Sympathy for the Devil: a song analysis

Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, “Sympathy for the Devil” is a song that many misinterpret. With the word, “sympathy” in the title, who can blame them? This song is one that I was always told was bad and to stay away from. But I was curious, do they really mean sympathy here? As the opening track on The Rolling Stone’s 1968 Beggars Banquet album, “Sympathy for the Devil” was originally written like a Bob Dylan folk song until Richards suggested they change the tempo to a samba (Cruickshank, 2002). The song is listed number 32 on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Let us look into the song lyrics themselves as well as the meaning behind the title and the context in which the song was written.

The song opens up with the narrator introducing himself, “Please allow me to introduce myself/

I'm a man of wealth and taste/I've been around for a long, long year.” And proceeds to list the historical events he was around for: Jesus and Pontius Pilate (circa 33 CE), the Russian Revolution (1917-1923) and Anastasia (killed along with her parents and siblings on July 17, 1918), the blitzkrieg during World War II (1939-1945), and the assassinations of John F Kennedy (November 22, 1963) and Robert F. Kennedy (June 6, 1968). The song also alludes to the Hundred Years War (1337-1453) in which the narrator states “I watched with glee/While your kings and queens/Fought for ten decades.” As the narrator lists the historical atrocities he has witnessed, he teases the audience, asking for his name: “Hope you guessed my name,” “Tell me baby, what's my name, “Tell me honey, can ya guess my name” and “Tell me, sweetie, what's my name.” The narrator ironically demands some courtesy, sympathy and taste as the name of his game is confuse his audience: “But what's confusing you/Is just the nature of my game, mm yeah/Just as every cop is a criminal/And all the sinners saints/As heads is tails.” As the narrator, as the traditional devil trickster, turns to the audience and places blame of these historical events on the audience: “you're to blame.”

I think many people have a problem with the song, not for its subject matter, but for its title. “Sympathy for the Devil” invokes an unsettling feeling. This song as well as The Stones’ 1967 album, Their Satanic Majesties Request, fueled media rumors and fear among religious groups that the Stones were devil worshippers” (Cruickshank, 2002). Sympathy is defined as “feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else's misfortune” or “understanding between people; common feeling.” Why would anyone want to feel pity for Lucifer or have a common feeling with him? This is where I think the word, sympathy, is used ironically as the devil is often portrayed as the deceiver, the trickster, and the slanderer. As the word, devil, derives from the Greek word, diábolos, meaning "slanderer." To slander someone is to “make false and damaging statements about them.” When the devil places blame solely on mankind for the historical events, he is being who he is supposed to be, the deceiver, the slanderer.

To place the blame on the devil or evil for the atrocities throughout history and even today is a bit dismissive. As “Sympathy For The Devil was intended to be an analysis of the dark side of humanity; one which allows itself to be too easily swallowed up by the banality of evil, thereby helping it to accomplish the wickedness it craves. If you understand the Devil within yourself, maybe you can deal with him” (Divelti, 2019). Everyone has the capacity for good as well as evil. While most people’s goodness will far outweigh their evilness, there are people out there who act in purely evil fashion without an ounce of goodness in them. I think we all can name individuals who, generally, are perceived as evil, no matter what their motivations are thought to have been. If you look at the context in which “Sympathy for the Devil” was written, you can see that it was a dose of reality. As the philosophy of peace and love was being pushed in songs like The Beatles, “All you Need is Love” (1967) which was really “dead even before it began” as the realities of the 60s, the Vietnam War and the violence that carried forward into the 70s” (The Legends of Music, 2019) showed the peace and love isn’t easy to achieve.

In conclusion, for a long time I refused to listen to “Sympathy for the Devil” but as I listen to it and began to analyze the lyrics, you see that sympathy is used in an ironic fashion. I found a great quote from Keith Richards in which he says “’Sympathy’ is quite an uplifting song. It's just a matter of looking (the Devil) in the face […] Sympathy for the Devil is a song that says, Don't forget him. If you confront him, then he's out of a job” (Fricke, 2002).  Evil is always there. We cannot hide from evil. When we confront evil, we can deal with it. How we deal with it is another issue all together. Therefore, “Sympathy for the Devil” is not a song for devil worship, it is a song about confronting evil so it can lose its power.

References

Cruickshank, Douglas. (January 14, 2002). Sympathy for the Devil. Salon.com. https://www.salon.com/2002/01/14/sympathy/. Retrieved May 17, 2020.

Divelti, Luca (May 1, 2019). Sympathy For The Devil: the meanings of The Rolling Stones’ song. Auralcrave. https://auralcrave.com/en/2019/05/01/sympathy-for-the-devil-the-meanings-of-the-rolling-stones-song/. Retrieved June 16, 2020.

Fricke, David (September 24, 2002). Online Exclusive: Keith Richards Uncut. Rolling Stone. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/online-exclusive-keith-richards-uncut-247051/. Retrieved June 16, 2020.

The Legends of Music. (December 28, 2019). The Story behind ‘Sympathy For The Devil’ Medium. https://medium.com/@thelegendsofmusic/the-story-behind-sympathy-for-the-devil-ad1f7b70410a. Retrieved June 16, 2020.