Songfacts®:

• The Louvin Brothers were a country music duo who started their career in gospel music in the 1940s. Many of their songs reflected their Baptist faith, which was a hard path for them to follow in their personal lives, at least for Ira Louvin, whose hot temper and alcoholism alienated them from other Opry performers and eventually led to the duo's split. In this song, they find pleasure in "heeding God's call," but feel sadness when their friends shun them for choosing to follow Jesus.
• Satan Is Real is famous for its bizarre album cover, designed by Ira Louvin, which depicts the brothers performing in a burning rock quarry while a 12-foot-tall Satan towers over them with a pitchfork.
• The Byrds recorded this song on their 1968 album Sweetheart of the Rodeo at the suggestion of their guitarist, Gram Parsons. Parsons originally recorded the song himself but due to contract problems preventing him singing on the album, his vocals were replaced by guitarist Roger McGuinn's.
  
  McGuinn has claimed that the Louvins song was the only one on the album where he was tongue-in-cheek. The Byrds bassist Chris Hillman was unhappy about McGuinn's re-recording. He told Uncut magazine March 2008: "I found the song on the borderline of being offensive. Gram's vocal is more sincere. He was very religious, underneath it all. Even with his excesses. There's an undercurrent, I guess because of his Southern upbringing. He was like a little Christian boy who went backsliding."
• Charlie Louvin was grateful to Gram Parsons for helping to keep the Louvin Brothers' legacy alive, especially by introducing the duo's work to other artists. "I would have to thank Gram Parsons for introducing the Louvin Brothers sound to Emmylou [Harris]," he told No Depression magazine in 1996. "Emmylou tells me that Gram said, 'I've got something here I want you to hear.' And he played it, and Emmylou said, 'Who is that girl singin' the high part?' And he said, 'That's not a girl, that's Ira Louvin.' And she has been very kind to the Louvin Brothers music catalog; she cut about four of five of our songs."