The Lost 'Sympathy' Take: A Slower, Groovier Devil with Different Lyrics

During the Beggars Banquet sessions in May 1968, the Stones cut a completely different “Sympathy for the Devil.” It was a slow, bluesy R&B groove, and Mick Jagger’s lyrics included the nursery-rhyme couplet “the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker” instead of the famous “Who killed the Kennedys?” line. The entire vibe was lounge-lizard, not apocalyptic.

The band scrapped it because it didn’t hit the right menace. Jagger felt the slow version was too polite—like a cabaret number. So they re-recorded it in June, pushing the tempo into a frantic samba driven by congas and handclaps, and Jagger sharpened the lyrics to reference contemporary political assassinations. That wild, chaotic take became the