John Lennon Mick Jagger the beatles rolling stones

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The songs John Lennon and Mick Jagger wrote about Angela Davis

Sat 11 February 2023 17:00, UK

Angela Davis is an American political activist and academic who came into notoriety in 1970 when she was arrested as a suspected accomplice in the kidnap and murder of a Superior Court Judge. Davis became such a big figure in the public eye in the 1970s that iconic rock stars John Lennon and Mick Jagger both wrote songs about her.

Guns had been purchased under Davis’ name just two days before Judge Harold Haley’s murder, and she became the third woman to appear on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. Davis spent two months fleeing the police before she was taken in in New York City, prompting waves of protest in favour of her release. Eventually, the court jury decreed a not-guilty verdict, and Davis was freed.

The Rolling Stones’ song indebted to Angela Davis is the 1972 track ‘Sweet Black Angel’ taken from their highly-acclaimed double LP Exile on Main St. Keith Richards once explained that he didn’t initially realise that Jagger was singing about Davis until the song’s title crept into the lyrics. He told Harper’s: “This one started as an island-lilt sort of thing when we were in Jamaica. After a while, the words’ Sweet Black Angel’ crept into it, and I realised Mick was writing about Angela Davis, the famous activist who was under arrest at the time.” Richards also noted that the band never got to meet the activist, but they “admired her from afar”.

The working title for the track was ‘Bent Green Needles’, but by the time Jagger figured out the song was going to be about Davis, he changed it to the apt ‘Sweet Black Angel’. Lyrically, the song explores a parody of black stereotypes and lyrics featuring the n-word did not stir controversy because it was evident that it was a parody.

As for the John Lennon track written about Davis, ‘Angela’ arrived on the John Lennon and Yoko Ono 1972 album Some Time in New York City. It had originally been conceived as ‘JJ’, a song about a woman who could not get laid. However, eventually, Lennon scrapped the sexist connotations of the demo and set about writing it about Davis instead.

After all, much of Some Time in New York City was written in reaction to the global political events that had occurred in the first few years of the 1970s. Check out Lennon and Ono’s ‘Angela’ below, as well as the Rolling Stones’ Davis tribute ‘Sweet Black Angel’.