‘Devil On My Shoulder’ by Dylan Marlowe - Lyrics & Meaning

After weeks of tantalising snippets shared across his socials, at long last Dylan Marlowe dropped ‘Devil On My Shoulder’ on July 26, with the fast-emerging crooner using the single as the springboard from which to launch the roll-out of his debut album.

It's a heartbroken, rock-tinged track that follows in the vein of other fan-favourite releases such as ‘Bat Outta Hell (With a Boat on the Back)’ and 2023's ‘Empty Shotgun (Mr. Mechanic)’, ensuring the anticipation is high ahead of Marlowe's new project.

With Dylan Marlowe often sharing unreleased teasers via TikTok and Instagram, he kept fans guessing as to which song would be following up May's ‘Boys Back Home’ remix with Yung Gravy. Some suspected it might be the equally as infectious ’Heaven's Sake’, or perhaps even the title-track for his upcoming record, ‘Mid-Twenties Crisis’.

Then, in mid-July, we finally got the news we'd been waiting for, as Dylan Marlowe confirmed ‘Devil On My Shoulder’ would be arriving that same month, with the likes of ‘Heaven's Sake’ and ‘Mid-Twenties Crisis’ hopefully following suit soon.

‘Devil On My Shoulder’ captures Dylan Marlowe's willingness to incorporate rock and pop-leaning influences into his sound, while still remaining unmistakably country throughout. The track opens with an intricate, keys-driven instrumental with atmospheric, ethereal backing vocals adding gravitas, with ‘Devil On My Shoulder’ gradually evolving into a fiery, electric-guitar-fuelled anthem that draws on the rockier textures of ‘You See Mine’ and ‘Dirt Road When I Die’.

Dylan Marlowe's vocals hit his trademark sweet-spot between being sleek and polished yet still deeply evocative and emotionally charged, with the prolific Georgia singer-songwriter again consolidating his well-earned status as a future star of the genre.

“I walked a straight line
I did the right things
I went to work, went to church
Did the time thing
Slept in my own bed
Didn’t have no long nights
I hadn’t let him in my head for a long time”

On ‘Devil On My Shoulder’, we meet Dylan Marlowe in the midst of a painful break-up, with the protagonist explaining how he's been doing his best to lead a good life in order to get himself back on the right track and get over his ex, from steering clear of the dive bars and avoiding one night stands to making regular appearances in church.

However, we get a hint at the reemergence of the titular figure when Dylan Marlowe ominously delivers the final line of this verse, “I hadn’t let him in my head for a long time”.

“He started whisperin’
I started listenin’
Damn, he started making sense”

The devil starts to work his way back into the narrator's life, with Dylan Marlowe recalling how he started ‘whisperin’ his Machiavellian advice. As his attempts at walking the line hadn't been helping him overcome his heartbreak, rather than ignoring him like he had before, the protagonist decides to try the opposite approach.

“So, I drove my truck out of gas
I drank the bar out of beer
Emptied my pocket of cash
Trying to make you disappear
I found a new pair of blues
Thought they’d put you in the past
Everything he told me to do, girl it ain’t doing jack
God made a hell of an angel when he made you
Even the devil on my shoulder don’t know what to do”

However, things don't go quite as planned. Dylan Marlowe wryly lists all the ways in which he took things to the extreme as a means of loosening his old flame's grip on his heart, all to no avail. He drives his truck as fast and as far as he can, he drinks himself into oblivion and even finds a “new pair of blues”, referring to the blue eyes of another lover, before dismissing everything all these things - which the devil encouraged him to pursue - as getting him no closer to being over her.

We get a witty piece of wordplay here, with Dylan Marlowe underlining how “God made a hell of an angel when he made you / Even the devil on my shoulder don’t know what to do”. The juxtaposition between “hell” and “devil” and “angel” and “God” accentuate how Marlowe feels lost between both ends of the spectrum.

He portrays his old flame as an angel that is so perfect that she's flummoxed the devil, who cannot come up with a nefarious way of getting her off our protagonist's mind.

“If you had a different smile
If you had a different kiss
If you were anybody else, then I could forget
The way you said my name
The way you pulled me close
It shouldn’t be this hard for me to try to let you go”

Dylan Marlowe makes it clear that is isn't any ordinary heartbreak, emphasising how, if he was dealing with anybody else, he'd have a much easier time moving on from their relationship.

Dylan Marlowe is yet to delve specifically into the creation of ’Devil On My Shoulder’ in detail just yet, but the ‘Boys Back Home’ hitmaker has repeatedly taken to social media to underline just how excited he is for fans to get to hear the full studio version.

“I walked a straight line
I did the right things
I went to work, went to church
Did the time thing
Slept in my own bed
Didn’t have no long nights
I hadn’t let him in my head for a long time

-

He started whisperin’
I started listenin’
Damn, he started making sense

-

So, I drove my truck out of gas
I drank the bar out of beer
Emptied my pocket of cash
Trying to make you disappear
I found a new pair of blues
Thought they’d put you in the past
Everything he told me to do, girl it ain’t doing jack
God made a hell of an angel when he made you
Even the devil on my shoulder don’t know what to do

-

If you had a different smile
If you had a different kiss
If you were anybody else, then I could forget
The way you said my name
The way you pulled me close
It shouldn’t be this hard for me to try to let you go

-

I drove my truck out of gas
I drank the bar out of beer
Emptied my pocket of cash
Trying to make you disappear
I found a new pair of blues
Thought they’d put you in the past
Everything he told me to do, girl it ain’t doing jack
God made a hell of an angel when he made you
Even the devil on my shoulder don’t know what to do

-

I drove my truck out of gas
I drank the bar out of beer
Emptied my pocket of cash
Trying to make you disappear
I found a new pair of blues
Thought they’d put you in the past
Everything he told me to do, girl it ain’t doing jack
God made a hell of an angel when he made you
Even the devil on my shoulder don’t know what to do

-

Hell of an angel
Hell of an angel
Hell of an angel
Hell of an angel

-

Hell of an angel
Hell of an angel
Hell of an angel
Hell of an angel”

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