The song Mick Jagger never wanted to write again
There was nothing about The Rolling Stones that ever implied that they were the most wholesome rock stars in the world.
Who are we kidding here? The Stones were the epitome of what sleazy rock and roll was supposed to be, and even if some parts of their story were exaggerated, it’s not like they were choir boys behind the scenes. But even if Mick Jagger was a bit more sensible about being a frontman, he knew that there were dark corners of their catalogue that shouldn’t be revisited all that often.
Then again, when did The Stones care about being the most upstanding members of society? It’s not like they were writing tunes like ‘Satisfaction’ in an attempt to get kids to stay in school, and it would take a lot of leaps in logic to think that Keith Richards was going to be the archetypal role model for the parents of the world wanting their kids to live life right.
But at the same time, one can only sing about debauchery so much before it starts getting old. Even the biggest shock rockers of all time like Alice Cooper knew when to shut the hell up and make great tunes, and those that didn’t normally found themselves in a weird dead zone where they either are trying to be edgy for shock value or try to say the most offensive thing possible in an attempt to somehow gain some attention.
The Stones were never looking for that kind of attention, but the late 1960s were probably the one time where they seemed legitimately threatening. Richards was turning into more of an addict by the day, and while they would eventually leave England during the sessions for Exile on Main Street, their bad habits felt much more real when their members started getting thrown in jail for drug possession.
If they looked the part, though, Jagger figured they may as well play the part for a little while as well. It was easy for a lot of fans to ease into the sinister side of the group, but even if ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ was supposed to be a playful look at what Satan might look like in the modern world, it’s not like Jagger didn’t see that he was playing with a little too much fire when he was finished.
Maybe it was the Altamont concert or maybe it was the sad aftermath of the Manson murders, but Jagger figured that ‘Sympathy’ wasn’t a song that he wanted he wanted to be associated with for the rest of his life, saying, “The Satanic imagery stuff was very overplayed [by journalists]. We didn’t want to really go down that road. And I felt that song was enough. You didn’t want to make a career out of it. It wasn’t what I meant by the song ‘Sympathy for the Devil.’ If you read it, it’s not about black magic.”
Even if a handful of fans went down that road, this wasn’t the kind of occultist idea that Jagger was going for. After all, the biggest heroes in the music industry need their fair share of villains to work with as well, and even if Jagger was far from an intimidating figure when talking in interviews, hearing him put on the persona of Lucifer would have been more than enough for the super-religious stripe of fans to think they were doing something dangerous.
It was far less dangerous than they might have thought, but teetering that line is what all good rock and roll is about. There’s no shortage of bands that take things too far, but Jagger was able to take it just far enough to still have a level of sophistication when playing everyone’s favourite fallen angel.
