A Song For You: Sympathy for the Devil

Your song this week, Sympathy for the Devil, is one of the most famous [to some infamous] rock songs in the history of popular music.

Written and performed by the Rolling Stones - who along with the Beatles are often regarded as being the greatest rock groups of the 1960's -it was recorded and released in 1968 and was the opening track on their Beggars Banquet album.

As the entry in Wikipedia notes, the song is sung by Mick Jagger - the lead singer for the Stones - as a first-person narrative and commentary from the point of view of a suave and sophisticated Lucifer. The lyrics have been said to be inspired by Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita.

You can can download it through the link in the title below, watch it on through Youtube.com by clicking the arrow in the image above or do both.

Sympathy for the Devil:
Rolling Stones

Please allow me to introduce myself
I'm a man of wealth and taste
I've been around for a long, long year
Stole many a man's soul and faith

And I was 'round when Jesus Christ
Had his moment of doubt and pain
Made damn sure that Pilate
Washed his hands and sealed his fate

Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name
But what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game

I stuck around at St. Petersburg
When I saw it was a-time for a change
Killed the czar and his ministers
Anastasia screamed in vain

I rode a tank
Held a general's rank
When the blitzkrieg raged
And the bodies stank

Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name, oh yeah
Ah, what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game, ah yeah

I watched with glee
While your kings and queens
Fought for ten decades (
For the gods they made

I shouted out,
"Who killed the Kennedys?"
When after all
It was you and me

Let me please introduce myself
I'm a man of wealth and taste
And I laid traps for troubadours
Who get killed before they reached Bombay

Pleased to meet you
Hope you guessed my name,
But what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game

Just as every cop is a criminal
And all the sinners saints
As heads is tails
Just call me Lucifer
'Cause I'm in need of some restraint

So if you meet me
Have some courtesy
Have some sympathy and some taste
Use all your well-learned politesse
Or I'll lay your soul to waste,

Pleased to meet you ....