Sympathy for the Devil
original song written and composed by Jagger/Richards; first recorded by The Rolling Stones
"Sympathy for the Devil" is a song by the English rock band the Rolling Stones. The song was written by Mick Jagger and credited to the Jagger–Richards partnership. It is the opening track on the band's 1968 album Beggars Banquet. The song has received critical acclaim and features on Rolling Stone magazine's "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list, being ranked number 106 in the 2021 edition.
Inspiration
"Sympathy for the Devil" is credited to Jagger and Richards, though the song was largely a Jagger composition. The working title of the song was "The Devil Is My Name", having earlier been called "Fallen Angels". Jagger sings in first person narrative as the Devil, who boasts of his role in each of several historical atrocities and repeatedly asks the listener to "guess my name". The singer demands the listener's courtesy towards him, implicitly chastising the listeners for their collective culpability in the listed killings and crimes. In the 2012 documentary Crossfire Hurricane, Jagger stated that his influence for the song came from Baudelaire and from the Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita (which had just appeared in English translation in 1967). The book was given to Jagger by Marianne Faithfull and she confirmed the inspiration in an interview with Sylvie Simmons for the magazine Mojo in 2005.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Sympathy for the Devil” is original song written and composed by Jagger/Richards; first recorded by The Rolling Stones. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Sympathy, Devil and original, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “original song written and composed by Jagger/Richards; first recorded by The Rolling Stones” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q605342. VIAF identifies the subject as 212922511. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1968, 2021, 2012 and 1967.
Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Sympathy for the Devil”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Sympathy for the Devil primary sources, Sympathy for the Devil archive and Sympathy research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Sympathy for the Devil”?
- Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Sympathy for the Devil” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.