Getting Mick Jagger to nail down anything is impossible. He wouldn’t tell you the truth no matter what the stakes are. He’s purposely mercurial…it’s one of his traits that drives Keith nuts.
Regarding the song…according to Steve Appleford’s book: The Rolling Stones, It’s Only Rock and Roll: Song by Song" it states that “Jagger was inspired to write “Sympathy for the Devil” after (Marianne) Faithfull gave him a copy of Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and the Margarita. the book features the Devil as its debonair central character, the host of a fabulous ball in Moscow, and a master of high society. Jagger’s reaction was a challenge to mainstream vaules, depicting Satan in the song not as a beast, but as a sophisticated “man of wealth and taste”, a role the singer embraced.”
Regardless of the origin, I would state that it was irresponsibly written in if you were to ask me.
Just my .02
What I’ve always wondered is if Jaggar had a definite point of view on the whole thing. Is the point that:
The devil isn’t as bad as reported, and could be slightly misunderstood? Unlikely, if Mick’s willing to link him with Nazis and killing Kennedy.
The devil presents himself as sophisticated and an ok guy, but that’s just the continuing lie? After all, he admits to all sorts of atrocitities and the pleads for sympathy for his cause.
The devil sees himself as misunderstood but is really mad? He believes somehow in what he’s doing, but can’t see out of his delusion?
The devil does what he does because he’s the devil. He was created by God to be the agent of evil in the world, and was never given any choice in the matter. It’s unfair to blame him for the evil he causes, because he’s merely fulfiling his role in God’s Creation.
Why does his have to have a literal meaning? It could easily be a line the Jagger liked and which rhymed. There is such a thing as poetry, you know. :rolleyes:
Next you’ll be saying Jagger admitted to the murder of JFK: “You shouted out who killed the Kennedys, when after all, it was . . . me.”
I’m no authority on Christianity, but wasn’t Lucifer originally the, uh, top archangel? Then he fell from grace by his defiance of god’s will? As in, he was a fallen angel because he chose to act in a way that displeased He-Of-The-Thinnest-Skin, who of course cast Lucifer from heaven. Thus, you can’t really blame god for the devil’s actions, as Lucifer is a banished angel messing with humans out of spite, and god long ago washed his hands of him?
I’m no authority, either, but I don’t think that “arch-angel fallen from grace” stuff has any scriptural basis. I don’t know how much of it fits into official Christian dogma, and for which denominations. AFAIK, most of it comes from Milton.
Hopefully someone who knows more than me (which is a pretty broad field) can correct me if I’m wrong.
This thread was over two years old, Cardinal. Most of the people who posted in this thread haven’t been around in a lonnnng time, and so can’t participate any more in this thread. That’s why we don’t like resurrecting old threads. OK?