Jump to content

Sympathy for the Devil

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 66.41.48.60 (talk) at 19:18, 30 August 2007 (→In popular culture). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

For other uses, see the song.
"Sympathy for the Devil"
Song
"Sympathy for the Devil"
Song

"Sympathy for the Devil" is a song by The Rolling Stones. The song first appeared as the opening track on the 1968 Stones album Beggars Banquet.

Inspiration

"Sympathy for the Devil" was written by singer Mick Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards, though the song was largely a Jagger composition.[1] Early inspirations led the Stones toward a more folk music sound, with Jagger saying in a 1995 interview with Rolling Stone, "I think that was taken from an old idea of Baudelaire's, I think, but I could be wrong. Sometimes when I look at my Baudelaire books, I can't see it in there. But it was an idea I got from French writing. And I just took a couple of lines and expanded on it. I wrote it as sort of like a Bob Dylan song." [1] In actuality the lyrics were inspired by Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita. [2] It was Richards who suggested to Jagger the adding of backing percussion, thus turning the folk song into a samba. [2]

The song is sung by Jagger as a first-person narrative and commentary from the point of view of a suave and sophisticated Lucifer;

Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste;

These opening lines reflect Jagger's direct inspiration by The Master and Margarita, with the book opening with the similar "'Please excuse me,' he said, speaking correctly, but with a foreign accent, 'for presuming to speak to you without an introduction.'"

Backed by an intensifying rock arrangement, the singer recounts his exploits over the course of human history and warns the listener; the last line is used near-verbatim at another point in the song:

If you meet me, have some courtesy, Have some sympathy, and some taste; Use all your well-learned politesse, Or I'll lay your soul to waste

On this, Jagger continued in the Rolling Stone interview: "...it's a very long historical figure -- the figures of evil and figures of good -- so it is a tremendously long trail he's made as personified in this piece." [3]

At the time of the release of Beggars Banquet the Stones had already raised some hackles for sexually forward lyrics such as "Let's Spend the Night Together" [4] and for dabbling in Satanism [2] (their previous album, while containing no direct Satanic references, had been titled Their Satanic Majesties Request), and "Sympathy" brought these concerns to the fore, provoking media rumors and fears among some religious groups that The Rolling Stones were indeed devil-worshippers and a corrupting influence on youth. [5] It should be noted, however, that one interpretation of this song is that "The Devil" is in fact mankind. The lyrics are a brief history of some of the most notable atrocities committed by man against man, including a mentioning of wars of religion ("I watched with glee while your Kings and Queens fought for ten decades for the Gods they made"), the Russian Revolution of 1917 ("I stuck around St. Petersburg when I saw it was a time for a change, killed the Czar and his ministers") while also making a reference to the purported survival of Anastasia ("Anastasia screamed in vain"), and World War II ("I rode a tank, held a general's rank when the blitzkrieg raged, and the bodies stank"). In that light, the song would appear to be a criticism of the immorality of mankind. [6]

In addition to the very idea of a sympathetic view of the Devil, the lyrics include references to the deaths of John and Robert Kennedy. The latter occurred while the Stones were recording the album, and the words were changed from "Who killed John Kennedy?" to "who killed the Kennedys?"

The song may have been spared further controversy when the first single from the album, "Street Fighting Man" became even more controversial in the wake of the race riots occurring in many cities in the U.S.

Recording

Recording on "Sympathy for the Devil" began at London's Olympic Sound Studios on June 5, 1968 and continued into the next day. Final overdubs were performed on June 8, 9, and 10. Personnel included on the recording include Nicky Hopkins on piano; Rocky Dijon on congas; Bill Wyman on maracas. Marianne Faithfull, Anita Pallenberg, Brian Jones, producer Jimmy Miller, Wyman, Hopkins, Jagger and Richards can be seen performing backup vocals in the Sympathy for the Devil movie (see below) by Jean-Luc Goddard, but this scene was staged especially for the cameras. The actual backup vocals were overdubbed by Jagger, Richards and Miller. Richards plays bass on the original recording and also the song's famed electric solo.

On the song, drummer Charlie Watts said in the 2003 book According to the Rolling Stones, "'Sympathy' was one of those sort of songs where we tried everything. The first time I ever heard the song was when Mick was playing it at the front door of a house I lived in in Sussex... He played it entirely on his own... and it was fantastic. We had a go at loads of different ways of playing it; in the end I just played a jazz Latin feel in the style of Kenny Clarke would have played on 'A Night in Tunisia' - not the actual rhythm he played, but the same styling." [7]

On the overall power of the song, Jagger continued in Rolling Stone: "It has a very hypnotic groove, a samba, which has a tremendous hypnotic power, rather like good dance music. It doesn't speed up or slow down. It keeps this constant groove. Plus, the actual samba rhythm is a great one to sing on, but it is also got some other suggestions in it, an undercurrent of being primitive -- because it is a primitive African, South American, Afro-whatever-you-call-that rhythm. So to white people, it has a very sinister thing about it. But forgetting the cultural colors, it is a very good vehicle for producing a powerful piece. It becomes less pretentious because it is a very unpretentious groove. If it had been done as a ballad, it wouldn't have been as good." [3]

Musical equipment for the solo

Film clips from the recording of the song reveal that Richards used his 1957 three pickup Gibson Les Paul Custom solely, and the sound of the solo as released matches that of a Les Paul Custom. On the clips various amps are seen, with a Voc AC-30 and a solid state Vox Supreme (the top of line guitar amp of the solid state Vox line, which included the Supreme, Conqueror, Defiant, Foundation and Traveler amongst them) as main guitar amps.

Aftermath

In an interview with Creem, Jagger said, “[When people started taking us as devil worshippers], I thought it was a really odd thing, because it was only one song, after all. It wasnt [sic] 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.” [5]

On the formentioned change in perception the band experienced after the song's release, Richards said in a 1971 interview with 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." [8]

In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine put it at #32 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Three years later, National Review magazine listed it as #3 on their list of the top 50 conservative rock songs. [9]

Contrary to popular belief, "Sympathy for the Devil" was not the song the Stones were performing while Meredith Hunter was killed at the Altamont Free Concert. [2] After a brief lapse in performances following Altamont, "Sympathy for the Devil" was reinstated in the band's setlists in 1975 and has been performed steadily by the band on most of their tours since. It has since been captured and released on the live albums The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus, Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out!, Love You Live and Flashpoint.

It has been featured on the Stones compilations Hot Rocks and Forty Licks.

Film

Sympathy for the Devil is also the title of a 1968 film by Jean-Luc Godard. The film, a loose documentary of the late 1960s American counterculture, also featured the Rolling Stones in the process of recording the song in the studio. On the filming, Jagger said in Rolling Stone: "... [it was] very fortuitous, because Godard wanted to do a film of us in the studio. I mean, it would never happen now, to get someone as interesting as Godard. And stuffy.We just happened to be recording that song. We could have been recording "My Obsession." But it was "Sympathy for the Devil," and it became the track that we used."

Covers and remixes

The song has been widely covered since its release, including a notable version by Jane's Addiction that was included on their 1987 self-titled live album, a much darker and complex version by jazz-rock band Blood, Sweat & Tears, called "Symphony For the Devil", from the group's Third Album, and most famously by the American hard rock group Guns N' Roses that was recorded in 1994 and featured in the closing credits of Neil Jordan's film adaptation of Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire. In 1989, the Slovenian band Laibach released an EP of seven different versions of the song, interpreted as everything from a Wagnerian symphony to a light techno number. The song was also covered by Widespread Panic in their live 2004 album, Jackassolantern.

The song has a similar chord structure as the coda to The Beatles' "Hey Jude" and The Residents perform the two quodlibet as the finale to their album The Third Reich 'n' Roll.

In December 1969, Sandie Shaw recorded the song for her album Reviewing the Situation.

In 1991, industrial metal band Skrew included a drastically rearranged cover of the song on their debut album, Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame.

In September 2003, ABKCO Records released a remix single of the original song featuring radio and remix versions by The Neptunes, Fatboy Slim, and Full Phatt.

In 2005, Ozzy Osbourne released a cover of the song on his four-disc box set Prince of Darkness. The fourth disk of Prince of Darkness, which included only cover songs, was re-released in late 2005 on its own with three more cover songs under the title Under Cover; Ozzy's cover of "Sympathy for the Devil" was included in the re-release.

Progressive/gothic metal band Tiamat covered the song on their 1999 album, Skeleton Skeletron.

A snippet of the song is often sung by Bono along with "Ruby Tuesday" during performances of "Bad" at U2 concerts, most notably performed at Live Aid in London as well as on the concert film Rattle and Hum.

One of the recent covers was made by a Polish hardcore/metal group Sweet Noise in 2007, with a use of African tribal choir.

Track listing: Sympathy for the Devil remixes

  1. "Sympathy for the Devil" - The Neptunes radio edit
  2. "Sympathy for the Devil" - The Neptunes extended remix
  3. "Sympathy for the Devil" - Fatboy Slim radio edit
  4. "Sympathy for the Devil" - Fatboy Slim extended remix
  5. "Sympathy for the Devil" - Full Phatt radio edit
  6. "Sympathy for the Devil" - Full Phatt extended remix
  7. "Sympathy for the Devil" - Original Rolling Stones version

Places "Sympathy for the Devil" is either included or referenced:

References

  1. ^ a b Wenner, Jann. "Jagger Remembers". Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone magazine. Retrieved 2006-06-25.
  2. ^ a b c d Cruickshank, Douglas. "Sympathy for the Devil". Salon.com. Salon. Retrieved 2006-06-25.
  3. ^ a b "Jagger Remembers". Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone magazine. Retrieved 2006-06-25.
  4. ^ Unterberger, Richie. "Let's Spend the Night Together". allmusic. 2007 (accessed 26 June 2007).
  5. ^ a b Cruickshank, Douglas. "Sympathy for the Devil (pg. 2)". Salon.com. Salon. Retrieved 2006-06-25.
  6. ^ "Sympathy for the Devil". allmusic. 2007 (accessed 24 June 2007).
  7. ^ ISBN 0-8118-4060-3 According to The Rolling Stones. Chronicle Books. 2003
  8. ^ Greenfield, Robert. "Keith Richards – Interview". Rolling Stone (magazine) August 19, 1971.
  9. ^ "Rockin' the Right". Nation Review Online. 26 May 2006 (accessed 24 June 2007).
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sympathy_for_the_Devil&oldid=154654987"