The band Mick Jagger accused of making “a career out of” satanism
Since its dawn, rock and roll has always been associated with satanism. At first, it was just something outraged mothers would say, terrified by the seemingly sinful path their teenage children were wandering down as they jived along to these new sounds. But then, bands undeniably started to lean into it, fanning the flames of those hellish fears. The Rolling Stones were certainly accused of it, but in Mick Jagger’s mind, their interest in the dark side was nothing compared to their peers.
You’ve got Elvis thrusting his hips on stage, John Lennon saying he’s bigger than Jesus and then a few seductive tracks with ‘Devil’ somewhere in the title and suddenly, the church is in an outrage. Throughout the entire history of rock and roll, and even into the subsect sounds that splintered off from it, like punk or even modern pop, there has been outrage at every turn. Whether it’s about certain lyrics, the message within them, or even the clothes artists wear, the idea that something is sinful has been a criticism hitting music over and over for decades.
In the 1960s and ‘70s, though, that fear was higher than ever. It’s understandable. While the teenagers were getting into these new, countercultural sounds, their parents were still reeling from the war, born from a more conservative time, and so still very much in that mindset. It was the era of free love and hedonism, but not so much for the older generation. So when those same bands started leaning into the sounds, symbols and mere suggestion of Satanism, those same parents were outraged.
The Stones’ ‘Sympathy For The Devil’ was an accusing track, but Jagger never really understood why. “I knew lots of people that were into Aleister Crowley,” he said, admitting that yes, he knew some people who were actually into satanism as the impact of Crowley, the British occultist, was everywhere at the time with his face brandished on the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and his writing finding its way into the rock and roll culture. Despite dying in 1947, the legacy of the man considered to be the “most notorious occultist magician of the twentieth century” found a new and strong wave of interest during the countercultural moment.
But Jagger wasn’t all that fussed. “What I’m saying is, it wasn’t what I meant by the song ‘Sympathy for the Devil’. If you read it, it’s not about black magic, per se,” he added, begging people to have some media and cultural literacy. While singing from the perspective of the devil, the song is a political one, looking around at the evil in the world as if the devil was playing his hand in each real-life instance. It’s by no means an endorsement.
“The Satanic imagery stuff was very overplayed [by journalists],” Jagger said to Rolling Stone in 1995, “We didn’t want to really go down that road. And I felt that song was enough.” It wasn’t something he wanted his career to forever be attached to but he seemed to think some of his peers were fine with that as he said, “You didn’t want to make a career out of it. But bands did that — Jimmy Page, for instance.”
Led Zeppelin was another band hit with the satanism stick, mainly due to their more experimental audio, as it often felt like voices were whispering in their listener’s ear due to Page’s love for distortion. But while Jagger just liked to sing of the Devil, Page was far more invested, actually taking an interest in Thelema, Crowley’s occult religion. Led Zeppelin III was inscribed with one of Crowley’s mottos, “Do What Thou Wilt”, so in the eyes of those scared parents, bringing the Zeppelin record into the home was basically opening the door to Satan himself. Jagger wanted everyone to know that his own music was much more of a righteous house guest.
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