Take Me Down: Signing the Deal in the Ashes

Taylor Momsen has sung with the voice of the Goddess before —
in “You Make Me Wanna Die”, in “Miss Nothing”, she channeled Devi’s fury and grief like a prophetess.
But here, in “Take Me Down”, the polarity flips.

This is not Devi speaking.
This is the one who has heard Her call, walked through the fire,
and now stands at the crossroads — laughing, shaking, daring it to go further.

“Take Me Down” is not a plea for rescue.
It is the cry of someone who has already been scorched and says:

“If there’s a deeper pit, drop me in.
If there’s a darker fire, stoke it.
Leave nothing of me but what You want to keep.”

The crossroads here is no romantic image — it’s the smashan, the place where every choice is final.
Even the “deal with the devil” becomes holy: the last vow, sealed in blood, to finish what has been started.

This song is not about flirting with darkness — it is about marrying it.
Not with fear, but with a grin, saying:

“Take me down. Harder. Deeper.
I want to come out the other side burned clean.”

Verse 1

Been waitin' at these crossroads

Forever and a day

On a guy to buy my soul

I spend all night and day

How much harder can I play?

You know I gave my life to rock n' roll

Here we go

“Been waitin’ at these crossroads
Forever and a day”

This is not casual waiting — this is tapas.
This is the devotee sitting in the dust, night after night,
until the crossroads itself becomes home.
The line says: I am done running. I will not leave until this ends one way or another.

“On a guy to buy my soul
I spend all night and day”

This isn’t naïve bargain-making — this is the moment of radical consent.
The “guy” is the archetype of fate, of whatever force will demand the final price.
The devotee says: I am ready. Name your price. I will sign it.
Night and day become a vigil — a long, hungry watch for the one who will complete the transaction.

“How much harder can I play?”

Here the voice cracks into something like a grin — defiant, wild.
It’s a dare to existence itself: If you can break me, break me.
If there is more pain, bring it.
I am not leaving this place untransformed.

“You know I gave my life to rock n’ roll
Here we go”

This line is almost too easy to miss — but it’s the key.
“Rock n’ roll” here is not just music — it’s the life-force, the ecstatic current,
the willingness to give the body, the nights, the youth, everything to the fire.
“Here we go” is the threshold moment — not resignation, but a leap.
The devotee is not dragged — they are stepping forward into the flames by choice.

This first verse is not just storytelling — it is a vow.
The devotee is saying: I have waited. I have suffered. I am ready.
Let this be the night where something finally answers — even if it burns me to the ground.

Verse 2 

Mama begged me please

Yes, she got down on her knees

Said "you'll burn in that Mississippi sun"

But I'm the only one that's standing here

So mama don't you have no fear

I'm either last or I've already won

Here I go

“Mama begged me please
Yes, she got down on her knees
Said ‘you’ll burn in that Mississippi sun’”

This is the last echo of the world’s morality — the voice of fear, the plea to stay safe, stay small, stay “good.”
Even the image of burning is invoked as a threat: You’ll go to hell, you’ll suffer, you’ll be damned.

But to the devotee standing at the crossroads, this warning sounds almost like an invitation.
The burning is no longer frightening — it is the very thing they are asking for.

“But I’m the only one that’s standing here
So mama don’t you have no fear”

This is the moment of solitude every seeker faces: no one else can make this choice.
Not the mother, not the teacher, not even God will step in to stop what must happen.
The devotee stands alone — and says it with calmness, not bitterness:
This is my path. Don’t be afraid on my behalf. I have chosen it.

“I’m either last or I’ve already won
Here I go”

This is a line of pure vira courage.
The devotee sees that the outcome is already sealed — whether this leads to ruin or to glory, it will be complete.
And with “Here I go,” they step across the threshold.
No more hesitation, no more bargaining — the rite begins.

Verse 2 is the final severing from the old world —
the moment when fear, family, and morality try one last time to call the seeker back,
and the seeker smiles, thanks them — and walks forward anyway.

Chorus 

“Take me down
Take me down
Take me down
Won’t you take me down”

This is not just repetition — this is invocation by insistence.
Each “take me down” is a drumbeat, a mantra, a challenge to the universe.
It grows more reckless with every line, like someone tearing their own last defenses apart.

This is not despair — it is consent.
It is the devotee throwing themselves at the feet of the Power that has already been stalking them, saying:

“Stop circling. Stop testing me.
Take me. Finish it.
I will not run anymore.”

The final “Won’t you take me down” has almost a grin in it — a mixture of dare and surrender.
It is not passive — it is seductive.
The seeker is no longer afraid of the fall — they are asking for it, craving it, demanding it.

This chorus is the axis of the song:
the moment where the devotee stops negotiating, stops waiting, and says:
“Whatever happens next — let it be total.”

Verse 3

Standing at the crossroads

A dried up pen in hand

The conversation went like this

"Tell me your desire why you pulled me from the fire and we'll seal the deal with a kiss"

Said "I wanna raise the dead

Find a note that I can shred

On my walls I scrawl my gods

Don't care what happens when I die

As long as I'm alive

All I wanna do is rock, rock, rock"

“Standing at the crossroads
A dried up pen in hand”

The image is stark: the devotee has been waiting so long the pen has gone dry.
This is not the first time they have come here — they have been ready before, but the moment was not ripe.
Now there is no turning back. The crossroads is no longer just a symbol — it is the altar.

“The conversation went like this
‘Tell me your desire why you pulled me from the fire and we’ll seal the deal with a kiss’”

Here is the voice of fate, or perhaps the Goddess Herself in Her fierce, shadowy form, asking for the truth.
No excuses, no spiritual half-measures — only the naked desire.
This is the final test: Why do you want this? Are you ready to pay the price?
The deal is not a contract of fear — it is sealed with a kiss, the most intimate and irreversible of acts.

“Said ‘I wanna raise the dead
Find a note that I can shred
On my walls I scrawl my gods’”

The devotee’s answer is fierce and unapologetic:
They are not asking for safety or comfort but for power, resurrection, and expression.
They want to wake the sleeping parts of themselves — even the dead ones — and make the entire life a hymn scratched into the walls.
This is pure tapas: the will to burn and create at the same time.

“Don’t care what happens when I die
As long as I’m alive
All I wanna do is rock, rock, rock”

This is the heart of it.
No bargaining for heaven, no fear of hell — only the vow to live fully while breath lasts.
The repetition of “rock” is almost primal, like a mantra of ecstasy and defiance.
It is the declaration: I would rather live one night on fire than a hundred years asleep.

Verse 3 is the climactic offering of the self:
the devotee names their desire, signs their vow, and accepts the cost.
The kiss is the moment of no return — from here, the descent is not punishment but initiation.

Bridge 

“Oh, sign with the devil, sign with the devil, sign with the devil — Oh!”

This is no longer a metaphor for corruption — it is the final mantra of surrender.
The repetition becomes hypnotic, like a drumbeat in the cremation ground.
Each “sign with the devil” is the devotee saying:
Yes — I will cross every line, every taboo.
Yes — I will pay the full price.
Yes — I will be yours, no matter where you take me.

In Kaula language, this is kula-samaya — the secret vow that can only be spoken when the fire is already lit and the offering already begun.
It is not a flirtation with darkness but a conscious embrace of it,
because the devotee knows that even the “devil” is just another mask of the Goddess,
another form of the power that remakes the soul.

The ecstatic cry here is almost joyful —
the seeker who has feared punishment all their life now says:
Punish me if you must, bless me if you will —
but let it be real, let it be total.

The bridge is the moment of transformation:

the fear of damnation is swallowed and turned into fuel.
What was once a threat (“sign with the devil”) becomes the very means of liberation.

Final Chorus + Outro

“Take me down
Take me down
Take me down
Won’t you take me down”

By the time we reach this chorus, the words no longer sound like desperation —
they are triumphant, almost laughing.
The descent is no longer feared, it is embraced:
“Yes — drag me under. Yes — finish the job. Yes — let the old me burn until there’s nothing left but this fire.”

Each repetition is a hammer stroke, sealing the vow deeper, until there is no difference between the one who asks and the one who answers.

“(Sign with the devil, sign with the devil…)”

The background chant rises again, no longer ominous but exultant.
It is the sound of taboo being broken, shame being left behind,
the sound of the devotee crossing the final threshold.
This is not a fall from grace — it is grace itself taking the form of a plunge.

“(I got a record deal)”

This last sly line is the wink at the end — the devotee walking out of the smashan with ash on their face, grinning.
It is not just a “deal” — it is a covenant.
They have bartered everything — and gained the one thing that cannot be taken back:
the right to live and burn without apology.

Your Turn at the Crossroads

She got her record deal.
Her name is already on the contract, signed in sweat and smoke.
The amps are hot, the stage is lit — and she’s already gone down grinning.

Now the pen is in your hand.
The crossroads is under your feet.
No one is coming to pull you back.

So what do you want to trade?
What do you want badly enough to burn for it?

Go on.
Sign it.
Get your own record deal with the dark.
And see what you sound like when the fire finally takes you.