Song · Gil Scott-Heron
“Me and the Devil” by Gil Scott-Heron
From the album I’m New Here (2010)
“Me and the Devil” by Gil Scott-Heron appears on 4 radio countdowns from 4 stations between 2010 and 2024. It was first released in 2010 on the album I’m New Here. Its best result is #37 on the Impact 89FM Top 89 of 2010. In the combined RockLists rankings it is the #441 alternative song of 2010.
Gil Scott-Heron reached back to Robert Johnson for "Me and the Devil", an industrial reworking of Johnson's "Me and the Devil Blues" on I'm New Here, released in February 2010. Johnson's song, first put out as a single in 1938, tells of a man woken one morning by the devil knocking at his door to tell him his time is up, and Scott-Heron takes the lead vocal with Richard Russell producing, Lawson White engineering and mixing, and Rodaidh McDonald adding extra recording and mixing.
His version had an afterlife of its own. When the Austrian artist Soap&Skin covered the song on her 2013 EP Sugarbread, she took its chord structure from Scott-Heron's adaptation, and her take went on to go viral on TikTok more than a decade later.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Alternative & Modern Rock
Indie & Adult Alternative
All Rock Formats
Year-end countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 37 | Impact 89FM Lansing, MI | Impact 89FM Top 89 of 2010 | 88 |
| 2016 | 51 | WBER Rochester, NY | WBER Listener Countdown 2016 | 117 |
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 560 | KEXP | KEXP Listeners' Favorite Songs of All Time | 627 |
| 2024 | 497 | The Colorado Sound | The Colorado Sound Top 1055 Songs of the 21st Century | 1055 |
Also listed as: Me And The Devil.
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