Devil's Gun

Album

Devil's Gun

Label

Westbound Records

Genre

Disco

Composer(s)

Barry Green;Ron Roker;Gerry Shury

Entered Chart

May 21, 1977

Peak Date

Jul 16, 1977

Released

Unknown

Recorded

Unknown

Catalog #

Westbound 55400

B-Side

"Free to Be Me"

This disco track has a lyric that could be attached to a worship song, warning that the Devil has us in his sights, so we'd better change direction to a more Godly path. The song was written by the team of Gerry Shury, Ron Roker and Barry Green. Shury and Roker had a publishing company called Geronimo Music; some of their other compositions include "Guilty" by The Pearls and "Special Delivery" by Polly Brown. Green is a pseudonym for Barry Blue, a singer/songwriter who had a UK hit with "(Dancing) On A Saturday Night." It's not likely that these guys were trying to preach the Gospel when they wrote this track. They were probably just trying to write a hit. C.J. & Co was a Detroit vocal group with three male singers and two female. They were assembled by the producers Dennis Coffey and Mike Theodore, who discovered Rodriguez of Searching For Sugar Man fame and produced his first album in 1970. Coffey was one of the top session guitarists in the '70s and in 1971 released "Scorpio," which became a hit the following year. Coffey played a lot of soul and psychedelic grooves for Motown, but had no trouble making the transition to disco. "I realized that was going to be a force to be reckoned with," he told Songfacts. "I really studied that genre and figured out what made it tick, and the result of that was 'Devil's Gun.'" He added: "Disco was kind of a dance record - you had a lot of breakdowns and you had a certain drum thing that went with it - it was either the kick drum on 1, 2, 3 and 4 or later on when Quincy Jones was doing Michael Jackson, they were doing the kick drum on the second and fourth beat. But, it had a lot of breakdowns and a lot of instrumental sections. Tom Moulton was doing some mixdowns of our raw tracks and he specifically copied things and edited things and made them so that they were for the dancers." This was the first song played at the New York dance club Studio 54 when they opened for business on April 26th, 1977. The club opened with great fanfare, but it was a late arriving crowd, so when the DJ, Richie Kaczor, played it, few people were there. A few hours later the place was packed with socialites and celebrities, including Donald Trump, Cher and Brooke Shields. The selection of "Devil's Gun" is somewhat ironic considering the debauchery Studio 54 quickly became known for. If the Devil did have a gun, it likely would be aimed at the place. The opening line, "Fee fie fo fum," comes from the fairy tale Jack And The Beanstalk, where the giant says it before warning, "I smell the blood of an Englishman." This was the first single for C.J. & Co, and their only substantial hit. "Big City Sidewalk" reached #106 in 1978, and "We Got Our Own Thing" was later reworked by Heavy D. & The Boyz. They split in 1979 after just two albums.

Fee fie fo fum
We're looking down the barrel
Of the devil's gun
Nowhere to run
We've gotta make the stand
Against the devil's gun

Fee fie fo fum
We're looking down the barrel
O the devil's gun
Nowhere to run
We've gotta make the stand
Against the devil's gun

Better make a move now
Well, well you know there
An't no time to lose now
Oh well, his finger's on the trigger
He's waiting to deliver

Can we ever figure out the way
To make the people shout
Get a new direction

Well, well, well another resurrection
Well now don't wait hesitate
Or it's gonna be too late

Flames are getting higher
Got to jump out of the fire
He's watching us burn
He's watching us burn
One day we'll learn
One day we'll learn
Fee fie fo fum