“Split Hell Wide Open”

[Bootstrap]

The only place I have found it so far is in the lyrics of a Country song that seems to advocate immoral sexual behavior whatever the preacher is saying:

https://www.musixmatch.com/lyrics/Brant ... -Hazeville

[Szdfan]

The only place I have found it so far is in the lyrics of a Country song that seems to advocate immoral sexual behavior whatever the preacher is saying:

https://www.musixmatch.com/lyrics/Brant ... -Hazeville

Sounds like they're mostly smoking pot -- i.e. "Hazeville" and "Hanging out with Willie [Nelson].

[Bootstrap]

The only place I have found it so far is in the lyrics of a Country song that seems to advocate immoral sexual behavior whatever the preacher is saying:

https://www.musixmatch.com/lyrics/Brant ... -Hazeville

Sounds like they're mostly smoking pot -- i.e. "Hazeville" and "Hanging out with Willie [Nelson].

You can look at how this phrase was used over time here:

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?c ... moothing=3

Seems to be a recent phrase. Seems to have originated in roughly the same time frame as that song. Of course, the song could have picked it up from another source from the same time.

[Szdfan]

The only place I have found it so far is in the lyrics of a Country song that seems to advocate immoral sexual behavior whatever the preacher is saying:

https://www.musixmatch.com/lyrics/Brant ... -Hazeville

Sounds like they're mostly smoking pot -- i.e. "Hazeville" and "Hanging out with Willie [Nelson].

You can look at how this phrase was used over time here:

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?c ... moothing=3

Seems to be a recent phrase. Seems to have originated in roughly the same time frame as that song. Of course, the song could have picked it up from another source from the same time.

I find the term confusing -- it seems to suggest that "splitting Hell open" means breaking Hell to let more sin into the world -- i.e. acting in a more sinful way? Being especially sinful?

[Bootstrap]

Seems to be a recent phrase. Seems to have originated in roughly the same time frame as that song. Of course, the song could have picked it up from another source from the same time.

I find the term confusing -- it seems to suggest that "splitting Hell open" means breaking Hell to let more sin into the world -- i.e. acting in a more sinful way? Being especially sinful?

Well, I'm just guessing, but I think "split hell wide open" is meant to convey a forceful and dramatic action that brings chaos or destruction. And I'm guessing it's used more for mouth feel than for precision. Willie Nelson thought it sounded right in the song. These pastors thought it sounded right in the sermon.

[RZehr]

If this is helpful, I would say the opposite end of the spectrum, while still going to Hell, might be be described as one “quietly slipping into Hell with no notice of Hells inhabitants”; “easing into Hell”; or just very colorlessly “on the way to Hell”, or “going to Hell”, or “went to Hell”.
Or even less, “missing Heaven”.

“splitting Hell wide open” has much more force behind it, perhaps arriving at Hell with such velocity and certainty, as to “split Hell” in the manner a speeding bullet splits a watermelon wide open. Thrown with force, not placed carefully.
Not merely, or barely, penetrating into the gates of Hell, but fully penetrating to the deepest part of Hell.

[Szdfan]

If this is helpful, I would say the opposite end of the spectrum, while still going to Hell, might be be described as one “quietly slipping into Hell with no notice of Hells inhabitants”; “easing into Hell”; or just very colorlessly “on the way to Hell”, or “going to Hell”, or “went to Hell”.
Or even less, “missing Heaven”.

“splitting Hell wide open” has much more force behind it, perhaps arriving at Hell with such velocity and certainty, as to “split Hell” in the manner a speeding bullet splits a watermelon wide open. Thrown with force, not placed carefully.
Not merely, or barely, penetrating into the gates of Hell, but fully penetrating to the deepest part of Hell.

It's definitely a dramatic image.

[Pelerin]

You can look at how this phrase was used over time here:

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?c ... moothing=3

Seems to be a recent phrase. Seems to have originated in roughly the same time frame as that song. Of course, the song could have picked it up from another source from the same time.

Try bust hell wide open. This shows the earliest citation dates to around 1900 with a bump around 1930 then growth from around 1950, though the numbers are pretty small so I’d take the “trend” with a grain of salt.

The earliest the phrase is cited is a story in which Nathan Bedford Forrest boasts that he will break out of Fort Donelson or else bust hell wide open. While the earliest listed example of the phrase in literature dates from 1904, forty years after Nathan Bedford Forrest supposedly said it, that source is The Partisan Rangers of the Confederate States Army. It is not available for viewing but it seems likely that it is relating this same anecdote.

The other early sources are a set of plays that are “set in the 1880s Carolinas and are written in black dialect” and Wings on My Feet: Black Ulysses at the Wars which also appears to be written in black dialect. I also noticed that the collected plays of Zora Neale Hurston were listed but were dated 2008 though obviously they would actually date from the 1930s or so and they use there is also a black character written in black dialect. From this we might conclude that the phrase is a black southern thing that was probably common in spoken language before 1900, but wasn’t picked up in the literature because it wasn’t written. This conclusion might be reinforced by thee fact that modern uses of the phrase include 365 Days of Kwanzaa: A Daily Motivational Reader and Ghetto Religiosity III.

However I also note that some of the more recent sources that use the phrase don’t appear to be black sources. One of them even has an illustration of the one who spoke the phrase and appears to show a white man being tossed through a door. The stories that use it appear to be real life anecdotes, not stories with fictional characters. It’s also used in nonfiction, for example in a book written against Calvinism. The books that use it all seem to be written in more “folksy” language. At least one of them is self-published. As noted earlier, it appears in a country song.

I propose that the phrase is (or was) common among both black and white southerners, probably dating back into the 19th century but it wasn’t written because writing was (and is) done in standard American English. It first shows up spoken by black characters because it was first acceptable to write in informal black dialect for black characters to illustrate that part of their character while white characters used standard American English. But also remember that the author of the earliest written use of the phrase found it plausible to put it into Nathan Bedford Forrest’s mouth. In fact it’s perfectly plausible that he did use the phrase at Fort Donelson—or it might just be that the author used the phrase to highlight his southernness. Later, starting in the 1950s there started to be southern pride and redneck pride helped along by country music. It became more acceptable to write in informal southern dialect, including in nonfiction settings and not just as a bit of character building and accordingly the phrase started to be written more often.