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Rockman
Only Mick knows ...

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camper88

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Naturalust

My money's on camper88 to figure it out for us if he hasn't already.

peace

Hold on to yer wallet.

Sometimes what's puzzling us is the nature of the game.

See Booth's construct of the authorial intent.

[wikis.sub.uni-hamburg.de]

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LieB
Chillrob, your experience remind me of when I was in an Amsterdam coffee shop in 2003, getting stoned with a few friends and they played a weird version of Sympathy right there in the coffee shop. As I remember it, it sounded like the one you describe -- close to the original but different. In my stoned head it had a guitar riff similar to the Ya-Ya's version, pretty much like the Beggars Banquet version with Keith's Ya-Ya's riff tucked on. And it sounded fantastic, is my recollection. I should of course have asked the DJ, but never did. And I've never found it since, and I question its existence at all.

This was shortly after that weird Neptunes/Fatboy Slim remix was released, and it was getting lots of airplay, so I thought it could be some kind of b-side or whatever from that one, but I have no clue at the moment.

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stones40
The line "And I laid traps for troubadours who get killed before they reach Bombay" possibly refers to the notorious Thuggee cult ...

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Rockman
There is of course the chance that this was just one of Micks lines that just fitted in with the song lyric flow

YEP!!!

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with sssoul
Keith is famously well-read

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Redhotcarpet
I dont know if he's well-read?

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DandelionPowderman

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Witness

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DandelionPowderman

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Witness
Apart from the amazing studio version, I especially like the live version that I have on my old vinyl "Liver Than You'll Ever Be"-boot, which is quite different from every other version I have heard (not that many from that period). I have not got a vocabulary to describe it.

It's similar to the Ya Yas-version, minus the extended Taylor solos?

That does not capture what for me is the difference or the magic.

That's way I remember it. Haven't listened to it in a couple of years, though.

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pmk251

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DandelionPowderman

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Witness

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DandelionPowderman

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Witness
Apart from the amazing studio version, I especially like the live version that I have on my old vinyl "Liver Than You'll Ever Be"-boot, which is quite different from every other version I have heard (not that many from that period). I have not got a vocabulary to describe it.

It's similar to the Ya Yas-version, minus the extended Taylor solos?

That does not capture what for me is the difference or the magic.

That's way I remember it. Haven't listened to it in a couple of years, though.

This is from the Oakland 2nd show. The performance is notable in that (as far as I know) this is the only time Taylor soloed on the song prior to Detroit. I cannot come up with an explanation for that. Perhaps because it was a night of improvisation due to the amp problems. Taylor also took over the JJF riff during the 1st show when Keith's amp blew. I think the band's and Keith's performance on this song was especially strong the night before at the Forum, 2nd show.

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pmk251

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DandelionPowderman

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Witness

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DandelionPowderman

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Witness
Apart from the amazing studio version, I especially like the live version that I have on my old vinyl "Liver Than You'll Ever Be"-boot, which is quite different from every other version I have heard (not that many from that period). I have not got a vocabulary to describe it.

It's similar to the Ya Yas-version, minus the extended Taylor solos?

That does not capture what for me is the difference or the magic.

That's way I remember it. Haven't listened to it in a couple of years, though.

This is from the Oakland 2nd show. The performance is notable in that (as far as I know) this is the only time Taylor soloed on the song prior to Detroit. I cannot come up with an explanation for that. Perhaps because it was a night of improvisation due to the amp problems. Taylor also took over the JJF riff during the 1st show when Keith's amp blew. I think the band's and Keith's performance on this song was especially strong the night before at the Forum, 2nd show.

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kleermaker

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pmk251

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DandelionPowderman

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Witness

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DandelionPowderman

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Witness
Apart from the amazing studio version, I especially like the live version that I have on my old vinyl "Liver Than You'll Ever Be"-boot, which is quite different from every other version I have heard (not that many from that period). I have not got a vocabulary to describe it.

It's similar to the Ya Yas-version, minus the extended Taylor solos?

That does not capture what for me is the difference or the magic.

That's way I remember it. Haven't listened to it in a couple of years, though.

This is from the Oakland 2nd show. The performance is notable in that (as far as I know) this is the only time Taylor soloed on the song prior to Detroit. I cannot come up with an explanation for that. Perhaps because it was a night of improvisation due to the amp problems. Taylor also took over the JJF riff during the 1st show when Keith's amp blew. I think the band's and Keith's performance on this song was especially strong the night before at the Forum, 2nd show.

What Keith, Taylor and Jagger do between 4:00 and 5:00, before Taylor goes full out, is pure magic.

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duke richardson

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Silver Dagger
Simply one of the most important and best loved songs that the Stones ever wrote. Apart from their flirtation with psychedelia this was their first real move away from pop into the brave new world of rock that was now taking the world by storm. At least the first that the public would hear.
Cream, Hendrix, The Doors, Velvet Underground, the San Francisco bands – all had already laid down strong markers in abandoning pop or psychedelic pop to take new directions in heavier rock.

Yes, there were some experimental rockish wig outs on Satanic Majesties and Jumping Jack Flash gave us all a pointer but now was time for the real deal – the great era of the guitar solo was upon us and the Stones didn’t want to get left behind.

And boy, did the Stones deliver! Major big time. As guitar solos go they don’t get much better than that sublime, seering, beacon of sound that shoots like a laser beam from Keith’s guitar to our speakers at 2.52 for 40 seconds and that simply floors everything in its path. You ever listened to that original studio version in a disco or at full blast? It’s life-affirming, transcendental stuff – everything that rock music should do to transport you to a higher spiritual plain of ultra happiness. It’s a stop everything moment that creates ear to ear grins and thousand mile stares. Simply amazing. If anyone ever asks you what rock music is all about, just play them that and they’ll know.

Then there’s that simply irresistible rhythm. A samba. I can’t think of anyone in the pop/rock idiom who merged a Latin dance rhythm with pop or rock on an album before this. Not The Beatles, nor The Who, Dylan, Cream, The Yardbirds or any other of the era’s leading lights Santana were also still a year away from establishing themselves on a global scale.

Thanks to the One Plus One film we have the good luck to see this song being built up – laboriously bit by bit. It makes me sad to think that the Stones don’t write or create this way anymore. I guess they simply don’t have the patience. In those days they all had a great collective energy in wanting to produce art of staggering quality.

Just listen to the ingenious way that the chorus of Mick, Keith, Marianne, Anita, Brian, Charlie, Jimmy Miller and whoever else was lucky enough to be there push the song on with their infectious woo woo chanting. That’s a really black sound, with its roots not only in gospel but also in voodoo and call and response going right back to Congo Square in New Orleans in the mid-1800s – the birth of modern popular music.

And Charlie and Bill with Rocky Dijon on congas create a rhythm to die for. It grabs you by the nuts and doesn’t let go until the very last note fades away. Even today at concerts the woo wooing can carry on for a few minutes as the body slowly returns to its normal rhythm.

And how about those lyrics then? Inspired by Marianne’s great literary knowledge and foresight to give Mick the weird and wonderful book The Master And Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov as well as a book of Baudelaire poetry. Mick brilliantly took that inspiration about Satan’s arrival in society to pen a lyric that immediately hit home with the disaffected students of Europe and American army draftees. Very stirring, and unsettling, it brilliantly enhanced the Stones’ flirtation with the dark side and even led some of the establishment to believe that the band were now in league with the devil.

It remains, with Paint It Black, Gimme Shelter and Midnight Rambler the songs that best represent the image of the Stones as disciples of darkness – polarising them against the neo-Christian Festival of Light and the establishment in general. But it also rubberstamped their bad boy credentials and help extend their career right through to today.

Sympathy For The Devil is as epic a rock song as you are ever likely to find.

>>And Charlie and Bill with Rocky Dijon on congas create a rhythm to die for<<

Bill there for the development of the song but Keith on bass on the released version.

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treaclefingers

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stones40
With sssoul the troubadour line could mean many things but this is the most likely -


Mick was not referring to the Beatles whose songs and
actions contributed to the great hippie trail searching for enlightenment
on the Indian subcontinent.
The "Troubadours" were in fact the hippies who followed the 'Beatles' to India in search of transendendal enlightenment or inner peace but never actually reached the end point of their journey.

The "Troubadours who got killed before they reached Bombay" refers to the hippies who traveled the "Hippie Trail" by road.(1967 onwards)
Many on them were killed and ripped off by drug peddlers in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Those shady deals were probably the "traps".

Good lord, I never thought I'd learn actual history from IORR.

Well done stones40!

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kleermaker

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pmk251

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DandelionPowderman

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Witness

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DandelionPowderman

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Witness
Apart from the amazing studio version, I especially like the live version that I have on my old vinyl "Liver Than You'll Ever Be"-boot, which is quite different from every other version I have heard (not that many from that period). I have not got a vocabulary to describe it.

It's similar to the Ya Yas-version, minus the extended Taylor solos?

That does not capture what for me is the difference or the magic.

That's way I remember it. Haven't listened to it in a couple of years, though.

This is from the Oakland 2nd show. The performance is notable in that (as far as I know) this is the only time Taylor soloed on the song prior to Detroit. I cannot come up with an explanation for that. Perhaps because it was a night of improvisation due to the amp problems. Taylor also took over the JJF riff during the 1st show when Keith's amp blew. I think the band's and Keith's performance on this song was especially strong the night before at the Forum, 2nd show.

What Keith, Taylor and Jagger do between 4:00 and 5:00, before Taylor goes full out, is pure magic.

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treaclefingers

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with sssoul
Stones40, like I posted in the other thread just yesterday: I'm not buying that. Here's my reply again: [www.iorr.org]

I'm not sure I buy it either, but a beautiful hypothesis nonetheless!

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HonkeyTonkFlash
Speaking of SFTD, I just have to say this regarding the Ya Ya's version. Pure magic, especially towards the end where Taylor picks up the solo and Keith drops into rhythm. Keith's thrashing behind Taylor's lead is - for me - the most excellent example of why Keith Richards was the greatest rhythm guitarist of all time.

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Silver Dagger
Simply one of the most important and best loved songs that the Stones ever wrote. Apart from their flirtation with psychedelia this was their first real move away from pop into the brave new world of rock that was now taking the world by storm. At least the first that the public would hear.
Cream, Hendrix, The Doors, Velvet Underground, the San Francisco bands – all had already laid down strong markers in abandoning pop or psychedelic pop to take new directions in heavier rock.

Yes, there were some experimental rockish wig outs on Satanic Majesties and Jumping Jack Flash gave us all a pointer but now was time for the real deal – the great era of the guitar solo was upon us and the Stones didn’t want to get left behind.

And boy, did the Stones deliver! Major big time. As guitar solos go they don’t get much better than that sublime, seering, beacon of sound that shoots like a laser beam from Keith’s guitar to our speakers at 2.52 for 40 seconds and that simply floors everything in its path. You ever listened to that original studio version in a disco or at full blast? It’s life-affirming, transcendental stuff – everything that rock music should do to transport you to a higher spiritual plain of ultra happiness. It’s a stop everything moment that creates ear to ear grins and thousand mile stares. Simply amazing. If anyone ever asks you what rock music is all about, just play them that and they’ll know.

Then there’s that simply irresistible rhythm. A samba. I can’t think of anyone in the pop/rock idiom who merged a Latin dance rhythm with pop or rock on an album before this. Not The Beatles, nor The Who, Dylan, Cream, The Yardbirds or any other of the era’s leading lights Santana were also still a year away from establishing themselves on a global scale.

Thanks to the One Plus One film we have the good luck to see this song being built up – laboriously bit by bit. It makes me sad to think that the Stones don’t write or create this way anymore. I guess they simply don’t have the patience. In those days they all had a great collective energy in wanting to produce art of staggering quality.

Just listen to the ingenious way that the chorus of Mick, Keith, Marianne, Anita, Brian, Charlie, Jimmy Miller and whoever else was lucky enough to be there push the song on with their infectious woo woo chanting. That’s a really black sound, with its roots not only in gospel but also in voodoo and call and response going right back to Congo Square in New Orleans in the mid-1800s – the birth of modern popular music.

And Charlie and Bill with Rocky Dijon on congas create a rhythm to die for. It grabs you by the nuts and doesn’t let go until the very last note fades away. Even today at concerts the woo wooing can carry on for a few minutes as the body slowly returns to its normal rhythm.

And how about those lyrics then? Inspired by Marianne’s great literary knowledge and foresight to give Mick the weird and wonderful book The Master And Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov as well as a book of Baudelaire poetry. Mick brilliantly took that inspiration about Satan’s arrival in society to pen a lyric that immediately hit home with the disaffected students of Europe and American army draftees. Very stirring, and unsettling, it brilliantly enhanced the Stones’ flirtation with the dark side and even led some of the establishment to believe that the band were now in league with the devil.

It remains, with Paint It Black, Gimme Shelter and Midnight Rambler the songs that best represent the image of the Stones as disciples of darkness – polarising them against the neo-Christian Festival of Light and the establishment in general. But it also rubberstamped their bad boy credentials and help extend their career right through to today.

Sympathy For The Devil is as epic a rock song as you are ever likely to find.

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TheflyingDutchman

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HonkeyTonkFlash
Speaking of SFTD, I just have to say this regarding the Ya Ya's version. Pure magic, especially towards the end where Taylor picks up the solo and Keith drops into rhythm. Keith's thrashing behind Taylor's lead is - for me - the most excellent example of why Keith Richards was the greatest rhythm guitarist of all time.

There are many examples showing us that Keith was one of the greatest -if not the greatest rhythm guitarist in rock music.