OK, I'll play.  My first comment is to note the audacity of the very idea of starting an album with a song titled Sympathy for the Devil in the tight-lipped UK in 1968. . . .

The lyrics are a jumble of images that somehow hang together incredibly well through the universal truth of the coexistence of good and evil in all of us. . . .  

Credit must be given to the graceful piano of Nicky Hopkins, which is really the lead instrument on the song. . . .

Keith's bass playing is also sublime.  I've never heard the circumstance of how he and why he bumped Bill to the side.  Maybe Bill heard it and, like Charlie with Jimmy Miller on YCAGWYW, said to himself I can't improve on that.  . . .

Keith's solo if of course also one for the ages:  funny how two quite different solos on two quite different versions of the songs (studio and Ya Ya's) are both widely seen as among the greatest guitar solos ever.  That says a lot about our man Keith Richards. . .

I suspect Miller had a lot to do with the opening percussion-backing vox arrangement, which is distinctly different from anything the Stones had done before.  His production also gives the music an asthetic beauty which, with a few exceptions (I'm thinking Ruby Tuesday) didn't exist in the Stones music previously. . . .

Great read about the album http://www.timeisonourside.com/lpBanquet.html and about SFTD http://www.timeisonourside.com/SOSympathy.html

TrackTalk

I think that was taken from an old idea of Baudelaire's, I think, but I could be wrong. Sometimes when I look at my Baudelaire books, I can't see it in there. But it was an idea I got from French writing*. And I just took a couple of lines and expanded on it. I wrote it as sort of like a Bob Dylan song. And you can see it in this movie Godard shot called Sympathy for the Devil, which is very fortuitous, because Godard wanted to do a film of us in the studio. I mean, it would never happen now, to get someone as interesting as Godard. And stuffy. We just happened to be recording that song. We could have been recording My Obsession. But it was Sympathy for the Devil, and it became the track that we used.



[*Note: The principal inspiration for the song was actually the novel The Master and Margarita by Soviet writer Mikhail Bulgakov. Many lines from the song have direct references in that book. In his 1981 book The Last Twenty Years, David Dalton lists it as one of the books Mick purchased in 1968.]
 

(I wrote that song alone). I mean, Keith suggested that we do it in another rhythm, so that's how bands help you... I knew it was something good, 'cause I would just keep banging away at it until the fucking band recorded it... But I knew it was a good song. You just have this feeling. It had its poetic beginning, and then it had historic references and then philosophical jottings and so on. It's all very well to write that in verse, but to make it into a pop song is something different. Especially in England - you're skewered on the altar of pop culture if you become pretentious.



It started out as a folky thing like Jigsaw Puzzle, but that didn't make it so we kept going over it and changing it until finally it comes out as a samba.



Sympathy for the Devil started out as a Bob Dylan song and ended up as a samba.



Sympathy for the Devil started as sort of a folk song with acoustics, and ended up as a kind of mad samba, with me playing bass and overdubbing the guitar later. That's why I don't like to go into the studio with all the songs worked out and planned beforehand.



Sympathy for the Devil was tried six different ways. I don't mean at once. It was all night doing it one way, then another full night trying it another way, and we just could not get it right. It would never fit a regular rhythm. I first heard Mick play that one on the steps of my house on an acoustic guitar. The first time I heard it, it was really light and had a kind of Brazilian sound. Then when we got in the studio we poured things on it, and it was something different. I could never get a rhythm for it, except this one, which is like a samba on the snare drum. It was always a bit like a dance band until we got Rocky Dijon in, playing the congas. By messing about with that, we got the thing done.



Sympathy was one of those songs where we tried everything. The first time I ever heard the song was when Mick was playing it at the front door of a house I lived in in Sussex. It was at dinner; he played it entirely on his own, the sun was going down - and it was fantastic. We had a go at loads of different ways of playing it; in the end I just played a jazz Latin feel in the style that Kenny Clarke would have played on A Night In Tunisia - not the actual rhythm he played, but the same styling. Fortunately it worked, because it was a sod to get together... Good song, though.



But if you've got a good song, it could become anything. Which is the mark of a good song, I think. That one is a good song.



We've done about three nights of this kind of (film) shooting. We shot a number called The Devil Is My Name which is on the LP. The first run-through was a disaster and then the second take everything went perfect. It could well be the feature track on the album.



Anita (Pallenberg) was the epitome of what was happening at the time. She was very Chelsea. She'd arrive with the elite film crowd. During Sympathy for the Devil when I started going whoo, whoo in the control room, so did they. I had the engineer set up a mike so they could go out in the studio and whoo, whoo.



My whole thing of this song was not black magic and all this nonsense - like Megadeth or whatever else came afterward. It was different than that.



It has a very hypnotic groove, a samba, which has a tremendous hypnotic power, rather like good dance music. It doesn't speed up or down. It keeps this constant groove. Plus, the actual samba rhythm is a great one to sing on, but it's also got some other suggestions in it, an undercurrent of being primitive - because it is a primitive African, South American, Afro-whatever-you-call-that rhythm. So to white people, it has a very sinister thing about it. But forgetting the cultural colors, it is a very good vehicle for producing a powerful piece. It becomes less pretentious because it's a very unpretentious groove. If it had been done as a ballad, it wouldn't have been as good.



Vaguely, (the line about the Kennedys) means you can't pin their deaths on anyone, because there were so many people who would have liked to see them dead. It is our responsibility because crime in our society is our responsibility.


(We took the subject of the devil seriously) for the duration of the song. That's what those things are about. It's like acting in a movie: you try to act out the scene as believably as possible, whether you believe it or not. That's called GOOD ACTING. You have to remember, when somebody writes a song, it's not entirely autobiographical... Sympathy for the Devil was pretty... ah, well, it's just one song, as I said. Hell, you know, I neve really did the subject to death. But I DID have to back off a little, because I could see what was happening. It's an easily exploitable image, and people really went for it in a big way.



Sympathy is quite an uplifting song. It's just a matter of looking (the Devil) in the face. He's there all the time. I've had very close contact with Lucifer - I've met him several times. Evil - people tend to bury it and hope it sorts itself out and doesn't rear its ugly head. Sympathy for the Devil is just as appropriate now, with 9/11. There it is again, big time. When that song was written, it was a time of turmoil. It was the first sort of international chaos since World War II. And confusion is not the ally of peace and love. You want to think the world is perfect. Everybody gets sucked into that. And as America has found out to its dismay, you can't hide. You might as well accept the fact that evil is there and deal with it any way you can. Sympathy for the Devil is a song that says, Don't forget him. If you confront him, then he's out of a job.



http://www.timeisonourside.com

Wait...are WE supposed to write what WE think about the songs on Beggar's Banquet, or are we supposed to post what other people think about them?

The  recording of this song is the subject of a nearly unwatchable film by Jean Luc Godard. The footage of the sessions, which is fascinating to Stones obsessives but not necessarily others, is intercut with  "revolutionary" footage of Black Panthers and Marxist dogma even Comrade Obama wouldn't sit still for.  We see the girlfriends sing the "hooo hooo" parts.  We see Brian bum cigarettes and disintegrate. We hear the lyrics change from "Who killed Kennedy" to "Who killed the Kennedys" as RFK was assassinated between the main sessions (June 4-5, 1968) and the overdub sessions (June 8, 9 and 10, 1968).



The sessions took place in Olympic Sound Studios
in London, which caught on fire during the recording
of Sympathy.  Godard filmed the fire but didn't use
the footage in the finished movie, perhaps because
it would've made too much sense.



Keith played the fantastic solo on a black 1957 Les Paul Custom
with three humbucking pickups and a custom paint job. I believe
it was one of the priceless guitars stolen from Nellcote circa 1972.
Photographic evidence suggests it was played through a Vox AC30.


This is one of my favorite Stones songs because I'm name-checked in it.

This is a great song and proof is that it's still going strong after 40 years !
I like the new video that was released for a couple of yaers ago (Neptunes Remix Video)
and also the version played at the Isle Of Wight Festival was outstanding !

Beggars Banquet gives Emotional Rescue its lunch money because it fears the beat down.

Saint Sway wrote on Jun 29^th, 2009 at 5:28pm:



Not to correct you Sway, but did you ever see Tony Soprano collect money on the Sopranos?  Emotional Rescue has Exile On Main Street collect the money while it sits back in the hottub with supermodels.

Yes One the greatest crafted song I know, the  words, the drums, put you in a different feel or moody right from the beginning. From the opening Lines, Jagger is able to set you deep, in the story.I love songs that have dual type meaning, one you think you know, but than again is that really what it's about. Or are they spoofing us........ It made me think and that's what a great song should do.  

I don't need a thread that tells me what to do.

Philip wrote on Jun 30^th, 2009 at 8:16am:



Thou shalt not nit-pick the Lord!

That first photo's great, innit? Although the caption says 1967, I thought the elaborate disarray of Keith's hair suggested it was taken relatively close to the inside gatefold photo of Beggar's Banquet.  His clothes and jewelry do look more like Satanic (hiccup) Majesties era.  However, the notes from photographer Eddie Kramer make it seem like maybe he's confused about the date:

Keith Richards at Olympic Studios, London, England 1967
© Eddie Kramer, 1967
I engineered the Stones recording of the Beggars Banquet album, with Jimmy Miller producing. Since I had worked with them previously on Satanic Majesties, Between The Buttons, and the Flowers albums, they felt fairly relaxed about me being around them with a camera.

During these recordings the famed French film maker Jean-Luc Godard was making “Sympathy for the Devil” (known as “One Plus One” in the UK) a documentary  on the Stones. –EK

Beggar's Banquet was recorded entirely in 1968, so something - either the photos provenance or the caption - is out of whack about Kramer's recollection. Whatever - it's a great photo.

Although I am omipresent and omniscient, I will bow to your opinion on which Vox amp Keith played through.  It certainly could have been a Vox Supreme.

Jesus Christ wrote on Jun 29^th, 2009 at 3:11pm:


Our lord and savior should NOT have to cut and paste.  Jesus Chr . . .  oops, sorry your omnipotentness.

Pdog, you need to moderate this discussion if it's going to work.  Where are you? 

Perhaps you should move us to the next track.

next up:

No Expectations
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"No Expectations"

"No Expectations" cover
Song by The Rolling Stones
Album      Beggars Banquet
Released      6 December 1968
Recorded      May-June, 1968



"No Expectations" is a song by the British rock and roll band the Rolling Stones featured on their 1968 album Beggars Banquet. It was first released as the B-side of the "Street Fighting Man" single in August 1968.
Contents

The song was written by singer Mick Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards. The song is a slow, country-tinged blues ballad. "No Expectations" was one of the famed Beggars Banquet songs recorded with open microphones set between the band members and was recorded live. In his review of the song, Bill Janovitz says, "The loneliness expressed in the song is palpable; all about being left behind, the song is certainly a tribute in musical and lyrical tone to such Robert Johnson blues songs as "Love in Vain" — a favourite cover of the Stones — referencing such images as a train leaving the station."[1]
“      Take me to the station, And put me on a train; I've got no expectations, To pass through here again      ”
“      Once I was a rich man and, Now I am so poor; But never in my sweet short life, Have I felt like this before      ”
"No Expectations" also features an acoustic slide guitar performance by Brian Jones. One of his most famous contributions to a Stones song, Jagger said in a 1995 interview in Rolling Stone, "That's Brian playing [the solo]. We were sitting around in a circle on the floor, singing and playing, recording with open mikes. That was the last time I remember Brian really being totally involved in something that was really worth doing. He was there with everyone else. It's funny how you remember - but that was the last moment I remember him doing that, because he had just lost interest in everything." [2] Accompanying Jones is Richards on acoustic rhythm guitar, with Janovitz remarking that Richards, "play[s] the same open-tuned rhythm he would later use on 'You Can't Always Get What You Want', also contributing to that lonely ambience." The song is also noted for its simple claves-kept beat by Charlie Watts and Nicky Hopkins' "building single-chord organ" and low piano trills.
[edit]Aftermath

The first live performance was captured during the Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus and is featured on the accompanying live album and DVD. This performance was to be Jones's last live performance with the Rolling Stones. Like Brian Jones' performance on the Beggar's Banquet album, that live performance is also Brian's last substantial contribution on stage, as many of the Stones songs from that filming have little to no audible contribution from him. The song has since rarely been played live. The second, and most notable performance, was at the Hyde Park free concert, July 5, 1969, which was held as a memorial to Jones who died three days before. The third live performance was at the January 18, 1973 benefit concert at the Los Angeles Forum for victims of the recent 23 December 1972 earthquake in Nicaragua. It would take another 21 years until August 28th, 1994 in Cleveland, OH, USA, that the song was performed again. On the 2002/2003 Licks tour No Expectations was played eleven times in total, and hasn't been performed since.
"No Expectations" has also proven to be a popular cover song for other artists. Johnny Cash recorded a bluegrass-inspired version, available on his album Gone Girl and the collection Essential Johnny Cash 1953-83. Waylon Jennings recorded a version for his 1998 album Closing in on the Fire. Soulsavers recorded a brooding, piano-and-voice version accompanied with Screaming Trees singer Mark Lanegan on their album It's Not How Far You Fall, It's The Way You Land. Joan Baez also performed a cover on her 1970 album One Day at a Time. Beck also started playing this song in his concerts just after the release of Sea Change. Jam-grass acts Yonder Mountain String Band and Flatlander also often cover this song at their shows.
It is also included on the 1972 Stones compilation album More Hot Rocks (Big Hits & Fazed Cookies). The single version is available on Singles Collection: The London Years.

Moonisup wrote on Jun 30^th, 2009 at 4:15pm:


I like the mono version on the singles collection SACD... which I have to check, and make sure it is a true mono, and not a fold down... still really like it alot...