‘The Devil has all the best tunes’ is the view that music, especially popular music, is predominantly secular rather than religious.

This proverbial saying is best understood by looking at the context it was first used.

In the late 18th century Methodists began setting hymns to popular tunes. This gave rise to criticism from more mainstream religious believers who thought that popular music shouldn’t be heard in church.

The notion that dance music was ‘the Devil’s music’ was widely held in the UK in the 1700s. This view was of very long-standing and was expressed as early as the 5th century by Saint John Chrysostom, circa 349 – 407, the Christian theologian and archbishop of Constantinople:

“Where dance is, there is the devil.”

The response to the criticism used by English Methodists was ‘why should the Devil have all the best tunes?’.