Long before hard rock and metal acts like Ghost (aka Ghost B.C.), Marilyn Manson and King Diamond that honored the devil and claimed Satanism as their faith, way before Ozzy found bat heads tasty and yummy coupled with Iron Maiden’s own song about The Number of The Beast, many moons before Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones put out an album called "Their Satanic Majesties Request" or composed their anthem for Lucifer (Sympathy for the Devil); one man that is now well respected had his own anthem for Satan and how he apparently ushered an different form of satanic music. Rock and Roll was always blamed as such, but before Rock, before Blues, there was Jazz, and who was the devil’s vessel of the moment?
Believe it or not kids, it was Irving Berlin.
Oh yes, Berlin did give us White Christmas (and Berlin hated the holiday himself) and we especially love hearing the song from as done by Bing Crosby (and in 1947 High Fidelity glory…although others prefer the 1942 version), along with the Christmas jingle Happy Holiday which Kay Thompson mushed with her song called The Holiday Season that got the audiences eating out of her hand…thanks to her prodigy Andy Williams who made that medley popular and pushing Bing into the shadows regarding that Christmas standard. Oh, and let us not forget the song God Bless America (did not believe in God or Nature's God) that was popularized by Kate Smith who later in life became a Roman Catholic. Many of Berlin’s songs however connected with and spoke to Middle America. An America that was different from Berlin’s own.
While Berlin was Jewish in heritage, he along with many his associates were not practicing Judaism. They rejected not only their faith, but heavily Apostatized. Now from what we understood about Berlin, the man did likely love his country in spite of the doubts of J. Edgar Hoover, who was the director of the FBI in Berlin’s time until Hoover passed away in 1972. Hoover was a thorn towards Berlin and tried to dig up some dirt on Berlin to prove that he was not the patriot he claimed to be. We may never know if Berlin was really a Communist himself, as we just see a man who loved America and composed songs of mass appeal. Nobody really complains about the songs as they have become part of the Great American Song Book of the 20th Century. Not everyone who rejects Judaism or Jesus Christ for that matter are flat out Marxists or haters of freedom. There was a shade of gray, as Thomas Jefferson embraced Judeo-Christian principles but rejected the Christian faith for himself coupled with the Miracles of Jesus.
In his never-ending quest to make America a pure secular nation, and prove that the principles of the Bible are not needed to keep America and its communities stable and basically make everyone no different than the major cities in which sin was allowed to take hold the choke the lives out of many people, Dan Barker of the Freedom From Religion recorded Berlin’s God mocking song about going to the devil and enjoying the emerging genre of what would be called America’s Classical Music. The song is called Pack Up Your Sins and Go to the Devil in Hades. The overall message of the song is better to burn in hell enjoying music that made you feel good and wanted to move your body and dance for the sake dancing, than be bored in Heaven singing boring hymnody and liturgy coupled with surpassing your personal desires and all the stuff that makes you “feel good.” Especially alcohol and easy sex along with many other vices.
Still Berlin showed his true, God hating, if not middle American hating, and self-centered self with Pack Up Your Sins. Here is the song in its entirety.
Oh, I got a message from below
'Twas from a man I used to know
About a year or so ago, before he departed
He is just as happy as can be
I'll tell you what he said to me
He said, "If ever you get heavy-hearted
Pack up your sins and go to the devil in Hades
You'll meet the finest of gentlemen and the finest of ladies
They'd rather be down below than up above
Hades is full of thousands of Joneses and Browns
O'Hoolihans, Cohens, and Bradys
You'll hear a heavenly tune that went to the devil
Because the jazz bands they started pickin' it
Then put a trick in it, a jazzy kick in it
They've got a couple of old reformers in heaven
Making them go to bed at eleven
Pack up your sins and go to the Devil
And you'll never have to go to bed at all
If you care to dwell where the weather is hot
H-E-double-L is a wonderful spot
If you need a rest and you're all out of sorts
Hades is the best of the winter resorts
Paradise doesn't compare: all the nice people are there
They come there from everywhere
Just to revel with Mister Devil
Nothing on his mind but a couple of horns
Satan is waitin' with his jazz band
And his band came from Alabam' with a melody hot
No one gives a damn if it's music or not
Satan's melody makes you want to dance forever
And you never have to go to bed at all.
Now you know, about Irving Berlin’s 'Sympathy for the Devil.' A devil that promotes godhood to those who refuse to be humble, even if God's people get things wrong at times. They are just doing their best to Fear God. Still I don't mind hearing Bing and White Christmas, but maybe from beyond the grave I am sure Berlin loved how King Diamond mocked it in No Presents For Christmas. "White Sabbath" Indeed.
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