1968 was the year that killed Martin Luther King Jr., Frankie Lymon, and Robert F. Kennedy. UNC Chapel Hill and U-Dub Madison were in the midst of civil rights uprisings. Vietnam was a current event and Richard Nixon was a new, pre-Watergate phenomenon.

The Rolling Stones have been around for decades, and while some things never seem to change (including the Keith Richards jokes) there was once a point where the Stones were quite historically relevant, both musically and politically. Enter the album: Beggar’s Banquet, ala ‘68.

“Sympathy For The Devil” is by far my favorite Stones track (followed closely by “Gimme Shelter”). One thing about it is the textbook narrative structure of the song, creating a vivid storytelling vignette seen through the eyes of Lucifer himself. Keep in mind that during this time period, rock music was still rubbing parents the wrong way by seeming to corrupt the youth with messages of Satan worship and sex. Imagine when they heard this!

The British bad boys did not help to quell such slander at all when the first track of Beggar’s Banquet was released. At one point, Jagger attempted to level the field a bit, during an interview with American rock mag Creem:

“[When people started taking us as devil worshipers], I thought it was a really odd thing, because it was only one song, after all. It wasn’t like it was a whole album, with lots of occult signs on the back. People seemed to embrace the image so readily, [and] it has carried all the way over into heavy metal bands today.”

With Jagger speaking in the role of Morning Star himself, a lot of parents who protested the song neglected to see past the nomenclature to a deeper meaning. Some believe this song was later spared further controversy amongst the public when the lead-off single from Beggar’s Banquet entitled “The Fighting Man” was released during the race riots so commonplace in 1968.

Nevertheless, when looking at the lyrics of “Sympathy…”, you’ll notice there isn’t much occult mentioned, and with good reason. The song itself is intended to be more of a commentary on the violence of humanity throughout the ages:

Please allow me to introduce myself
I’m a man of wealth and taste
I’ve been around for a long, long year
Stole many a man’s soul and faith

And I was ’round when Jesus Christ
Had his moment of doubt and pain
Made damn sure that Pilate
Washed his hands and sealed his fate

Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name
But what’s puzzling you
Is the nature of my game

I stuck around St. Petersburg
When I saw it was a time for a change
Killed the Czar and his ministers
Anastasia screamed in vain

I rode a tank
Held a general’s rank
When the Blitzkrieg raged
And the bodies stank

I watched with glee
While your kings and queens
Fought for ten decades
For the Gods they made

I shouted out
“Who killed the Kennedys?”
When after all
It was you and me

Contrary to popular belief, this is not the song The Rolling Stones performed at Altamont when Meredith Hunter was killed amidst violent crowds. That song was in fact “Under My Thumb”, whereas “Sympathy For The Devil” had been played intermittently earlier on in the show, though with a few minor interruptions. More than likely, the media played off the controversy brewing about with “Sympathy…” and spurred rumors later on. Of the band’s image a few years over, Keith Richards said in 1971 to Rolling Stone:

“Before, we were just innocent kids out for a good time, they’re saying, ‘They’re evil, they’re evil.’ Oh, I’m evil, really? So that makes you start thinking about evil… What is evil? Half of it, I don’t know how much people think of Mick as the devil or as just a good rock performer or what? There are black magicians who think we are acting as unknown agents of Lucifer and others who think we are Lucifer. Everybody’s Lucifer.”

This song has not only referenced almost every significant war up until the late ’60’s, “Sympathy For The Devil” has become pop culture in and of itself. Jane’s Addiction had a notable cover included on their 1987 debut. The release of Interview With The Vampire saw Guns n’ Roses covering the song for the film’s soundtrack, and then being released as a low-volume single. In 2004, the song was named #34 on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. It even managed to seep into American fiction, where in Stephen King’s The Stand, otherworldly villain Randall Flagg says at one point, “Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name.”

With a song like this, it’s always nice to sit back and take in both the in-depth look at it and the mellowed-out attitude towards it. Whether you take it at all seriously, or you just like the way Richards’ 1957 Gibson Les Paul sounds in mamba mode - no one can deny that the entire track alone has some historical merit truly worthy of a Rock History 101 lesson.

Class dismissed.

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Tags: The Rolling Stones