The Styrous® Viewfinder: Beggar's Banquet

The seventh British and ninth American studio album by The Rolling Stones, Beggar's Banquet, was released 40 years ago on December 6, 1968, by Decca Records in the United Kingdom and London Records in the United States.

The Rolling Stones ~ Beggar's Banquet

vinyl LP, back cover

photo by Styrous®

Of all the great songs on this album, my absolute favorite is Sympathy For The Devil. No song before or since has had the pathos yet horror of atrocities this song details. The song was written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, and is the opening track of the album. Rolling Stone magazine placed it at number 32 on its list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time". I would have put it higher but then, who the hell am I?

The Rolling Stones ~ Beggar's Banquet

vinyl LP, back cover detail

detail photo by Styrous®

Jagger sings in first person narrative as the Devil, boasting his role in each of several historical violent atrocities. The singer then ironically demands our courtesy towards him, implicitly chastising the listener for our collective culpability in the listed killings and crimes. In the 2012 documentary Crossfire Hurricane, Jagger stated that his influence for the song came from Baudelaire and from the novel, The Master and Margarita (which had just appeared in English translation in 1967) by Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov. The book was given to him by Marianne Faithfull.

Jagger originally wrote it as a folk song but Richards suggested changing the tempo and using additional percussion, turning the folk song into a samba.

The Rolling Stones ~ Beggar's Banquet

vinyl LP, back cover detail

detail photo by Styrous®

The lyrics focus on atrocities in the history of mankind from Satan's point of view including the trial and death of Jesus Christ ("Made damn sure that Pilate washed his hands to seal his fate"), European wars of religion ("I watched with glee while your kings and queens fought for ten decades for the gods they made"), the violence of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the 1918 shooting of the Romanov family during World War I ("I stuck around St. Petersburg when I saw it was a time for a change/Killed the Tsar and his ministers/Anastasia screamed in vain"), and World War II ("I rode a tank, held a general's rank when the blitzkrieg raged, and the bodies stank"). The song was originally written with the line "I shouted out 'Who killed Kennedy?'" After the Robert F. Kennedy death on 6 June 1968, the line was changed to "Who killed the Kennedys?". And the answer is "when after all it was you and me", which is a way of saying that "the devil is not the other one, but eventually each one of us."

The Rolling Stones ~ Beggar's Banquet

vinyl LP, back cover detail

detail photo by Styrous®

The recording of Sympathy For The Devil began at the Olympic Sound Studios in London on June 4, 1968, and continued into the next day; overdubs were done on 8, 9 and 10 June. Personnel included on the recording include Nicky Hopkins on piano, Rocky Dijon on congas and Bill Wyman on maracas. Marianne Faithfull, Anita Pallenberg, Brian Jones, Charlie Watts, producer Jimmy Miller, Wyman and Richards performed backup vocals, singing the "woo woos". Richards plays bass on the original recording, and also electric guitar. Brian Jones plays a mostly mixed out acoustic guitar, although in isolated tracks of the studio cut, it is audible playing along with the piano.

The Rolling Stones ~ Beggar's Banquet

vinyl LP, back cover detail

detail photo by Styrous®

Jagger said, "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 slow down. It keeps this constant groove. Plus, the actual samba rhythm is a great one to sing on, but it is 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 (candomblé). 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 is a very unpretentious groove. If it had been done as a ballad, it wouldn't have been as good."

The Rolling Stones ~ Beggar's Banquet

vinyl LP, gatefold cover

photo by Styrous®

In an interview with Creem, Jagger said, "[When people started taking us as devil worshippers], I thought it was a really odd thing, because it was only one song, after all. It wasn't like it was a whole album, with lots of occult signs on the back. People seemed to embrace the image so readily, [and] it has carried all the way over into heavy metal bands today. Some people have made a living out of doing this; for example, Jimmy Page."

The Rolling Stones ~ Beggar's Banquet

vinyl LP, gatefold interior

photo by Styrous®

Of the change in public perception the band experienced after the song's release, Richards said in a 1971 interview with Rolling Stone, "Before, we were just innocent kids out for a good time, they're saying, 'They're evil, they're evil.' Oh, I'm evil, really? So that makes you start thinking about evil... What is evil? Half of it, I don't know how much people think of Mick as the devil or as just a good rock performer or what? There are black magicians who think we are acting as unknown agents of Lucifer and others who think we are Lucifer. Everybody's Lucifer."

The Rolling Stones ~ Beggar's Banquet

vinyl LP, gatefold interior detail

detail photo by Styrous®

Contrary to a widespread misconception, it was Under My Thumb and not Sympathy For The Devil that the Rolling Stones were performing when Meredith Hunter was killed at the Altamont Free Concert. Rolling Stone magazine's early articles on the incident misreported that the killing took place during Sympathy For The Devil but the Stones in fact played Sympathy earlier in the concert; it was interrupted by a fight and restarted, Jagger commenting, "We're always having—something very funny happens when we start that number." Several other songs were performed before Hunter was killed.

The Rolling Stones ~ Beggar's Banquet

vinyl LP, gatefold interior detail

detail photo by Styrous®

Guns N' Roses recorded a cover in 1994 which reached number 55 on the Billboard Hot 100; it was featured in the closing credits of the Neil Jordan film adaptation of Interview with the Vampire (except the 4K cut of the film) by Anne Rice, and was included on their Greatest Hits album. This cover is noteworthy for causing an incident involving incoming guitarist, Paul "Huge" Tobias, that was partially responsible for guitarist Slash departing from the band in 1996. Slash has described the Guns N' Roses version of the song as "the sound of the band breaking up".

The Slovenian avant-garde, Goth/heavy-metal group, Laibach, did a sensational cover of Sympathy For The Devil that raises goose bumps on your arms.

The Rolling Stones ~ Beggar's Banquet

vinyl LP, side 1

photo by Styrous®

The Rolling Stones ~ Beggar's Banquet

vinyl LP label, side 1

photo by Styrous®

The Rolling Stones ~ Beggar's Banquet

vinyl LP, side 2

photo by Styrous®

The Rolling Stones ~ Beggar's Banquet

vinyl LP label, side 2

photo by Styrous®

Tracklist:

Side 1:

A1 - Sympathy For The Devil - 6:14
A2 - No Expectations - 3:52
A3 - Dear Doctor - 3:19
A4 - Parachute Woman - 2:17
A5 - Jig-Saw Puzzle - 6:07

Side 2:

B1 - Street Fighting Man - 3:10
B2 - Prodigal Son, written by Rev. Wilkins* - 2:47
B3 - Stray Cat Blues - 4:32
B4 - Factory Girl - 2:06
B5 - Salt Of The Earth - 4:43

Companies, etc.

    Recorded At – Olympic Studios
    Mastered At – Audio Matrix, Inc.
    Pressed By – Bestway Products Inc.

Credits:

    Engineer – Eddie*, Gene (3), Glyn Johns
    Producer – Jimmy Miller
    Written-By – Jagger; Richard* (tracks: A1 to B1, B3 to B5)

Notes:

Pressing Variation: Bestway Products Inc..

Does not include Credit for track B2 "Prodigal Son" to Rev. Wilkins on the label.
Include the text "Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards" on the back cover. See Picture
It comes in a gold-bordered gatefold cover.

Cat # PS-539 appears on the label.
Cat # PS 539 spine and rear sleeve, bottom-middle.
Barcode and Other Identifiers

    Matrix / Runout (Side 1 Label): ZAL-8476-BW
    Matrix / Runout (Side 2 Label): ZAL-8477-BW
    Matrix / Runout (Side 1 Etched): XZAL-8476A AM_
    Matrix / Runout (Side 2 Etched): XZAL-8477-B W 8-19-68
    Matrix / Runout (Side 1 & 2 Stamped): AUDIOMATRIX Bestway
    Pressing Plant ID (at the end of label matrix): BW

The Rolling Stones ‎– Beggars Banquet
Label: London Records ‎– PS-539, London Records ‎– PS 539
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Stereo, Bestway Pressing
Country: US
Released: 1968
Genre: Rock
Style: Blues Rock, Rock & Roll, Classic Rock

Viewfinder links:

Mick Jagger

The Rolling Stones

Net links:

Styrous® ~ Thursday, December 6. 2018

20,000 Vinyl LPs Archive

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