You want to be good?

A friend just sent me this.
I’ve been familiar with bits and pieces of it since, well, forever, but this is the first time I’ve seen a comprehensive description of the entire process.
Most of this is presently associated with the history of Mr. Robert Johnson, but it’s pretty clear that it was held to be true, and practiced, by many at the time.

If you want to make a contract with the devil, first trim your finger nails as close as you possibly can. Take a black cat bone* and a guitar and go to a lonely fork in the roads at midnight. Sit down there and play your best piece, thinking of and wishing for the devil all the while. By and by you will hear music, dim at first but growing louder and louder as the musician approaches nearer. Do not look around; just keep on playing your guitar. The unseen musician will finally sit down by you and play in unison with you. After a time you will feel something tugging at your instrument. Do not try to hold it. Let the devil take it and keep thumping along with your fingers as if you still had a guitar in your hands. The devil will hand you his instrument to play and will accompany you on yours. After doing this for a time he will seize your fingers and trim the nails until they bleed, finally taking his guitar back and returning your own. Keep on playing, don’t look around. His music will become fainter and fainter as he moves away. When all is quiet you may go home.

*boil a black cat until all the flesh falls away from the bones; place each bone in your mouth until you taste the bitter one.

Puckett, Newbell Niles. Folk Beliefs of the Southern Negro, Chapel Hill: University Of North Carolina Press, 1926, p. 150 – 51

Quoted in: Blues And Evil, Jon Michael Spencer, the University Of Tennessee Press/Knoxville, 1993

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MCHI23FTP8

is there an alternate version without the cat boiling thing?

2 Likes

WTF did I just read

It’s the way @Rocket has for saying that he wants to be my friend. Not like @Mick, @Toe_Save and the other guy who nobody knows but is so frustrated with pointless posts in an online forum.

Now, let’s stay on topic. I tried it but I still suck at guitar.

I believe Jack White has also entered into said satanic pact.

It only works if you use a guitar pick.