A Man’s Choices Are Always A Woman’s Fault

Marty Robbins’ Devil Woman: an exercise in shifting blame.

Devil Woman was first released in June 1962, written and performed by Marty Robbins, an American country artist. Even if you haven’t heard of Marty Robbins, you probably have heard his crooning before, either in Devil Woman or one of his other popular songs throughout the ’50s and ’60s.

I love Devil Woman, it’s extremely catchy, but my absolute favourite thing about the song is the way that the narrator is actively attempting to manipulate and guilt-trip the recipient of the song — the titular Devil Woman.

I don’t know anything about Marty Robbins’ inspiration for writing the song and, to be honest, I have very little interest in it — this is going to be a purely textual analysis of the song itself, focusing on the characters depicted to us within the narrative.

The version of the song in the Spotify link is Devil Woman from the 1996 compilation album, The Story of My Life: The Best of Marty Robbins 1952–1965.

The song Devil Woman by Marty Robbins is a serenade/break-up song. Directed at the titular Devil Woman, who is not given a name beyond this epithet, the unnamed singer…