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Bob Bridges said:
What did you want to say about them?
This is something I have heard before, usually in songs, an old blues song(referring to drink?or drugs?), and a current hit-unfortunately-because this is what pops up during an internet search for my question(the line in this song is "it's hard to dance with the devil on your back, so shake him off"). I have also found some discussion about the saying's connection to sleep paralysis.
I try to answer you based on OUR language, Persian:
If we want to say that some one 'listens' to the Devil and does evil things, we say:
1. He's riding the Devil's ass!!!(Though this is not the way we usually use it. The common version is: Get down from the Devil's ass.)
2. The Devils has gotten in his skin (often used by/for children).
The second is very similar to 'the Devil on one's back' in that they both connote that he, the Devil, is 'controlling' them. So,they'll have to shake him off.
Interesting, Rafee. The first thing I thought of when I saw this topic was from the Thousand and One Nights (also called in English "The Arabian Nights" and "Scheherazade"). In one of the voyages of Sindbad, he charitably invited an old man (the Old Man of the Sea, as it turned out) to climb on his back, and after that Sindbad couldn't get rid of him. We often speak of that when talking about someone who has a drug addiction, although nowadays it's more often called a monkey on his back—same idea, though.
Martha Barnette
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