The Rolling Stones and Philosophy_ It's Just a Thought Away - Luke Dick [119]
In 1969, Brian was sacked by Mick and Keith, and was found dead soon afterwards in the swimming pool of his home on July 3rd. The Altamont concert took place on December 6th, with The Rolling Stones as the headline act. The omens weren’t good, with Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin having both died in September and October respectively. Fan Meredith Hunter was brutally murdered during The Stones’ set by an element of the Hell’s Angels gang who had been hired as security detail for the event. Rumors persist to this day that The Stones were playing “Sympathy” during Hunter’s murder, but the later release of the Gimme Shelter documentary (1970) shows that it was actually “Under My Thumb.” Mick and Marianne Faithfull finally separated for good that year, as the decade of peace and love ended in bloody violence.
“Sympathy for the Devil” defined The Rolling Stones for their next decade. Like the song it informs, the best philosophy endures, and the ideas of Augustine maintain their relevance to both religious and secular readers today. Augustine asks us what Jesus would be without his Judas—perhaps just another wandering teacher in the desert. Bulgakov asks us what the world would be without the Devil; and we should ask what the world would be without the Rolling Stones.
While those who buy into the mythology of The Stones as satanic would never agree, a world without The Stones would be less enlightened about the nature of evil. The problem with Augustine’s philosophy, and in particular his narrow definition of free will, is that humanity is left out to a large extent. The triumph of “Sympathy for the Devil” is to put ourselves and our humanity back into the picture. It shows that we have far more control over our own actions and destinies that we often think, but that with these freedoms come much larger responsibilities. Mick seems to have contempt for Augustine’s idea of a divine plan that is beyond our control and he completely rejects Augustine by co-opting Bulgakov’s device of a human or human-like devil. But his doing so forces us to examine our own actions and ultimately their consequences. In this regard, “Sympathy for the Devil” points to a larger and serious moral burden that we must shoulder—it demands more of us, perhaps, than Augustine’s Confessions.
If you’re listening to The Stones, reading one of the many editions of The Master and Margarita, or watching one of the operas or television series inspired by the novel, you’re effectively conversing with Augustine through the centuries, much as Mick and Marianne did when she gave him the book. These ideas still echo through history and our lives—call it a Satanic Majesty’s Bequest.52
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A Devil’s Trick of Opposites?
GARY CIOCCO
Why Should the Devil get all the good tunes,
The booze and the neon and Saturday night …?
—A.E. STALLINGS, “Triolet on a Line Apocryphally Attributed to Martin Luther”
It’s Just that Demon Life Has Got Me in Its Sway
Blogs are still heavy today on The Stones’ 1968 classic from their Beggars Banquet album, “Sympathy for the Devil.” Religious conservatives claim that the song is Devil worship, while others object that merely mentioning the Prince of Darkness does not amount to worship.
Mick Jagger himself has always claimed that the song is about the dark side of humanity, not a celebration of Satanism. He addressed it directly on “Monkey Man,” from their next album, Let It Bleed:
I hope we’re not too messianic
Nor a trifle too satanic—
We love to sing the blues.
“Sympathy for the Devil” itself is a mix of serious ideas set to a samba rhythm—the lyrics are mostly Jagger’s and the beat is credited to Richards, who upped the tempo and added percussion