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In 1969 at the Altamont Speedway Free Festival, with California’s Hell’s Angels providing security for the band, violence broke out and escalated during the band’s performance of “Sympathy for the Devil.” By the end of the show, four people were dead, including Meredith Hunter, stabbed during the performance of “Under My Thumb.” Needless to say, “Sympathy for the Devil” was not helping The Rolling Stones’ already questionable image.

But is this “satanic” image valid for The Rolling Stones? Compared to contemporary “Devil’s music” (like that of Slipknot and others) that explicitly contains Satanic lyrics, The Rolling Stones’ lyrics aren’t all that racy—in fact, if anything, The Stones were discussing something philosophical. Not that The Stones were “doing philosophy” in their music, but when you closely examine the lyrics of “Sympathy for the Devil,” you begin to see a rough sketch of virtue and a call for societal compassion.

Maybe their drug-crazed past and court hearings had led The Stones to re-examine what really matters? If so, that’s not to say they cleaned up their act entirely (Keith Richards, we’re talking to you) but maybe they felt called to something higher—not lower into the underworld. Perhaps these are their uncensored confessions about how they feel mankind is doing? Any kind of periagoge like this, a turning around or reorientation of one’s soul, usually calls for reflection and contemplation about the world around you and what you’ve discovered about yourself. As it did for one of the holiest men who ever lived, St. Augustine.

What Happens in Carthage Stays in Carthage

In his adolescence, Augustine was devilish. He went to Carthage, the Las Vegas of his day, to satisfy his physical desires. Sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll would have been his motto to live by if rock’n’roll was around in the fourth century. It was-n’t. But sex was. And Augustine was probably more of a rolling stone at that time than Mick and Keith ever were.

Before they formed the band with Brian, Mick and Keith seem to have been more obsessed with music than sex. They both had an affinity for blues, collecting records, and eventually named the band after a Muddy Waters song. Though Jagger is no saint, he actually lived his adolescence more responsibly than Augustine by forgoing at least enough “orgy-esque” vacations in order to enroll at the prestigious London School of Economics. Augustine, on the other hand, along with this intense sexual desire, didn’t run with the best of crowds. In his Confessions he describes how he wandered further and further away from God and further into sin. Still, Augustine was able to have a conversion that re-ordered his unquenchable longings for something higher.

At first glance, it may seem as if The Rolling Stones were merely using “Sympathy for the Devil” to fuel their countercultural image, but in fact their message is an old one that Augustine would have known. The song actually highlights the imperfections of humanity rather than acknowledging, much less praising, the existence of some evil genius.

I watched with glee

While your kings and queens

Fought for ten decades

For the gods they made.

The devil, Jagger tells us, watched these tragedies, but did not cause them or make them happen. The Devil saw the Romanov murders and he was “‘round when Jesus Christ had his moment of doubt and pain,” but the Devil didn’t exactly nail Jesus to the Cross himself. If Lucifer were truly lurking around every corner, then of course, evil would exist and cause mayhem in the world. But The Stones are saying that these tragedies are not coming at the hands of the Devil himself. If the Devil is not the guilty party, who is? Is there another reason why these evil things occurred?

(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction … Or the Satisfaction that I Ought To

“Sympathy for the Devil” outlines many of Lucifer’s alleged transgressions and recalls moments in history where many would think, “Why? Why is this evil taking place in the world?” The nature of the