"The Devil Cried" is a song by heavy metal

Heavy metal music

Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...

 band Black Sabbath

Black Sabbath

Black Sabbath are an English heavy metal band, formed in Aston, Birmingham in 1969 by Ozzy Osbourne , Tony Iommi , Geezer Butler , and Bill Ward . The band has since experienced multiple line-up changes, with Tony Iommi the only constant presence in the band through the years. A total of 22...

 featured on the compilation Black Sabbath: The Dio Years

Black Sabbath: The Dio Years

Black Sabbath: The Dio Years is a 2007 compilation CD of material from recordings made during vocalist Ronnie James Dio's tenure in the band. The CD contains full album length, remastered tracks culled from all three studio albums; Heaven and Hell , Mob Rules , Dehumanizer , and the live album Live...

. The song peaked on the Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks at 38. It was one of three new recordings the group did for the compilation (the others being "Shadow of the Wind" and "Ear in the Wall"). Tony Iommi

Tony Iommi

Anthony Frank "Tony" Iommi is an English guitarist and songwriter best known as the founding member of pioneering heavy metal band Black Sabbath, and its sole continual member through multiple personnel changes.Iommi is widely recognised as one of the most important and influential guitarists in...

 has called the song, "a mid-tempo track which is... riff-based again, great vocals and I think that's really good."

According to Dio on the "Heaven and Hell Road Movie" extra on the Live from Radio City Music Hall

Live from Radio City Music Hall

Live from Radio City Music Hall is a double album by the supergroup Heaven & Hell which was released in 2007. The set is a chronicle of the group's performance on March 30, 2007 at Radio City Music Hall in New York City....

DVD, the song is about the ability to return to Heaven

Heaven

Heaven, the Heavens or Seven Heavens, is a common religious cosmological or metaphysical term for the physical or transcendent place from which heavenly beings originate, are enthroned or inhabit...

 if a soul in Hell

Hell

In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...

 could succeed in making Satan

Satan

Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...

cry.