“Shout at the Devil” is the title track to Motley Crue’s break-out second studio album. The song contains many of the aforementioned characteristics of metal. Instrumentation is kept fairly simple, with a loud and steady drum beat, distorted guitar, and various shredding solos between verses. The entire song is played loud, cacophonic, in-your-face, especially paired with Vince Neil’s vocals.
The lyrics are delivered almost entirely via yelling, with loud, almost strained sections of melody. The words themselves, though difficult to decipher, use very violent and sexual language. For instance, some verses are “He’s the knife in your back, he’s rage,” and “He’ll be the love in your eyes. He’ll be the blood between your thighs,” and, “He’ll put your strength to the test. He’ll put the thrill back in bed.”
While these lyrics were certainly controversial at the time, perhaps the most shocking element to both the song and upcoming album was the band’s deliberate attempt at satanic controversy. At the time of this single’s release in 1983, the “Satanic Panic” was rampant, with frequent accusations of devil worship and ritual abuse. However, using Satanic symbology in both their dress and lyrics proved to be a commercial breakthrough for the group.
Though, Neil has gone on the record to say that this decision was not the result of devil-worship, but rather of mockery. That, and some of the “Satanic references” were never intentional. For instance, in the song “Shout at the Devil,” “Sometimes, when we’d go to record, I’d say ‘he’ instead of ‘I.’ I think that’s what happened here – I changed it by accident and it just sounded better… People thought we were devil-worshippers. All these rumors were flying around us. It was funny. The lyrics were anti-(Satan), but nobody really listened.”