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| "Sympathy for the Devil" | |
|---|---|
 1973 German single picture sleeve | |
| Song bythe Rolling Stones | |
| from the albumBeggars Banquet | |
| Released | 6 December 1968 (1968-12-06) |
| Recorded | 4–5, 8–10 June 1968 |
| Studio | Olympic, London |
| Genre | Samba rock |
| Length | 6:18 (album version) 4:09 (single version) |
| Label | Decca |
| Songwriter | Jagger–Richards |
| Producer | Jimmy Miller |
| Audio sample | |
| Music video | |
| "Sympathy for the Devil" onYouTube | |
"Sympathy for the Devil" is a song by English rock bandThe Rolling Stones. The song was written byMick Jagger and credited to theJagger–Richards partnership. It is the opening track on the band's 1968albumBeggars Banquet. The song has received critical acclaim and features onRolling Stone magazine's "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list, being ranked number 106 in the 2021 edition.[1]
"Sympathy for the Devil" is credited to Jagger and Richards, though the song was largely a Jagger composition.[2] The working title of the song was "The Devil Is My Name", having earlier been called "Fallen Angels". Jagger sings in first person narrative as theDevil, who boasts of his role in each of several historical atrocities and repeatedly asks the listener to "guess my name". The singer demands the listener's courtesy towards him, implicitly chastising the listeners for their collective culpability in the listed killings and crimes. In the 2012 documentaryCrossfire Hurricane, Jagger stated that his influence for the song came fromBaudelaire and from the Russian authorMikhail Bulgakov's novelThe Master and Margarita (which had just appeared in English translation in 1967). The book was given to Jagger byMarianne Faithfull and she confirmed the inspiration in an interview withSylvie Simmons for the magazineMojo in 2005.[3][4]
Mick Jagger visited Salvador,Bahia, in 1968, where he encountered the traditions ofCandomblé and found inspiration, along with Rio de Janeiro, for the song "Sympathy for the Devil." He also visited the hippie village of Arembepe in Bahia, where he was photographed playing a drum. His experiences in Bahia, with its folklore and local culture, were fundamental to the creation of the song, which he described as having a samba-like rhythm and rhythmic structure.[5][6]
In a 1995 interview withRolling Stone, Jagger said, "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 aBob Dylan song."[2] It was Keith Richards who suggested changing thetempo and using additional percussion, turning thefolk song into asamba.[7]
Jagger stated in theRolling 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."[2] By the timeBeggars Banquet was released, the Rolling Stones had already caused controversy for sexually forward lyrics such as "Let's Spend the Night Together"[8] and their cover of theWillie Dixon's blues "I Just Want to Make Love to You". There were also claims they had dabbled inSatanism[9] (their previous album, while containing no direct Satanic references in its music or lyrics, was titledTheir Satanic Majesties Request). "Sympathy" brought these concerns to the fore, provoking media rumours and fears among some religious groups that the Stones were devil worshippers and a corrupting influence on youth.[9]
The lyrics focus on atrocities inhuman history from Satan's point of view, including thetrial anddeath of Jesus Christ, TheHundred Years' War, (though the line in question may also refer toEuropean wars of religion) the violence of theRussian Revolution of 1917 and the 1918execution of the Romanov family duringWorld War I, andWorld War II. The song was originally written with a line asking whoshotJohn F. Kennedy, but afterRobert F. Kennedy'sassassination on 5 June 1968, the line was changed to reference both assassinations.[10]
The song may have been spared further controversy when the first single from the same album, "Street Fighting Man", became even more controversial in view of therace riots andstudent protests occurring in many cities in Europe and in the United States.[11]
The recording of "Sympathy for the Devil" began at London'sOlympic Sound Studios on 4 June 1968; overdubs were done on 8, 9 and 10 June.[12] Personnel included on the recording includeNicky Hopkins on piano,Rocky Dijon on congas andBill Wyman onshekere.Marianne Faithfull,Anita Pallenberg,Brian Jones,Charlie Watts, photographerMichael Cooper, Wyman, and Richards performed backup vocals. Richards plays bass on the original recording, and also electric guitar. Brian Jones plays a mostly mixed out acoustic guitar, although in isolated tracks of the studio cut, it is audible playing along with the piano.[13][14]
In the 2003 bookAccording to the Rolling Stones, Watts commented:
"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 ... 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 thatKenny Clarke would have played on "A Night in Tunisia".[7]
On the overall power of the song, Jagger continued inRolling 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's 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 (candombe).[2]
The backing vocals came about by accident by producerJimmy Miller andAnita Pallenberg. Pallenberg was in the engineering booth with Miller while Jagger was belting out an early vocal take of the song. According to Pallenberg, Miller was half talking to himself as Jagger sang, saying "Who, who?" He then repeated the words several times as Jagger sang on, and Pallenberg realised how wonderful that all sounded. After the take, she told Jagger what transpired in the booth and suggested that "who who" be used in the song as a backing vocal chant. The Stones then gave it a go and after the first take, "Who who" became "woo-woo", with most of this caught on film by directorJean-Luc Godard for hisOne Plus One (a.k.a.Sympathy for the Devil) movie.
Of the change in public perception the band experienced after the song's release, Richards said in a 1971 interview withRolling 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 many people think of Mick as the devil or as just a good rock performer or what? There areblack magicians who think we are acting as unknown agents ofLucifer and others who think we are Lucifer. Everybody's Lucifer."[15]
Hunter S. Thompson and his attorneyOscar Zeta Acosta kept replaying the song hundreds of times during their drug-induced road trip toLas Vegas in 1971 to maintain focus whilst high. In Thompson's novel,Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and thefilm of the same name, the song is referenced several times.[16]
Contrary to a widespread misconception, it was "Under My Thumb" and not "Sympathy for the Devil" that the Stones were performing whenMeredith Hunter was killed at theAltamont Free Concert.[9]Rolling Stone magazine's early articles on the incident typically misreported that the killing took place during "Sympathy for the Devil",[17] but the Stones in fact played "Sympathy for the Devil" earlier in the concert; it was interrupted by a fight and restarted, Jagger commenting, "We're always having – something very funny happens when we start that number." Several other songs were performed before Hunter was killed.[12]
"Sympathy for the Devil" is considered the band's "ode to madness" by The Washington Post's Paul Schwartzman.[18] The song has been played more than 800 times by the Rolling Stones during live performances, and appears on their live albumsGet Yer Ya-Ya's Out!,Love You Live, andFlashpoint, among others.[19]
The song's verse "I shouted out, ‘Who killed the Kennedys?' / When after all, it wasyou and me." is considered by criticRobert Christgau to be a commentary about how "this is a world where people get killed and all of us, to one extent or another, are implicated in the fact that this is that world." This lyric was noted in 2024 by Schwartzman as being omitted from the song since approximately 2006 in live performance. Christgau believes this was possibly done due to its lack of relevance "to the younger audience".[18]
According to authors Philippe Margotin and Jean-Michel Guesdon,[13] except where noted:
The Rolling Stones
Additional personnel
| Chart (1969–2011) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Belgium (Ultratop 50 Wallonia)[23] | 21 |
| France (SNEP)[24] | 100 |
| Netherlands (Dutch Top 40)[25] | 14 |
| Netherlands (Single Top 100)[26] | 13 |
Weekly charts[edit]
| Year-end charts[edit]
|
| Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
|---|---|---|
| Australia (ARIA)[50] | 3× Platinum | 210,000‡ |
| Germany (BVMI)[51] | Gold | 250,000‡ |
| Italy (FIMI)[52] | Platinum | 50,000‡ |
| Spain (PROMUSICAE)[53] | Platinum | 60,000‡ |
| United Kingdom (BPI)[54] | Platinum | 600,000‡ |
‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone. | ||
Sympathy for the Devil is also the title of a 1968 film by Godard, also titledOne Plus One. A depiction of the late 1960sAmerican counterculture, the film primarily featured the Rolling Stones in the process of recording the song in the studio. On the filming, Jagger said inRolling 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."[2]
During the several days of recording the Stones as they played, a film lamp set up by Godard's crew started a major fire in the studio that caused substantial damage to the studio and laid waste to some of the band's equipment. However, the song's tapes were saved by Miller before he fled the studio, and Godard kept his cameras rolling capturing the fire on film as it roared on.
| "Sympathy for the Devil" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Single byGuns N' Roses | ||||
| from the albumInterview with the Vampire (soundtrack) | ||||
| B-side | "Escape to Paris" (byElliot Goldenthal) | |||
| Released | 12 December 1994[55] | |||
| Recorded | October 1994 | |||
| Studio | Rumbo Recorders (Los Angeles) | |||
| Genre | Hard rock | |||
| Length | 7:36 | |||
| Label | Geffen | |||
| Songwriter | Jagger/Richards | |||
| Producers |
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| Guns N' Roses singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
Guns N' Roses recorded acover in 1994 which reached number 55 on theBillboard Hot 100; it was featured in the closing credits ofNeil Jordan's film adaptation ofAnne Rice'sInterview with the Vampire and was included on theirGreatest Hits album. This cover is noteworthy for causing an incident involving incoming guitaristPaul "Huge" Tobias, that was partially responsible for guitaristSlash departing from the band in 1996.[56] Slash has described the Guns N' Roses version of the song as "the sound of the band breaking up".[57]
Rhythm guitaristGilby Clarke, who does not appear on the recording, noted that the recording foreshadowed his departure from the band:
They did that while I was on the road touring formy solo record. [...] I knew that that was the ending because nobody told me about it. Officially I was in the band at that time, and they did that song without me. That was one of the last straws for me, because nobody had said anything to me, and they recorded a song by one of my favorite bands.[58]
This was the band's final single until 2018's "Shadow of Your Love" to feature guitaristSlash and bassistDuff McKagan.
| Chart (1994–1995) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Australia (ARIA)[59] | 12 |
| Austria (Ö3 Austria Top 40)[60] | 17 |
| Belgium (Ultratop 50 Flanders)[61] | 18 |
| Belgium (Ultratop 50 Wallonia)[62] | 40 |
| Canada Top Singles (RPM)[63] | 48 |
| Canada (The Record)[64] | 9 |
| Denmark (IFPI)[65] | 2 |
| Europe (Eurochart Hot 100)[66] | 3 |
| Finland (Suomen virallinen lista)[67] | 2 |
| France (SNEP)[68] | 15 |
| Germany (GfK)[69] | 20 |
| Iceland (Íslenski listinn Topp 40)[70] | 4 |
| Ireland (IRMA)[71] | 5 |
| Italy (Musica e dischi)[72] | 5 |
| Netherlands (Dutch Top 40)[73] | 10 |
| Netherlands (Single Top 100)[74] | 9 |
| New Zealand (Recorded Music NZ)[75] | 13 |
| Norway (VG-lista)[76] | 5 |
| Scotland (OCC)[77] | 8 |
| Spain (AFYVE)[78] | 4 |
| Sweden (Sverigetopplistan)[79] | 7 |
| Switzerland (Schweizer Hitparade)[80] | 15 |
| UK Singles (OCC)[81] | 9 |
| USBillboard Hot 100[82] | 55 |
| USMainstream Rock (Billboard)[83] | 10 |
| Chart (1994) | Position |
|---|---|
| Sweden (Topplistan)[84] | 97 |
| Chart (1995) | Position |
|---|---|
| Belgium (Ultratop 50 Wallonia)[85] | 74 |
| Europe (Eurochart Hot 100)[86] | 63 |
| Iceland (Íslenski Listinn Topp 40)[87] | 86 |
| Sweden (Topplistan)[88] | 88 |
| Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
|---|---|---|
| Japan (RIAJ)[89] | Gold | 50,000^ |
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. | ||
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| Compilation albums | |||||
| Singles |
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| Promotional singles | |||||
| Other songs | |||||
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| Tours | |||||
| Related |
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| International | |
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| Other | |
