20 Landmark Songs Of The 60s

3. The Rolling Stones €“ Sympathy For The Devil

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLVaNoFPa_0 Every generation needs its bad boys and The Rolling Stones of the 60's were the epitome of the boys you wouldn't want your daughters to bring home. But even their satanic majesty's bit off more than even they could chew when they unleashed their most demonic song at the most ill-advised festival of all time. When they missed the boat at Woodstock, the Stones decided that they needed to get a landmark US festival appearance on their list of achievements. So when they were offered Altamont, they thought that they would be headlining the celebration that was the end of the 60's. They weren't. Altamont was a disaster and whoever thought that getting the Hells Angels to provide the security was smoking something very ill advised. But 'Sympathy for the devil' showed that they were so out of kilter with what was happening in the 60's, whereas The Beatles sang 'All you need is love', The Stones were screaming 'Paint it black'. This all added to their uniqueness, and it just wasn't the lyrical theme that made this their masterpiece, the music sounded literally like voodoo, and it's with this song that they incontrovertibly nailed their position as the bad cop to The Beatles good one. The footage here shows the death of the 60's, on witnessing the riots, Mick Jagger speaks the words of a hippy "Everybody be cool now, come on", but it's too late for that. The 60's are about to end, and sympathy for the devil, politically and societally, is about to kick in with a Machiavellian relish.