Essay

 

How dark subjects are presented in The Rolling Stones’ songs.

 

In a lot of their songs, The Rolling Stones sing about and mention dark, touchy subjects a lot of singers and bands would avoid. They sing about such things for a few reasons. One of those reasons are, that they want to get a reaction. Since a lot of singers would rather not sing about the Devil, death, war and murder it makes them unique. They do not shy away from those sorts of subjects; they are not scared to write songs about them. Another reason is, during the 60s, there was the Vietnam War, drugs, racism and a generally a lot of conflict.  A lot of people during that time used music to escape from reality. The Rolling Stones found a way of connecting with those types of people. By singing about these sorts of things, the listener felt as though Mick and the band were singing to them. This is apparent in 1969’s Gimme Shelter, which I will be speaking about later. Another reason is, The Rolling Stones do not want people to be afraid of dark subjects. Through song, they want to normalise speaking about such things, therefore eradicating the prejudice against them. I will be focussing on one song per reason.

First, I am going to speak about The Rolling Stones wanting to get a reaction. Now in 2021, singing about drugs, death and murder is not as rare as it was back then. Back in the 60s, singing about something like the Devil was normally frowned upon. In a lot of countries, the Devil is seen as something to be terrified of. When they began singing about it, quite a lot of people were not happy. The song you may have guessed I am speaking about is 1968’s ‘Sympathy for the Devil’. Just by the name of the song you can tell it annoyed a lot of people. Why would you want to have sympathy for the Devil?  A musician who was not happy about the song was Carlos Santana who said, “I don’t have sympathy for the Devil”. Santana thought The Stones were ‘playing with fire’ on this song. The song also mentions a lot of historical events like the crucifixion of Christ, the Russian Revolution, World War II and the Kennedy assassinations. Other historical events mentioned in the song were the Hundred Years War and the Nazi Blitzkrieg. By mentioning all these historical events in a song under the name of ‘Sympathy for the Devi’, it tied them all together as work of the Devil. This is backed up by, “And I was ‘round when Jesus Christ had his moment of doubt and pain”, and “Stuck around St. Petersburg when I saw it was a time for a change, killed Tsar and his ministers”. These lines are implying that the Devil was around when these historical events took place. By involving the Devil in something as sensitive as Jesus’ crucifixion it was destined to get some sort of reaction. In the first verse of the song, it states that the Devil has been around for an exceptionally long time and has stolen a lot of people’s soul and faith. The lines which I am referring to are, “I’ve been around for a long, long years, stole a million man’s soul and faith”. The latter half of this quote is referring to people either losing their soul to the Devil or losing their beliefs to the Devil. Singing about religion will always be a touchy subject and The Rolling Stones jumped in headfirst by adding the Devil into it. The Stones also imply that the Devil is a man. “I’m a man of wealth and taste”. By stating that the Devil is not just a personification of evil or an objectification of a hostile and destructive force, but a being is an outlandish and controversial statement to make. I find the chorus very interesting. In the first line of the chorus, it says, “Pleased to meet you, hope you guessed my name but what’s puzzling you is the nature of my game”. The Devil says that he is pleased to meet us. This makes us think that the Devil is being polite, and it almost makes him somewhat likable, making us want to listen to what he has got to say. This conflicts with a lot of people’s views on the Devil. They do not want to think of the Devil as being polite or even likeable. Portraying the Devil as something other than pure evil is obviously controversial and will definitely get a reaction. When the Devil says, “I hope you guessed my name”, it is almost like he is trying to boost his ego. He knows you know what his name is. The quote “but what’s puzzling you is the nature of my game”, almost feels like the Devil knows more about us that we think he does. We have been educated on the Devil, but he feels like we have no knowledge on him and so we are puzzled about what he actually does. Then, in the song he goes through historical events he was present in, so we get a better understanding how major his role is in history. The song uses the Devil as a narrator. The song makes us listen to what the Devil has to say for himself, which a lot of people do not want to do. A very controversial part of the song is when the Devil speaks about his involvement in the Hundred Years War. “I watched with glee while your kings and queens fought for ten decades for the gods they made”. The Devil watches with glee, he is thrilled to see us fighting for such a long time over gods we have invented ourselves. He is belittling us; he gets enjoyment from seeing how stupid we must be fighting over something like that. Also, the Devil is saying the gods do not exist. Which a lot of people will not be happy hearing.

 

I am next going to speak about how The Rolling Stones connected with the listener and why they did this. The song I will be focussing on for this is going to be ‘Gimme Shelter’. This song was released in 1969. In the 60s, there was a lot of conflict, whether that be in war or racism or conflict connected to drugs. People needed an escape from reality, and so they turned to music. In this song, The Rolling Stones drew a lot of connections to the Vietnam war. When speaking about the Vietnam War, Mick said “Well, it’s a very rough, very violent era. The Vietnam War… and Vietnam was not a war as we knew it in the conventional sense. The things about Vietnam was that it wasn’t like World War II, and it wasn’t like Korea, and it wasn’t like the Gulf War. It was a real nasty war, and people didn’t like it. People objected, and people didn’t want to fight it…”. This quote is important because it tells us how Mick felt about the war. His view on this war inspired the lyrics of the song. The song has some very controversial lyrics like, “Rape, murder”. Lyrics like this were put into the song to show the brutality, spitefulness and cruelty happening in the world. Many young Americas did not like the U.S presence in Vietnam. They started peaceful protests, the most famous being the march on Washington. This was not a war they were proud to fight in. The war was televised for people to see how bad it really was. They wanted peace; they did not want to fight. The Rolling Stones confirmed that, “Ooh, a storm is threatening my very life today”, is referring to the Vietnam War. The “storm” is the war. It is also referring to the political and social unrest the war caused. “If I don’t get some shelter, ooh yeah I’m gonna fade away”. This means that if he is unable to get shelter and escape the war and what it is causing, he is going to fade away. Many young men wished to hide from the war, which is what some temporarily did. “War, children, its just a shot away, its just a shot away”. During this point of the song, Mary Clayton joins in. The way she sings her part really emphasizes what she is saying. She belts out the words, almost screaming for help. “Its just a shot away”, is to remind us that even if were at home and not fighting the war, the war is always close by. To connect to the listener, The Rolling Stones included the lyric, “Ooh, see the fire is sweepin’ our very streets today”. By saying “Our very streets”, The Rolling Stones and the listener have a common problem. Since Mick and the band are their heroes, they feel like they have to help out so the problem can be sorted for not only themselves but the band too. The Rolling Stones however are all British citizens and Britain was not sending any troops to Vietnam, so they were not affected like the Americans were. The Rolling Stones watched the war on screen because it was televised so often. In the last chorus of the song, the song goes “I tell you love, sister, its just a kiss away, its just a kiss away”. The Rolling Stones decided to lighten the mood by telling us that although war is “just a shot away”, love is always close too.

 

Lastly, I am going to speak about The Rolling Stones not wanting people to be afraid of dark subjects, or in this case dark people. The Rolling Stones released a song in 1969 called Midnight Rambler which is written about the Boston Strangler. This song is on the same album as Gimme Shelter. The album’s name is ‘Let It Bleed’. ‘Let It Bleed’ is a very dark album. It discusses topics like addiction, war and murder. ‘Midnight Rambler’ was written whilst they were on holiday in Italy. “We were on a holiday in Italy, in this very beautiful hill town, Positano, for a few nights… Why we should write such a dark song in this beautiful, sunny place, I really don’t know. We wrote everything there – the tempo changes, everything. And I’m playing the harmonica in these little cafes and there’s Keith with the guitar”, Mick recalls. So, how did the public react to ‘Midnight Rambler’? the song did not become one of their biggest hits. This was probably because the Boston Strangler’s crimes were so recent. When Mick sings “Well you heard about the Boston…” before an instrumental stab cuts him off it is obvious who the song is about. The Rolling Stones played this in 1969 and throughout the 1970’s at their concerts and when they did it was a showstopper. Mick and the band made a morbid atmosphere as he took on the role of the killer, frantically whipping the floor toward the end of the song as the audience screamed along. By singing about a murderer and almost making him sound like a fictional character makes the whole subject less dark. Talking or singing or writing about things that are dark and scary most do not speak about makes them less dark and scary. Not knowing about dark subjects is often scarier because it is the sense of not knowing that makes it seem worse than it actually is.

 

In conclusion, The Rolling Stones sing about dark, touchy subjects for several reasons. This is one of the reasons why they are one of the most unique and recognisable bands in history. They found a way to sing about subjects most avoid, and they benefit from it. The band also wrote a song recently (2019) called ‘Living in a Ghost Town’. In this song, they sang about COVID 19. Like, ‘Gimme Shelter’ they connected with the listener. The Rolling Stones will continue to release amazing songs and I can not wait.