{"id":199700,"date":"2025-10-14T15:44:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T15:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/199700\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T15:44:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T15:44:12","slug":"the-one-rolling-stones-song-that-scared-carlos-santana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/199700\/","title":{"rendered":"The one Rolling Stones song that scared Carlos Santana"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Carlos<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy)<\/p>\n

Tue 14 October 2025 12:21, UK <\/p>\n

Some songs sing out like hymns into the sonic heavens. They feel untouchable, ethereal, almost, and The Rolling Stones <\/a>certainly have a few of those in their impressive rock arsenal. <\/p>\n

Noted\u00a0guitar god Carlos Santana\u00a0often gets described as a spiritual individual, usually based on his performances, which, at times, feel like they arrive from another plane of existence. So much video of Santana performing sees him seemingly channelling the vibrations of another world into his music. But that belies the fact that Santana is devoutly religious. At a time when he was going through a divorce from his wife of 34 years, Deborah, Santana only found solace by turning to God.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was able to remove the anger by forgiving that man\u2026.\u201d Santana says, referring to the Man Upstairs. The rocker had long been a rebel, but with this one act, found himself now converted and in servitude to a higher power. \u201cForgiveness, man, forgiveness is incredibly liberating. And I\u2019m here to tell you, with all my heart and spirit, that it can be done. You can be freed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Rolling Stones are\u00a0not quite as pious<\/a>. Salacious, sin-fueled rock and rollers with little time or regard for the reverence of religion, songs like \u2018Stray Cat Blues\u2019,\u00a0\u2018Dead Flowers\u2019<\/a>, and \u2018Shattered\u2019 celebrate the grittier, more risqu\u00e9 side of life that the band favoured. The group were, for a lot of people in the 1960s, arguably the devil incarnate as they promoted sex, drugs and rock \u2018n\u2019 roll like handing out communion at the Catholic church. Sometimes the band even parodied Jesus freaks, like on\u00a0Some Girls\u2019\u00a0tongue-in-cheek country track \u2018Far Away Eyes\u2019.<\/p>\n

But it was one specific track that got the band labelled Satan worshipers:\u00a0Beggars Banquet\u00a0leadoff song \u2018Sympathy for the Devil\u2019. It might seem quaint today, considering hordes of fans scream out the words at shows all over the world, but \u2018Sympathy\u2019 was a genuinely provocative piece of art when it was released back in 1968. Pearls were surely clutched as Mick Jagger took on the role of Lucifer and demanded courtesy.<\/p>\n

\"Mick<\/a>Keith Richards and Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones. (Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy)<\/p>\n

Santana wasn\u2019t exactly a pearl-clutcher, having spent a fair amount of time in the drug-spun rock and roll world, but he gave a stern warning to The Stones anyway.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have no sympathy for the devil,\u201d Santana said in an interview with NME. \u201cI like the beat of the song, but I never identify with the lyric. Jagger and Richards don\u2019t really know the full extent of what they\u2019re talking about. If they knew what they were getting into when they sing that song they would not be doing it. The devil is not Santa Claus. He\u2019s for real.\u201d<\/p>\n

For a retort, here\u2019s Keith Richards in 1971 while talking with\u00a0Rolling Stone. \u201cThey\u2019re saying, \u2018They\u2019re evil, they\u2019re evil.\u2019 Oh, I\u2019m evil, really? So that makes you start thinking about evil [\u2026] What is evil? Half of it, I don\u2019t know how many people think of Mick as the devil or as just a good rock performer or what? There are black magicians who think we are acting as unknown agents of Lucifer and others who think we are Lucifer. Everybody\u2019s Lucifer.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2002, Richards shared another thought on the track: \u201c\u2018Sympathy\u2019 is quite an uplifting song. It\u2019s just a matter of looking the Devil in the face. He\u2019s there all the time. I\u2019ve had very close contact with Lucifer \u2013 I\u2019ve met him several times. Evil \u2013 people tend to bury it and hope it sorts itself out and doesn\u2019t rear its ugly head. \u2018Sympathy For The Devil\u2019 is just as appropriate now, with 9\/11. There it is again, big time. When that song was written, it was a time of turmoil. It was the first sort of international chaos since World War II. And confusion is not the ally of peace and love. You want to think the world is perfect. Everybody gets sucked into that. And as America has found out to its dismay, you can\u2019t hide. You might as well accept the fact that evil is there and deal with it any way you can. Sympathy for the Devil is a song that says, Don\u2019t forget him. If you confront him, then he\u2019s out of a job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether you side with Santana or Richards, sometimes walking on the sin-filled side of the street isn\u2019t all that bad. Here\u2019s \u2018Sympathy for the Devil\u2019, just in case you want to indulge those inner demons.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n

The Far Out Classic Rock Newsletter<\/p>\n

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Straight to your inbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy) Tue 14 October 2025 12:21, UK Some songs sing out like hymns into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199701,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[43474,58176,96,128,86776,15747,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-199700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-carlos-santana","tag-classic-rock","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-sympathy-for-the-devil","tag-the-rolling-stones","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199700\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}