# What's behind the lyrics to the Rolling Stones' 'Sympathy for the Devil'?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-behind-the-lyrics-to-the-rolling-stones-sympathy-for-the-devil/129068>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [September 22, 2002, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-behind-the-lyrics-to-the-rolling-stones-sympathy-for-the-devil/129068 "2002-09-22T02:05:14Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 4

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**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\
**Post date:** [September 22, 2002, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-behind-the-lyrics-to-the-rolling-stones-sympathy-for-the-devil/129068/4 "2002-09-22T02:37:52Z")

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We’ve been here before:

[http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=82385](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=82385)  
and  
[http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=63168](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=63168)  
and  
[http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=21449](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=21449)

The best guess would seem to be the “hippie trail”, but the explanation seems unsatisfactory to me, though it would have been contemporary with the song. And an allegorical thing concerning the Beatles doesn’t seem likely, given that the rest of the references are so concretely historical.

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