#22 - The Devil Made Me Do It

 Album: Jinx, 1982

The album Jinx came about during the passing of some watersheds for Rory. Drummer Ted McKenna had by now left to join Michael Schenker, and he only had one album left fulfill in his contract with Chrysalis Records.

Dónal Gallagher writes, “As the title [of the album] suggests, Rory had become quite frustrated with the way life was unfolding for him at this time and much of the material on these recordings could be deemed autobiographical.” It has been suggested that Rory called the album Jinx as a gag at his record company’s expense. Things certainly can’t have been helped with the loss of the American market to Chrysalis, causing Rory to join Mercury, which distributed Jinx in the US, though it was a deal that didn’t last.

Perhaps the arrival of Brendan O’Neill on the drum kit was one of the happier episodes of that time. Brendan had met Gerry McAvoy at school and the two were close friends from their early teens, both cutting their musical teeth together with their first band Pride in Belfast in the 1960s while still at school. They both progressed to Deep Joy, the group from which Rory recruited both Gerry and Wilgar Campbell in 1971.

Brendan had left Deep Joy to continue an apprenticeship as an airframe fitter in Belfast while the band left to try their fortunes in London with Wilgar on drums. Brendan had continued to work as a drummer around his family and work commitments. He had auditioned with Rory as a potential replacement for Rod de’Ath, but at the time, Brendan’s heart was more set in making a go of things with his then current band Swift. It was a different story in 1981, when Brendan auditioned again and got the job. He remained with Rory for ten years – among Brendan’s first shows in Rory’s band were two dates in Greece, including the legendary Athens gig, which saw a massive riot and the band being tear gassed!

Jinx was recorded, like it’s two predecessors, at Dieter Dierks studios near Cologne between May and June 1981. Electronic music, not something Rory was exactly a huge fan of, was immensely popular. Rory wanted to create an album that had a more classic sound, so he and his band spent time gathering some older equipment. Released on 2 May 1982, it’s certainly a meatier, organic sound next to a lot of the ‘Cecil B De Mille’ (as Rory described it) that could be found on Top Of The Pops of the era. It’s proof of Rory’s tenacity of keeping true to his roots despite the whims, wherefores and demands of the heavy music industry, which Rory found increasingly frustrating. The songs on Jinx, as Dónal mentions in the earlier quote, do show more of what is going on with Rory emotionally and it is quite a mix, which will be explored in later posts. However, Rory, as ‘The Devil Made Me Do It’ shows, was beyond more than capable of knocking out a classic rocker.

Dónal in the same article describes the song as a meshing of two of Rory’s heroes, Eddie Cochran and Buddy Holly. It is another of Rory’s classic ‘vignette with a story’ songs, this one describing the situation a few people have regrettably found themselves in – a night out on the tiles gone overboard, waking up the next day in the hospitality of the police and an appearance in court to account for actions that just can’t be remembered!

“What did I do that was so bad, to go and get myself arrested?
Well, I was just in town to have some fun, but I ended up in the trash can
There I was in the witness box, my eyes turned towards the jury
Trying to recall what went wrong last night, but it won't come back to me

Well, the devil made me do it, do it, do it
The devil made me trip and fall
The devil drove me to it, to it, to it
Till I had no chance at all.”

The lyrics hint at a great uncertainty and trepidation – is the protagonist going to wind up in jail and not know what happened that led him there? There is also a strong hint of the supernatural in the lyrics, with the appearance of Auld Nick himself to give testimony, the fate of the accused lying in the words of the being he believes caused him to be there in the first place.

Rory brilliantly hits upon two great themes of many a classic blues song in “The Devil Made Me Do It”, the nefarious effects of booze and the insertion of the Devil into hi-jinks and japery. A cursory glance over the blues gives you a few songs with alcohol at the crux, ranging from John Lee Hooker’s “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer” to JB Hutto’s “Too Much Alcohol”, itself becoming a classic staple of Rory’s repertoire on his 1932 National. The way in which the supernatural can be found in the blues is too detailed to go into here, but a prime example of it can be seen just from the mythology alone of Robert Johnson’s supposed pact with the Devil at the crossroads.

The electric soup of 1980s music sounds like it has stayed there and is a popular topic of cheesy nostalgia. A song of the same era “The Devil Made Me Do It” instead has a timeless quality and is up there with any classic blues number about tangling the Devil and the drink.

Notes:

See Dónal Gallagher's notes on Jinx Jinx - The Official Site of Rory Gallagher

Brendan O'Neill's autobiography Mr Sticks is available on Amazon.