Today in Music (1968): The Rolling Stones released Beggars Banquet

Beggars Banquet The Rolling Stones

Released: December 6, 1968 Peak: 5 US, 3 UK, 3 CN, 3 AU Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): 2.0 US, -- UK, 3.0 world, 16.27 EAS Genre: classic rock

Tracks: Click on a song title for more details. Sympathy for the Devil No Expectations Dear Doctor Parachute Woman Jigsaw Puzzle Street Fighting Man Prodigal Son Stray Cat Blues Factory Girl Salt of the Earth Total Running Time: 39:44 The Players: Mick Jagger (vocals, tambourine, harmonica, maracas) Keith Richards (guitar, backing vocals) Brian Jones (guitar, backing vocals, harmonica, tambourine) Bill Wyman (bass, backing vocals) Charlie Watts (drums)

Rating: 4.479 out of 5.00 (average of 30 ratings) Quotable: “Americana…stripped down and rebuilt with every jagged edge exposed” – Rolling Stone Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

The Stones’ Coming of Age “Despite the series of drug-related arrests that had plagued the group,” RS Beggars Banquet “marked the return of the Rolling Stones,” RS a return to “basic, hard-edged rock & roll.” RS Glyn Johns, the album’s engineer, said Beggars Banquet signified “the Rolling Stones’ coming of age. I think that the material was far better than anything they’d ever done before. The whole mood of the record was far stronger to me musically.’” RS “Their previous LP, Their Santanic Majesties Request, had been mired in psychedelic experimentation of a sort for which the band had little genuine feeling,” RS but Beggars Banquet “was immediately acclaimed as one of their landmark achievements.” AM This “is a band totally at the height of their powers (or some would say just coming into them)” JSH with an album “that reeks of a haphazard nature and yet complete mastery.” JSH “The Stones had stopped following trends and were back at full force” RS “playing fast and loose.” RS The album is “full of savage riffage and Mick Jagger’s lascivious yelp” EW’12 as well as “lyrical bite.” AM It “is the pure, concentrated sound of sex, violence, and sympathy for the devil.” EW’12 “For all its decadence and disheveledness, Beggars Banquet holds together.” JSH Beggars Banquet was “rooted in rhythm & blues” RS as evidenced by the “strong acoustic Delta blues flavor [that] colors much of the material, particularly ‘Salt of the Earth’ and ‘No Expectations.’” AM The album also featured “propulsive tracks like ‘Street Fighting Man,’ ‘Sympathy for the Devil,’ ‘Stray Cat Blues,’ and ‘Parachute Woman.’” RS With their return to raw and raunchy blues-rock and the Stones had redeemed themselves as the world’s greatest rock & roll band. It “set in motion The Rolling Stones’ golden era, a four-year period that bore four of the greatest rock LPs ever recorded.” RV It stands as “one of the top blues-based rock records of all time.” AM The Personnel “Producer Jimmy Miller describes Keith Richards as having been ‘A real workhorse’ on the album, largely because Brian Jones rarely made it into the studio and when he did, he behaved erratically, due to his drug use and emotional problems…Miller says. ‘He'd show up occasionally when he was in the mood to play…He’d walk in with a sitar, which was totally irrelevant to what we were doing…The others, particularly Mick and Keith, would often say to me, ‘Just tell him to piss off and get the hell out of here.’” RS The Cover “The album's original cover art, depicting a bathroom wall covered with graffiti, was banned. The Stones attempted unsuccessfully to fight their record company's decision – and from today's perspective, the cover seems quite harmless. Nevertheless, the dispute held up the album’s release for months.” RS The Songs Here’s a breakdown of each of the individual songs.

Sympathy for the Devil The Rolling Stones

Writer(s): Mick Jagger, Keith Richards (see lyrics here) Recorded: June 4-10, 1968 at Olympic Sound Studios in London Released: 12/6/1998 (single), Beggars Banquet (1968) Peak: 97 BB, 1 CL, 14 UK, 1 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- US, 0.6 UK, 0.6 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 30.7 video, 696.05 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: This is “perhaps the most notorious and controversial Rolling Stones song, as well as one of the greatest.” AMG The song married “explicitly satanic” AM lyrics about the history of Lucifer” RV “with its fire-dancing guitar licks, leering Jagger vocals, [and] African rhythms.” AM There were already fingers pointing that the band dabbled in the occult, a claim heightened by the title of previous album, Their Satanic Majesties Request, despite no direct Satanic references in the lyrics. WK However, in “Sympathy” Mick Jagger takes on the persona of the Devil himself which escalated fears among some religious groups that “the Stones were devil worshippers and a corrupting influence on youth.” WK The narrator boasts about his role in different historical atrocities such as the Crucifixion, the Inquisition, the Russian Revolution, the Nazi Blitzkrieg, “and the then-still fresh assassinations of the Kennedys.” AMG He also demands courtesy and chastises “the listener for our collective culpability in the listed killings and crimes” WK with lines like “Who killed the Kennedys when, after all, it was you and me.” Jagger, “more than any other rock performer possibly, was adept at making listeners ponder those questions of how evil manifests itself in the world.” AMG It is “an absolutely BRILLIANT construction combining many different voices and instrumental motifs – piano, congas, guitars – to compound the same eternal rhythm, which goes on for 6 minutes, intensifying with each minute, which is just what truly GREAT music is supposed to do.” JSH It “was an image-defining epic,” AM “an anthem for the darkness in every human heart.” 500 While credited to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, this is primarily a composition by Jagger, which he originally wrote “as sort of like a Bob Dylan song.” WK He was inspired by Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel The Master and Margarita in which the devil is a sophisticated socialite. SF It was Richards, however, who suggested a tempo change, which transformed “Sympathy” from a folk song to a samba. WK Jagger explained that it gave the song “a very hypnotic groove…rather like good dance music. It doesn’t speed up or slow down…It was a very good vehicle for producing a powerful piece.” WK The backing “woo-woo” vocal came about by accident. While Jagger was recording an early vocal, producer Jimmy Miller was in the engineering booth with Anita Pallenberg, Keith Richards’ girlfriend. Miller was talking to himself, saying “Come on, Mick, give it your all. Who are you singing about? Who? Who?” After he repeated it several times, Anita suggested it as a backing vocal chant. WK The song’s nefarious reputation was enhanced when it was mistakenly reported by Rolling Stone that the Stones were playing “Sympathy for the Devil” AMG at their Altamont concert when Hells Angels’ gang members, who’d been hired as security, fatally stabbed fan Meredith Hunter. However, it was actually the song “Under My Thumb.”

No Expectations The Rolling Stones

Writer(s): Mick Jagger, Keith Richards Recorded: March to June 1968 at Olympic Sound Studios in London Released: 8/31/1968 (B-side of “Street Fighting Man”), Beggars Banquet (1968) Peak: 45 CL, 32 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 13.26 streaming About the Song: Despite Brian Jones’ problems, No Expectations “features some beautiful slide guitar work” AM from him, as did “‘Parachute Woman’ and ‘Jigsw Puzzle’ His sitar – and tamboura, as well – can be heard on ‘Street Fighting Man.’” RS

Dear Doctor The Rolling Stones

Writer(s): Mick Jagger, Keith Richards Recorded: May 13-23, 1968, at Olympic Sound Studios in London Released: Beggars Banquet (1968) Peak: 17 CL, 40 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 5.45 streaming About the Song: “Richards’ record collection led the Rolling Stones back to their version of America: country music on Dear Doctor [and] the blues on Prodigal Son.” 500 As he said, “‘When we had been in the States between 1964 and ‘66, I had gathered together this enormous collection of records, but I never had any time to listen to them…In late 1966 and ‘67 I unwrapped them and actually played them.’” 500

Parachute Woman The Rolling Stones

Writer(s): Mick Jagger, Keith Richards Recorded: March to May 1968, at Olympic Sound Studios in London Released: Beggars Banquet (1968) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 5.12 streaming About the Song: A

Jigsaw Puzzle The Rolling Stones

Writer(s): Mick Jagger, Keith Richards Recorded: March 1968, at Olympic Sound Studios in London Released: Beggars Banquet (1968) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 5.72 streaming About the Song: One “could probably do without the six-minute Jigsaw Puzzle which, unlike the embryonic “Sympathy,” stays kinda static…but with Nicky Hopkins’ piano and Keith’s slide guitar and Mick’s always-great vocals (when he still sang instead of bellowed) it’s a pretty good kinda static.” JSH

Street Fighting Man The Rolling Stones

Writer(s): Mick Jagger, Keith Richards Recorded: March to May 1968, at Olympic Sound Studios in London Released: 8/31/1968 (single), Beggars Banquet (1968) Peak: 48 BB, 30 CB, 35 GR, 28 HR, 4 CL, 21 UK, 32 CN, 13 AU, 6 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 63.60 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: Street Fighting Man was “a reflection of the political turbulence of 1968 [and] one of their most innovative singles.” AM “The driving basic track…was recorded on a cassette deck at Keith's house, with Keith on acoustic guitar and Charlie Watts on a toy drum kit.” RS “The political correctness of [the song] – with its ambivalent lines ‘What can a poor boy do/'Cept sing in a rock and roll band’ – was debated intensely and at great length in the underground media.” RS

Prodigal Son The Rolling Stones

Writer(s): Mick Jagger, Keith Richards Recorded: May to June 1968, at Olympic Sound Studios in London Released: 7/19/1969 (single), Beggars Banquet (1968) Peak: 18 CL Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 5.47 streaming About the Song: “Prodigal Son” was tagged as public domain instead of being credited to Big John McDuff, which entitled the band to “arrangers’ royalties…they’d perform a similar rape-job on the estate o’ Robert Johnson a year later.” JSH

Stray Cat Blues The Rolling Stones

Writer(s): Mick Jagger, Keith Richards Recorded: April to May 1968, at Olympic Sound Studios in London Released: Beggars Banquet (1968) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 8.38 streaming About the Song: “On Stray Cat Blues, Jagger and crew began to explore the kind of decadent sexual sleaze that they would take to the point of self-parody by the mid-‘70s. At the time, though, the approach was still fresh.” AM It “has the same kind of Bo Diddley-inspired sound as it tells of a teen-age runaway and her degradation: ‘I bet your momma don't know you scream like that / I bet your momma don't know you can bite like that.’” RV

Factory Girl The Rolling Stones

Writer(s): Mick Jagger, Keith Richards Recorded: May 1968, at Olympic Sound Studios in London Released: Beggars Banquet (1968) Peak: 18 CL Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 6.17 streaming About the Song: A

Salt of the Earth The Rolling Stones

Writer(s): Mick Jagger, Keith Richards Recorded: May 1966 at Olympic Sound Studios in London, July 1968 at Sunset Sound Studios in Los Angeles Released: Beggars Banquet (1968) Peak: 17 CL, 39 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 5.86 streaming About the Song: A

Resources/References: AM AllMusic.com review of Beggars Banquet by Richie Unterberger AMG AllMusic.com page for “Sympathy for the Devil” JSH Blastitude (2003). “A Loaded Proposition: Joe S. Harrington Picks the All-Time Top 100 Or…Who Pulled the Trigger?” by Joe S. Harrington EW’12 Entertainment Weekly (9/27/2012). “Top 100 Albums” MG Philippe Margotin & Jean-Michel Guesdon (2022). The Rolling Stones: All the Songs. Hachette Book Group: New York, NY. RV The Review (Oct./Nov. 2001). “The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time” by Clarke Speicher RS RollingStone.com review, posted online 6/17/97. 500 Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, posted online 11/1/03. SF Songfacts page for “Sympathy for the Devil” WK Wikipedia page for “Sympathy for the Devil” Related DMDB Pages: First posted 12/6/2012; last updated 12/16/2025.