> as lemmas

1773 Monthly Rev. Dec. 430 They [sc. the Moravians and Methodists] have adopted the music of some of our finest songs, &c. such as, He comes! The Hero comes, &c. And they have given good reasons for so doing: for, as Whitefield said, ‘Why should the devil have all the best tunes?’

1791 Monthly Rev. 6 App. 555 When a friend of Whitfield observed, that many of the Methodist's hymns were sung to tunes..of a lighter nature, he gravely replied, ‘Why should the devil have all the good tunes?’

1860 National Mag. 8 82/2 [They] have set themselves against..out-door fun, and have done with sports and pastimes—as Rowland Hill said the pious had done with the tunes—i.e. let the devil have all the good ones.

1861 Dwight's Jrnl. Music 23 Mar. 411/3 If we go into the churches we hear frivolous music, sung by a quartet of voices, and accompanied by an organist who would be rapturously appreciated in a lager beer cellar. John Wesley could not assert now that the devil has all the best tunes.

1892 Nation 20 Oct. 295/3 On the principle of not letting the devil have all the good music, it may be good policy not to let him have all the..‘pithy paragraphs’.

1906 Everybody's Mag. May 710/1 Tobacco is not a hanging matter. It makes a great many persons more comfortable and contented... A man trying to reform ought not to be made to feel that ‘the devil has all the good tunes’.

1986 Guardian (Nexis) 22 Nov. Whether or not the Devil has all the best tunes, it is a fact that some of the most passionate sacred music of the 20th century has been composed by non-believers.

2004 J. H. Darch & S. K. Burns Saints on Earth 131 Having famously asked his son the question, ‘Why should the devil have all the best tunes?’, William [Booth] encouraged Salvationists to set their hymns and songs to the ‘pop’ tunes of the day.