Tribute is a
song by the 2-man
rock band Tenacious D; the song, first put to
wax in 2002, details the story of two
travelers
confronted by a
demon (played, in the
video, by
Dave Grohl of the
Foo Fighters, said demon demanding they play "the best song in the world" for him, else he will eat their
souls (putting aside the quixotic
problem of how such an insubstantial thing as a "soul" could be
masticated). So, the song tells, the duo dynamically
spontaneously burst out with "the best {or "
greatest"} song in the world," and so condemn the demon back from whence it came.
They then point out (in the song itself) that the song they are then singing is
not the greatest song in the world, but is instead "just a tribute" to that song -- which they could not
remember. This brings to mind the interesting
ontological argument question of whether it is even possible to "know" something that is the greatest
manifestation of a given
abstraction, such knowledge being necessary to precipitate the actualisation of that manifestation.
The scene is replicated with a vital
modification in the Tenacious D
movie,
The Pick of Destiny, but there the characters, engaged in a "rock-off" with the
Devil, are not required to perform "the best song in the world" but merely one that rocks harder than the Devil's. Interestingly, they fail at this because the Devil's song is just soooo much more rockin' (with the Devil calling them
lame and preparing to take KG as a
sex slave as his
prize) but evade the
consequences of losing when the Devil's
magic is
reflected back at him off JB's
guitar. The movie's reconceptualisation of the confrontation lifts from the
players the
burden of having to put out there a song which could match Tribute's
promise of being "the best song in the world."