How 'Sympathy for the Devil' transformed from a folk ballad to a samba-rock masterpiece

The most surprising thing about “Sympathy for the Devil” is that it almost sounded like Bob Dylan. Jagger originally wrote it as a slow, acoustic folk song with the working title “The Devil Is My Name”—a direct, almost campfire-style version that the band tried in early 1968. But when they brought it to Olympic Studios with producer Jimmy Miller, something clicked differently.

Miller heard a samba in the groove. He brought in conga player Rocky Dijon (who’d been playing on street corners in London), pushed Nicky Hopkins onto a rickety upright piano, and had Keith Richards play a hypnotic, circular guitar riff. The handclaps came from everyone in the studio—Jagger, Watts, even the tape operator—creating a loose, drunken carnival feel. Then Jagger overdubbed his vocals layer after layer, each one more unhinged, until he had multiple tracks of himself shouting “woo-hoo” and cackling. The folk arrangement was scrapped, and the devil got his dance beat.