User:BigKnuckles/Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?

"Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?"

This quote is attributed to a number of clerics from Martin Luther to General William Booth founder of The Salvation Army. However, it appears to be a "mis-quote" taken from a message preached in 1844 by a Reverend Rowland Hill, pastor of Surrey Chapel in London. What he actually said was, "The devil should not have all the best tunes."

The association with The Salvation Army (founded in 1865) is understandable due to it's practice of adopting popular music hall tunes of the era and providing new lyrics. Many of the Army's early recruits were frequenters or 'victims' of the Victorian entertainment industry and would have been very familiar with the melodies. Such examples are the melody of Champagne Charlie with the lyrics 'Bless His name He sets me free', a music hall ballad 'I traced her little footsteps in the snow' sung as a solo by Gipsy Smith with the lyrics 'O the Blood of Jesus cleanses white as snow', 'The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze' with the words 'I wandered and stumbled for many a year in misery, darkness and sin' and 'Polly Perkins of Paddington Green' with the lyrics 'I'm a Salvation soldier and Jesus is mine'.

So whilst it may be argued that the origin of this quote was not The Salvation Army it is clear from the examples above that they did make good use of 'popular' music to reach the vast numbers of Victorian poor who needed hope brought to their lives. In this the Salvation Army was very successful in an era where state funded social care was non-existent.