Understanding Sympathy for the Devil

Summary

On December 6, 1969, a free concert at the Altoona Speedway, featuring '60s counterculture icons including the Rolling Stones, turned chaotic and tragic. Originally imagined as a Woodstock-style celebration of the hippie movement, the event instead highlighted the dangers of poor organization and large crowds. Violence broke out, famously leading to the death of Meredith Hunter, though misconceptions about the timing and cause of his death have persisted. These events, combined with the controversial history of rock music's supposed satanic connections, add layers to songs like "Sympathy for the Devil," by the Rolling Stones. The song itself deals with themes of evil and humanity's role in it, drawing inspiration from poets and writers who have explored these complex themes. Ultimately, the tragedy at the concert serves as a reminder of mankind's flaws rather than any divine retribution, further emphasizing the themes of the song.

Highlights

• The Altamont Free Concert was intended as a peaceful event but turned into chaos, with a tragic death during the Rolling Stones' performance. 🎤
• "Sympathy for the Devil" is inspired by literary works exploring the complex nature of evil, including Milton's "Paradise Lost" and Baudelaire's poetry. 📖
• The song's rhythm employs samba-inspired grooves, showcasing the Stones' penchant for breaking musical norms. 🥁
• Rolling Stones' music has a history of challenging conservative norms and breaking racial barriers in the music industry. 🎵
• Misconceptions about the Altamont tragedy often mislabel it as orchestrated by dark forces, overshadowing human responsibility. 👥

Key Takeaways

• The 1969 Altamont Free Concert aimed to mirror Woodstock but ended in chaos, reflecting poor organization rather than divine punishment. 🚨
• "Sympathy for the Devil" by the Rolling Stones explores human complicity in evil, drawing on literary influences like Milton and Baudelaire. 📚
• The song's rhythm features samba influences, pushing musical boundaries and challenging conservative perceptions. 🎶
• The Stones' music often attracted controversy, partly due to its roots in black musical traditions breaking racial barriers. 🎸
• Despite misconceptions, the tragic events at Altamont highlight humanity's flaws rather than any satanic connections. 😈

Overview

On December 6, 1969, the Altamont Free Concert was intended to be a celebratory conclusion to the 1960s. It featured top acts like the Rolling Stones, but poor planning led to violence and tragedy, marking the event as a dark chapter in rock history. Known as 'rock and roll’s worst day,' the concert highlighted the chaotic and dangerous nature of large, poorly managed gatherings rather than any spiritual retribution.

The Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil" reflects on humanity's inherent evil through a playful yet profound exploration of moral ambiguity. Inspired by literature, including works by Milton and Baudelaire, Mick Jagger crafted lyrics that questioned humanity's role in its own destruction. The song resonated deeply with the societal shifts and upheavals of its time, mirroring mankind’s perpetual dance with chaos.

Musically, "Sympathy for the Devil" is a testament to the Stones’ innovative spirit, blending samba rhythms with rock to create an electrifying track. This musical choice unsettled listeners, pushing boundaries and highlighting racial inequities by drawing on rhythms from the global south. The song’s legacy is one of cultural reflection, questioning moral certainties and societal norms while establishing the Stones as rock legends.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Death of the Hippie Dream The chapter discusses the pivotal moment that signified the end of the hippie dream, which occurred on December 6th, 1969. On that day, 300,000 people went to the Altoont Speedway, located approximately an hour from San Francisco Bay, for a free concert. This event featured prominent figures from the 1960s counterculture, including the Rolling Stones, who headlined the concert. The gathering was envisioned as the West Coast's version of Woodstock and was intended to showcase the vibrant culture that had emerged from the hippie movement.
• 00:30 - 01:30: Rolling Stone's Worst Day The event was supposed to be a representation of peace, love, and the transformative power of flower power in San Francisco's Hate Ashbury district. Instead, it turned into a disaster referred to by Rolling Stone magazine as rock and roll's worst day. During the concert, the once peaceful crowd became increasingly agitated and violent. This aggression was fueled by a group of drunk Hell's Angels who were controversially hired to handle security for the event. By the time the band took the stage, tensions had escalated dramatically amidst the cramped conditions with 5,000 attendees.
• 01:30 - 03:00: Myth and Reality of the Altamont Festival The chapter titled 'Myth and Reality of the Altamont Festival' discusses a tragic event during the Altamont Free Concert. It highlights a chaotic scene where fans surged towards the stage, creating a crowd crush. The narrative focuses on a dark incident during the Rolling Stones' performance of 'Sympathy for the Devil', where a fight broke out, leading to the death of Meredith Hunter by the Hell's Angels. This moment is often portrayed as a grim part of the rock music era, symbolizing a karmic backlash for the 60s rock movement.
• 03:00 - 05:00: Inspiration behind Sympathy for the Devil The chapter explores the historical and cultural origins of rock and roll music's association with the devil, starting from the alleged Faustian bargain that is part of its foundational myth. It discusses the moral panics that have been associated with rock music due to this relationship. A significant event highlighted is the murder of Meredith Hunter during a Rolling Stones concert where they performed a controversial song 'Sympathy for the Devil', which serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of engaging with 'dark' themes, real or symbolic.
• 05:00 - 06:30: Early Controversies and Influences This chapter addresses early controversies and influences, particularly debunking myths surrounding alleged satanic connections in Rock music. It corrects false reports from a Rolling Stone article that inaccurately linked the death of Meredith Hunter to fights during the performance of 'Sympathy for the Devil.' It clarifies that Hunter died during a later song, 'Under My Thumb,' highlighting factual inaccuracies in media reporting of the events.
• 06:30 - 12:00: Sympathy for the Devil's Literary Influences The chapter explores the incident at Woodstock Festival as a cautionary tale of poor event organization rather than divine punishment. It suggests that large gatherings can be dangerous if not properly managed. Despite its idyllic reputation, the festival had casualties, including two overdoses and a teen run over by a tractor. This reality is paralleled with the song 'Sympathy for the Devil,' noting that while the truth might diminish its mystique, the song's story remains intriguing.
• 12:00 - 15:00: Musical Influences and Societal Commentary The chapter explores the misconceptions and mystique surrounding the song 'Sympathy for the Devil' and how these elements contributed to its creation. It discusses the song's lasting impact and its status as a significant achievement in Rock music.
• 15:00 - 17:30: Altoont Tragedy and its Misinterpretations The chapter titled 'Altoont Tragedy and its Misinterpretations' discusses the controversy surrounding the Rolling Stones since their formation in 1962. It highlights how their gritty, sexual rock and roll music shocked the conservative Christian culture of mid-century England. The band's manager, Andrew Lug Oldm, amplified this perception by presenting them in a messy and unkempt style, which furthered their controversial image. Even before the Rolling Stones sang about Satan, they were already being criticized as evil and satanic.
• 17:30 - 19:30: Sympathy for the Devil's Legacy and Analysis In 1967, The Rolling Stones released the album 'Their Satanic Majesties Request,' which was a satirical response to accusations of satanic behavior by the band, fueled by their hard-partying image. Despite the album's title, the band members were not satanic, and their music predominantly explored themes of love and sex, concepts that have historically inspired art. Nonetheless, a conservative older generation persisted in labeling the band and similar contemporary artists as evil.
• 19:30 - 20:00: Invitation to Further Exploration and Nebula Promotion The chapter explores the concept of evil and its perception by society, using a Rolling Stone interview with Keith Richards as a starting point. Richards notes how the band's image as 'evil' led them to contemplate the nature of evil. This introspection is linked to wider philosophical themes, including references to literary works like John Milton's Paradise Lost.

Understanding Sympathy for the Devil Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 if there's a single moment you can point to as the death of the hippie dream it's the evening of December 6th 1969 on that day 300,000 people descended on the Altoont Speedway about an hour away from the San Francisco Bay for a free concert featuring many of the biggest names of the ' 60s counterculture including the headlining Rolling Stones the concert was imagined as a West Coast version of Woodstock it was to be a display of the rich hippie culture that had spawned out
• 00:30 - 01:00 of San Francisco's Hate Ashbury district it was imagined as further proof of the way that peace love and flower power could change the world instead it was a catastrophe that Rolling Stone magazine dubbed rock and roll's worst day throughout the Dayong concert the supposedly peaceloving audience grew restless and violent spurred on by a drunken cohort of Hell's Angels who had been hired to provide security for the event by the time the Stones took the stage tempers had come to a boiling point 5,000 people were jammed to the
• 01:00 - 01:30 edge of the stage in a massive crowd crush and rowdy fans tried to climb on stage then came the darkest moment of the evening and one of the darkest moments of the entire 60s rock movement as Rolling Stone first reported it in 1970 a fight broke out in the middle of the Stone's performance of Sympathy for the Devil a fight that resulted in the death of a man named Meredith Hunter at the hands of the Hell's Angels the moment is sometimes mythologized as part of rock music's sinister legacy a karmic comeuppance for a movement that had been
• 01:30 - 02:00 coorting with the devil ever since its origins from the supposed Fouian bargain that forms its founding myth to the moral panics that defined its first few decades rock and roll music has a long and storied relationship with the devil and in that context the murder of Meredith Hunter as the Stones played a controversial song offering sympathy for the devil is a cautionary tale about playing around with dark powers or at least it would be if it
• 02:00 - 02:30 were true but like with so many of Rock's supposed satanic connections the truth is not quite so dramatic the reporting in that Rolling Stone piece was just plain wrong while a number of fights did break out during Sympathy for the Devil causing the band to stop the song and restart none of them led to Meredith Hunter's death meredith Hunter wouldn't die until several songs later when another fight broke out during Under My Thumb so unless Hunter's tragic death was karmic payment for routine 60s chauvinism the Alimon Festival isn't a
• 02:30 - 03:00 case of divine punishment it's a case of poor event organization and a reflection of the fact that large groups of people tend to be dangerous places if they're not dealt with very carefully in fact the supposedly idyllic Woodstock Festival earlier that year had its own body count thanks to two overdoses and a teen who got run over by a tractor after falling asleep in a hayfield and while this truth may strip some of the mystique from Sympathy for the Devil the story of the song is no less interesting
• 03:00 - 03:30 for it in fact that very sort of misconception-driven mystique helped inspire the creation of the song in the first place and it remains a key reason why Sympathy for the Devil endures as one of Rock's greatest triumphs to this very day let's take a closer look
• 03:30 - 04:00 controversy has followed the Rolling Stones basically since they formed in 1962 the gritty sexual rock and roll that delivered them to fame stood as an affront to the deeply conservative Christian culture of mid-century England their manager in the early days Andrew Lug Oldm exacerbated this controversy by dressing the band with a messy unckempt style that leaned into that edge before the Stones had ever sang a single word about Satan they were already being decrieded as evil and satanic these
• 04:00 - 04:30 accusations only grew as the Stones developed a reputation for hard partying in 1967 the band decided to poke fun at these accusations with an album satirically titled Their Satanic Majesty's Request they were of course not satanic in any way most of their songs were about love and sex experiences that are a fundamental part of human existence and have inspired art for millennia still a conservative older generation was determined to label the Stones and their ilk as evil this
• 04:30 - 05:00 constant controversy and labeling would prove to be part of the inspiration for Sympathy for the Devil keith Richards explained 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 that question what is evil is something humankind has always been eager to explore john Milton's Paradise Lost is
• 05:00 - 05:30 an epic retelling of the biblical fall of man written in blank verse and first published in 1667 it's one of the greatest touchstones for our modern conception of Lucifer and it's a work that by some interpretations seems to offer up a sort of sympathy for the devil while Milton's book is rooted in a Christianity that believes in Satan as absolute evil the text itself explores Satan's inner motivations framing him much more as a complex human than a paragon of absolute darkness many poets
• 05:30 - 06:00 of the romantic age explicitly read Milton's Lucifer as the hero of the story as William Blake wrote in the marriage of heaven and hell the reason Milton wrote in Feds when he wrote of angels and God and at liberty when of devils and hell is because he was a true poet and of the devil's party without knowing it blake was a poet painter and philosopher with his own complex vision of Christian morality he viewed heaven and hell not as places of good and evil but rather as representations of a duality of order and chaos that both
• 06:00 - 06:30 existed within the human spirit and were both necessary aspects of life much of Blake's view on morality was developed during a radical time as the French Revolution was in the process of turning meaning on its head and transforming the world forever a generation later a French poet named Charlair would come out of this age of revolution with his own nuanced visions of the nature of evil most of Bodilair's poetry was collected in a controversial book called Leelur Dumal the flowers of evil just
• 06:30 - 07:00 like the Rolling Stones Bodilair's work was criticized for its decadence and sexuality and just like Blake Bodilair's poetry interrogated the true nature of Satan and evil one poem in particular Leitony to Satan inverts a Catholic liturgy into a prayer to Satan bodilair's prayer like Milton's poem posit Satan as someone closer to humanity someone who is constantly involved in all of the messy affairs of human life rather than sitting and
• 07:00 - 07:30 watching passively from a throne in the skies this sharp criticism of the Catholic Church had Bodilair's critics charging him with blasphemy but it posed questions that inspired many in the generations to come including possibly Mick Jagger in a 1995 interview with Rolling Stone MC Jagger recalled that sympathy for the devil came from an old idea of bodilairs while Jagger admitted that he doesn't remember the exact Bodilair piece that inspired the song I think leitan de Satan is the likeliest
• 07:30 - 08:00 culprit but that's not the only literary influence when Jagger wrote the song in 1968 he had just finished reading The Master in Margarita by Soviet author Mikal Bulgakov while most of Bulgakov's novel was written during the height of Stalinism in the 1930s it didn't see the light of day until 1967 the novel tells a surreal and satirical story of Satan visiting the Soviet Union interspersed with flashbacks to ancient Jerusalem where Pontius Pilate is about to sentence Jesus Christ to death that book
• 08:00 - 08:30 inspired Jagger to put together his own take on Satan this influence is clear in the first two verses of sympathy for the devil which leap from Pontius Pilot to the Russian Revolution i was around when Jesus Christ had his moment of doubt and pain made damn sure that Pilot washed his hands to seal his faith stuck around St petersburg when I saw it was a time for
• 08:30 - 09:00 a change killed the saw and it ministers [Music] Anastasia there's one more key literary influence on the structure of Jagger's piece though it's much closer to home than Bodilair or Bulgakov in that same 1995 interview Jagger said that he wrote the song sort of like a Bob Dylan song jagger admitted that everyone in the era looked up to Dylan's lyricism and that's because Dylan was a master at pulling
• 09:00 - 09:30 literary and historical illusions into pieces that were urgently modern speaking to the unique political and cultural moment of the 1960s he did so with a structure that assued the pop writing of the time many of Dylan's songs didn't really have choruses but instead featured dense verses that each came to a simple often repeated refrain at the end this is exactly what Jagger and the Stones do on Sympathy for the Devil with each verse ending on the same rhyming coupllet pleased to meet you
• 09:30 - 10:00 hope you puzzling you with the nature of my game this refrain leans into a familiar characterization of the devil that of a playful wellspoken trickster trying to deceive humankind there are plenty of works out there that depict the devil as loving games and gambling in particular gambling for human souls but while many of these culminate with a clear morality
• 10:00 - 10:30 and end Jagger's devil is a little more enigmatic urging us all to guess at the true nature of his game in the first two verses it would seem the devil is simply an agent of chaos and violence he claims credit for killing the SAR and his ministers and depicts himself riding a tank in the Blitz Creek but as the song builds and grows to the third verse Jagger introduces some uncertainty to the equation kings and queens for 10
• 10:30 - 11:00 the changes here are subtle but essential to understanding the meaning of the song lucifer isn't playing a hand in encouraging the wars that constantly devastate the world he's simply watching and enjoying jagger is declaring humankind's complicity in our own history of violence in this way sympathy for the Devil seems to be in clear conversation with one Dylan song in particular with God on our side in that song Dylan details a history of human violence and conquest noting the way the
• 11:00 - 11:30 perpetrators of this violence always justify it by saying they had God on their side and then in the last verse Dylan makes his final declaration if God really was on humanity's side he would stop the next war sympathy for the Devil inverts this framework but comes to the same conclusion no divine force whether benevolent or malevolent is truly responsible for the state of human society the world around us is the direct result of the actions of human
• 11:30 - 12:00 beings jagger makes this clear with a lyric speaking directly to his own era i shouted out who killed the Kennedes when after all it was you and me originally that line was written as I shouted out who killed Kennedy but as the Stones were working on the song Robert Kennedy was assassinated which only underlined the urgency of the lyrics this verse exploring moral ambiguity gives way to a stilted shrieking solo by Keith Richard
• 12:00 - 12:30 [Music] i see this solo as an embodiment of Jagger's version of Lucifer it's a slippery twisting thing every time you think you have a grasp on what Richard's doing he freezes and jumps away to another half lick [Music]
• 12:30 - 13:00 the result is something that feels disorienting and dangerous but has a distinct and unmistakable allure to it and out of this solo Jagger erupts into the fourth verse one that explicitly states everything he'd been hinting at throughout the song just as every cop is a criminal and all the sinners saints fail just call me Lucifer cuz I'm
• 13:00 - 13:30 in need of some restraint jagger's plea to have sympathy for the devil isn't a plea for the audience to associate themselves with pure evil instead it's a plea to acknowledge that there is no such thing as pure evil and that the true sources of destruction tumult and pain are humanity's own actions and the song was written at a time when it was important to be asking these questions all the exploration of moral ambiguity was created against a backdrop of political and cultural
• 13:30 - 14:00 upheaval the societal norms of an older generation were collapsing in the face of the baby boom and a new generation was beginning to question the moral quality of institutions at the core of western society and they were right to question these institutions because so many of them were built on unjust and harmful hierarchies one of the reasons why the Rolling Stones drew so much eye in their early days is because of these harmful hierarchies rock and roll scandalized conservatives so much because it had grown out of a black
• 14:00 - 14:30 musical tradition some of rock's earliest moral panics grew out of the way the music broke down racial barriers and saw teens of different races dancing and socializing with each other and while that stigma was slowly disappearing by 1968 racism was still very present in Western society in fact the Stones deliberately played on those racial biases when designing the sound of the song in its early iterations Jagger wrote the music for Sympathy for the Devil as something a lot more like
• 14:30 - 15:00 the Dylan songs that had inspired [Music] it hope you guessed my name but Keith Richards didn't think this sound was right so the band started to play around with arrangements until they landed on the unique samba inspired groove that drives the song the Stones brought in Ghanian percussionist Rocky Zidorno aka Rocky Djon to play a conga
• 15:00 - 15:30 groove throughout the piece and while the core of that groove is a samba it pulls influences beyond that as well as Jagger told Rolling Stone the actual samba rhythm is a great one to sing on but it's also got some other suggestions to 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 while I very much disagree with Jagger's use of the word primitive here I think he makes a salient point about the way music from
• 15:30 - 16:00 the global south can put white audiences on edge by pushing them out of their comfort zone and offering them musical frameworks they're not quite as familiar with but just as those frameworks have an imagined edge they also have an allure to them that's what drew the Stones and their contemporaries to American blues in the first place it was something different from the music their parents grew up on for a young generation looking to find themselves that difference was exciting but for the older generation it was scary and more than any satanic compulsion it's that
• 16:00 - 16:30 fear of the other that has been behind so many of humanity's greatest crimes the declaration of other cultures and identities as being heathens is one of the great drivers of suffering to this very day sympathy for the devil is pulling influence from cultures that have literally been demonized over the years and by doing so the Stones were able to make a musical statement that matched Jagger's lyrical examination of evil and moral relativism put together
• 16:30 - 17:00 the result is one of the finest pieces in the Stones catalog and indeed one of the finest rock songs ever put to wax when the Stones took the stage at Alamont to perform Sympathy for the Devil they weren't petitioning dark forces on an asuspicious day they were singing a song about the complex nature of good and evil and the struggle being waged within all of us every day and I think that context allows us to reframe the tragedy at Altoont in our heads this was not some divine act of retribution
• 17:00 - 17:30 it was just another case of mankind's constant fallibility another story of optimistic and idealistic human vision collapsing in the face of the real and messy nature of humankind sympathy for the Devil is a masterful track both in terms of its lyrical relevance and its musical structure and while I delve deeply into the former in this video my discussions on the latter were limited because frankly I'm no music theorist i tend to focus more on the abstract ideas behind music and on placing it within a
• 17:30 - 18:00 cultural and historical perspective that helps us better understand where the art we love fits within the grand and marvelous human experience but if you're more interested in knowing which specific dutes everyone played in the song well you'll be happy to hear that this video is a collaboration with my good friend and podcast co-host Corey from 12tone if you head on over to Cory's channel now you can watch a theorybased analysis of the song that gets into the nitty-gritty of what the notes are and says the word pentatonic
• 18:00 - 18:30 several times once you've watched that you can head on over to Nebula and listen to an episode of our podcast Ghost Notes where we talk about the experience of breaking down the song from each of our respective angles it's a great little peak under the hood to see how each of our channels work and a really fun conversation on a song that's impossible to say too much about that episode is live on Nebula now and will be up on all other podcast platforms next month this sort of bonus early content is just a small part of everything that makes Nebula such an
• 18:30 - 19:00 exciting place nebula is a prestige streaming platform full of creative and thoughtful content that you can't find anywhere else it's got an everrowing library of amazing originals to watch personally I've been really enjoying the new show Amolish Everything where comedians argue for pet peeves that they want banned from society and there's so so much more beyond that from riveting historical documentaries to thought-provoking fiction originals to my own pieces like Polyonic Magazine and Nebula is super active in trying to
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• 19:30 - 20:00 head on over to go.nebula.tv/polyonic and check out Abolish Everything Now i think you'll really dig it and hey thanks for watching