Rock and Politic through the Rolling Stones - Sympathy for the Devil

San Diego, December 5th, 2006


The video in an incredible concentrate of everything Rolling Stones at the end of the 60's (watch the people in the crowd).
The title is "Sympathy for the Devil", the security at the free Altamont concert (300.000 people called at the last minute to this place) is handled by the "Hell's Angels" and the concert turned out to be such a mess that it ended up with 4 dead (one being briefly seen killed by a Hell's Angels' knife just in front of the stage later during the concert) , only to be balanced by 4 births....
Regarding the song itself, the lyrics are a "brief history of some of the most notable atrocities committed by man against man, including The Hundred Years War (I watched with glee while your Kings and Queens fought for ten decades for the Gods they made), the October Revolution (I stuck around St. Petersburg when I saw it was a time for a change, killed the Czar and his ministers), and World War II (I rode a tank, held a gen'ral's rank while the blitzkrieg raged, and the bodies stank). In that light, the song would appear to be a criticism of the immorality in Western Civilization perceived by the songwriter.
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 having occurred only months before the album was released). 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. The line 'Hope you guess my name' is thought to pertain to the fairy tale Rumplestiltskin, who gives the main character three days to guess his name or he'll take her baby."

The Stones have been here longer than the Clash, they were playing in Los Angeles last week, still managing to distilate their magical touch over the years.