrong person\u2019s hands the whole time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Released in 2013 on their self titled album, \u201cDevil\u2019s Backbone\u201d starts stripped down but explodes into agony. Just a steady rhythm, some spectral guitar, a droning harmonium, punctuations of electric guitar, pounding drums, and the voices of Williams and John Paul White circling each other like angels who\u2019ve fallen so far, they shouldn’t even bother with wings anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The song\u2019s title conjures up its own mythology. The Devil\u2019s Backbone<\/strong>. Maybe it\u2019s a place. Maybe it\u2019s the crooked ridge between heaven and whatever\u2019s left below. The spine of every person who\u2019s ever wanted something they weren\u2019t supposed to have, teetering on the precipice of damnation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the beauty of this track; it\u2019s haunted without being horror. It\u2019s Southern Gothic with its Sunday dress torn and its lipstick smudged. It\u2019s a confession booth without a priest inside, just a woman whispering her guilt into the void. God has long since left the chat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And when she sings, \u201cHe\u2019s good and he\u2019s bad and he\u2019s all that I\u2019ve got,\u201d that\u2019s the moment it hits you. Satan doesn’t need horns or a pitchfork or promises of material delights to get you to follow him; sometimes just faded jeans, a cocky swagger, and a crooked smile suffices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So yeah, Devil’s Backbone<\/strong> isn\u2019t your standard Halloween party tune. It reeks of rain on old wood, when the lights are low but not comforting, when the whiskey bottle is half empty and you don’t feel a hint of buzz. Just let the song crawl beside you and settle in your chest like a secret you\u2019ll never tell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because some ghosts don\u2019t come from the grave. Some you just carry with you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh Lord, Oh Lord, he’s somewhere between
A hangman’s knot, and three mouths to feed
There wasn’t a wrong or a right he could choose
He did what he had to do
Oh he did what he had to do…<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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