It’s near impossible to exemplify the human condition through music, let alone do so in a way that is universally appealing and can touch on each individual's idea of what exactly the human condition may be, but leave it to a bunch of 20 year olds to get closer than anyone else has ever dreamed.
Today is the fifty-fifth anniversary of The Rolling Stones 1968 classic Beggars Banquet. The album marks to many the beginning of The Stones golden years and is what many consider the catalyst for the image that is so ingrained in the public's mind as The Stones. A banned cover of a vandalized toilet, promoted via food fight in a fancy hotel, and the last full album to feature founding member Brian Jones before his untimely death at 27 the following year. An album with Anita Pallenbergs' influence seeping through each of the songs she graced, one that caused turned heads and yells about satanism and blasphemy. You know, Beggars Banquet. But what makes it about the human condition? Well, it’s for the people. All the people. The gross, terrible, ill intentioned, for the compliant, hard working, and disgraced. It’s for good people, bad people, people who live in moral gray areas. Beggars Banquet can be summed up exactly how Roger Ebert summed up Travis Bickle of Taxi Driver: “We want to look away. But he’s there, all right, and he’s suffering.” The album uses each of it’s songs to highlight a gross underbelly that society loves to ignore or downplay. You don’t want to hear about pedophilia, religious guilt, unconcious bias, and heartbreak in the rawest sense. But it exists. You can look away, but it doesn’t cease these things to end, in fact it enables them further.
The albums opener, and most popular song, is Sympathy for the Devil, a piece about how every horrible thing that human have ever done they’ve blamed on an entity outside of themselves. I watched with glee while your kings and queens fought for ten decades for the gods they made. It’s a question to pull on people who were claiming the band themselves were evil incarnate due to their ability to enjoy themselves a bit too much. If they were so evil, the devil, then what about every person who killed in the name of God? Did they get a pass because they used religion as a crutch as opposed to accepting the consequences of these actions? The song was instantly flagged for being The Stones open admission to being satanists whose main goal in life was in ruin the morals of kids all over the world, but that’s never what the song was. The song was a detailed, well thought out attack on the countless decades of lies perpetrated by history books that all evil should be placed on an inhuman entity as opposed to realized for what it really is: human. It’s horrific to see the things humans have done to other humans [the Kennedy assassinations, WWII, Pontius Pilate], and that’s the point: humans are terrible, ugly creatures. The opening song is the most direct of the album, it’s there to grab your attention. It’s no coincidence that it starts with Mick Jagger screeching before a single word is spoken, it’s shocking. Its jarring, it grabs your attention in a way that nothing else could.
Track 2 is one of the best ballads of not only The Stones career but maybe ever, No Expectations. The song is about the lonely life inhabited by most blues musicians of the day. The thing that’s always been said about the blues that they’re universal: everyone can relate to the pain in which a piece is written, and if it’s played convincingly enough than you can even if you don’t. No Expectations is a perfect encapsulation of this, pulling from the sadness of heartbreak, loneliness, self pity, and failure. The second verse stings to the human condition of Brian Jones himself, Once I was a rich man / Now I am so poor / Never in my sweet short life have I felt like this before. The original demo of the song that can be found via a watch through of Bret Morgen’s impeccable Crossfire Hurricane and reveals the original lyric being Never felt so sad before. The album went from one of the most shocking openers in popular music of the day with screeching and failing over satan to a soft and simple blues number about the depression one may face throughout their life, even if they are surrounded by everything that could possibly help them. Jones, by all accounts, was a very mean man. He had a lot of pent up frustration and anger, someone who needed help that was not available to him. Dips into excess only made these issues worse for everyone around him. He loved the power he felt he had over people, often dismissing people as beneath him. No matter how talented Jones was it couldn’t be denied that he wasn’t a very good person. If he had the chance to live a little bit longer maybe that would’ve changed, but life didn’t work out like that. One thing that marked the ending of Jones and The Stones was the tragedy of his relationship with Anita Pallenberg. They were horrible to each other, something the others couldn’t stand back and watch any longer. Richards ‘saved’ her from the abuse Jones was subjecting her to, and they began their relationship shortly after, one that would last nearly 12 years. Pallenberg was no saint either, often criticized for her mean spirited, manipulative behavior, as well as her habit of getting others addicted to hardcore drugs [Jones became addicted to a variety of substances after meeting her, and she hooked both Marianne Faithfull and Richards on heroin, something that would almost ended both their lives]. She was known for her bewitching aura and her incredibly independent nature in an era where women didn’t often have the ability to possess that. Your heart is like a diamond / You throw your pearls at swine / I watch as you're leaving me, you pack my peace of mind. The second line here was taken from a bible verse, one meaning that you shouldn’t waste good things on people who don’t appreciate them. Pallenberg was giving everything to remain in a relationship with Jones, but he never took to it, treating her as property as opposed to a human being. Many blame Pallenberg and Richard's relationship as the downfall of Jones, claiming that Pallenberg was the only woman he ever really loved and Richards took that from him. We don’t know Jones' innermost thoughts and feelings, but we do know his actions are what caused Pallenberg to leave, to get herself to a safer environment. Stanley Booth wrote in 1969, “Brian knew nothing about her and had no thought he would die loving her.” The last verse of the song holds the line Our love is like our music / It’s here, and then it’s gone, something that admits to the fleetingness love sometimes holds. Jagger and Richards have never said if one or the other wrote the bulk of this song, but it wouldn’t be a surprise if this is a Richards-heavy piece. It speaks to Anita and Brian in a way no one other than he could, having been close to both of them. It would also highlight the underlying sadness throughout the piece, the whole idea that two flawed people can’t create a good environment for themselves. It’s about how love isn’t meant to last in the same way that sometimes people aren’t either. Richards said in 1973 that there are some people you see and just know aren’t gonna make it to thirty, that’s how he felt about Brian. That’s how life was.
The third track, Dear Doctor, is a play on silly country numbers about heartbreak. This story in particular is about a man who is apprehensive about being wed, only to be met with relief at the revelation that his bride-to-be is cheating on him with his cousin. Help me, please doctor, I’m damaged / There’s a pain where there once was a heart / I’m sleeping, It’s beating / Can’t you please tear it out, and preserve it? / Right in that jar? It’s tongue and cheek in a way no one but The Stones can be. The song is recorded, sung, and performed in a very light-hearted manner, but even so you can still feel the underlying anxiety of the character, an interesting take on a faux country number. It also flips the typical gender roles for the “worried of marriage” trope, making it the man who is riddled with doubt over the wedding, one whose being told to suck it up and go through with it anyways, with the woman who ends up with the cheating record. It could even be argued that with the tempo and tone of the song being so unserious it proves that unless a man’s issues are treated in a joking manner they won’t be heard at all. That, or they just wrote a song about how women can be cheaters too. Who really knows.
Parachute Woman is another case of The Rolling Stones not shying away from talks of sex and pleasure in a time when that was not what was well received by the public. Parachute Woman, land on me tonight is the first verse, followed by Join me for a ride, and finally, the most explicit, Blow me out. Parachute Woman is a piece that isn’t as out there as any other songs by The Stones up until this point along the lines of Let’s Spend the Night Together, Yesterday’s Papers, or even Satisfaction, but what it does do less of is beating around the bush. As opposed to coy lines that can be removed by censors, Parachute Woman is all up in your face about it. Even the title makes your skin crawl, it feels so slimy and disgusting. The misogyny oozes from each syllable spoken, it’s not as easily ignored as some of their other tongue and cheek attempts at innuendo. You want to look away, but you can’t.
Jigsaw Puzzle casts Jagger as a narrator who knows things aren’t exactly what they seem. The bishop's daughter is an outcast who feels jealousy toward a tramp, someone who hasn’t been bogged down by an overbearing idea of perfection since birth. Another bible reference comes with the next verse, the one about the family man by day, gangster by night with He really looks quite religious / He’s been an outlaw all his life. This line calls back to Jesus stating “I have not come to call the righteous, but the sinners”, something that reflects the overall theme of the album. Verse three is the best in the song, one that follows the inner monologue of each member of a band, in this case The Rolling Stones themselves. The singer, he looks angry / At being thrown the lions / And the bass player, he looks nervous / About the girls outside / The drummer, he’s so shattered / Having to keep on time / And the guitar players looks so damaged / They’ve been outcasts all their lives. An interesting note here is how after each member is introduced it is explained how they look and opposed to feel. The singer looks angry, though may delight in the intellectual sparring that being thrown to the lions entails, similar to Jagger himself. Bill Wyman was never nervous around girls, at least no the over thousand he claims to have preyed on. Charlie Watts never struggled to keep on time, he was always perfect at his craft. And the guitarists? They weren't damaged before their outcast status desolved. The whole song follows this idea that based on external factors of a person, the bias that feels ingrained in most people. The song aims to showcase how no one is a full sinner nor saint, but everyone is human. The privilege of the bishop’s daughter would make you believe her to be satisfied with life in the same way the gangster’s violent work would lead you to believe he was a heartless man. The band themselves were even profiled by their looks, backgrounds, and education. No one is safe from being made an assumption of, it seems. The motif of the song is Me, I’m waiting so patiently / Lying on the floor / I’m trying to do this jigsaw puzzle, before it rains anymore, almost like someone taking all parts of someone to create the whole person, instead of letting one thing become who they are, a commonality amongst people.
Street Fighting Man is the best example of the album's ablity to reflect the ugly world it was created in. Everywhere I hear the sound of marching, charging feet / ‘Cause summers here and the time is right for fighting in the street is an interpolation of the Martha and the Vandrells song Dancing in the Street, swapping dancing for fighting. It was a clever move, a showcase on how much had changed and using a beloved and happy song to showcase how normalized violence had become in everyday life was incredibly creative. What can a poor boy do but sing for a rock and roll band? ‘Cause a sleepy London town ain’t no place for a street fighting man is most likely a criticism of the lack of freedom of speech allowed during 1968. Oftentimes people, oftentimes teenagers, were being brutalized for protesting against what they found unjust in the world, the line stating that the only way someone could realistically argue with authority would be from the comfort of hiding in music. Jagger stated the song was written around the time of a student riot in Paris, that ‘in contrast, London was very quiet’. The song was, similarly to something like Perfect Day by Lou Reed or Stevie Nicks’ Silver Springs, written about a very specific moment in history, something that shouldn’t have truly held a universal meaning yet did. Jagger would state in 1994 that he thought the song didn’t hold up at all, being horrifically wrong. My name is called disturbance / I’ll shout and scream / I’ll kill the king and rail at all his servants. The song was covered in 2000 by Rage Against the Machine, only one word in the whole piece being swapped out, that being London for L.A., something that proved the lasting legacy of the song. Not only that it still held up thirty years later, but that he was ahead of his time writing in brutal honesty about lack of a voice given to the underprivileged. In a time where a protest song sounded like the pacifism-heavy, almost unrealistic Revolution, Street Fighting Man showed the truth more honestly. Lennon may have been able to croon When you talk about destruction / Don’t you know you can count me out, speaking to the peaceful protests to change that didn’t push anything to change as quickly as it needed too, Jagger howled My name is called disturbance. Jagger wasn’t speaking to the easy to digest protests, he was speaking to the violent ones that were written off and shoved away, that were villainized as opposed to understood.
The Robert Wilkens’ penned Prodigal Son is a musical retelling of that same story from the bible, the one in which even after a son strayed from his fathers wish he was still welcomed back with love. The story, in the biblical sense, is to showcase how no matter how far one may stray from God’s wishes, he will always be welcomed back warmly and with love. The story’s place on this album finds a well deserved home as the overarching themes of the album are all about the flaws of humanity, the sinners of the world, the horrible things that exist in the world that are ignored as opposed to acknowledged and maybe forgiven. It’s important to note that none of this album is preaching about how one deserves to be forgiven for their sins, it's a piece that refuses to pander to those who can’t accept to hear about tragedy. The album isn’t to comfort the listener, to make sinners or degenerates feels secure in their choices. The album uses it’s songs to show these offenses for what they are, to stop the beating around the bush. By 1968, there was no use in denying the horrors the world was made up of, the white picket fences and malt shops of the 50s no longer stood as a backdrop that hid the failures of humanity. Kids were dying in wars, for speaking up, on their school campuses. Unrest was the reality and there was no pretending it wasn’t. The issue laid in the blame leveled against these kids still, as opposed to the adults who ran the institutions letting these issues continue. It was easiest to call Lennon a communist and Jagger a satanist than admit to the fact that much of the unrest in young people was a product of the world not changing with the times. There was nothing wrong with admitting the world was a fucked up place in 1968, that never meant there couldn’t be a chance to fix and better it, but there was an issue with pinning the issues on everything except what they were.
Stray Cat Blues is a sharp left right back into the belly of the beast. The song follows a narrator, very similar to that of Parachute Woman, who wants nothing more than sex but it’s worse as now pedophilia is folded into the mix. I can see your fifteen years old / No I don’t want to see your I.D. is the opening line of the second verse, one that comes right off a sly narrator stating that this would be No hanging matter, no capital crime spoken by a man confident that even if he’s doing something wrong he has enough leverage to remain above the law. It’s a deeply disturbing song, one that should make anyone with sense feel disgusted with what they’re hearing. The idea of referring to this girl, child, as a stray cat is to bring to mind this idea of a dirty, streetwise creature, it’s to get even further under your skin. The song was written to make the audience uncomfortable, showcasing pedophilia in such an upfront way I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the most upfront it’s ever been in a song. It’s all laid out, nothing to really latch on to lyrically except for a story about a man whose delightfully taking advantage of two underage, runaway girls. It’s bringing attention to acts like this that happen right under noses, that remain ignored for no reason. The song became popular, most likely due to it’s great musical arrangement [aided by Pallenberg], meaning the lyrics often went under the radar. How would Jagger combat this? He’d lower the age to thirteen during live performances to get a reaction out of people. If fifteen could be ignored, surely thirteen couldn’t. He’s smart. This trivia is often tossed around to discuss the predatory nature of rock musicians without even a full understanding there either of what exactly was trying to be done by Jagger here. You were supposed to become uncomfortable, and if you were, he did his job.
Waiting for a girl, she’s got stains all down her dress is the last detail we gain about the titular Factory Girl of track 9. The song has been assumed to be about Andy Warhol’s Factory, about a girl who works there and doesn’t fit in with the rest of the society at the time. One whose a sight for sore eyes despite her capacity to get the enamored narrator in fights. Whilst the Andy Warhol connection, as well as the fighting nature and unrivaled beauty of the unnamed woman do all fit Anita Pallenberg I don’t quite think this song is about her. Whilst she didn’t exactly fit into the exact box of how women were expected to act, dress, or say, she wasn’t as outcast as the factory girl. She was still a conventionally attractive, well respected, and accomplished career woman who made a name for herself in the art, fashion, and film worlds. The factory girl is someone who can’t afford to buy the nicest things, a girl whose clothes are tattered and broken. She’s the common working woman, she’s imperfect and outcasted due to that fact. She’s a woman who fights for what she has too, not caring about how she’s viewed due to her so-called imperfections that are perceived by society. She leaves the narrator in awe with her beauty, both outward and her spirit that doesn’t allow her to be written off as just another ignored member of society because she doesn’t fit into the puzzle perfectly. Her stained dress is as human as the murders referenced in Sympathy or the abuse highlighted in Stray Cat Blues.
The album ends on a positive note, with Salt of the Earth. The title is once more a bible reference, the first verse being shakily delivered by Richards Let’s drink to the hard working people / Let’s drink to the lowly at birth / Raise your glass to the good and evil. The last line pretty much encapsulates the point of the song and the album at large, that even if humans are inherently flawed they still are humans. Similarly to how much of the album is about acknowledging the difficult to stomach actions perpetrated throughout the world, this song is about how exactly things get here. When I search this faceless crowd / A swirling mass of gray, blue, black, and white / They don’t look real to me, in fact they look so strange is the bridge, one that speaks to ignorance people continued to hold that let the world to continue the way it was. Let’s drink to the uncounted heads / Let’s drink to the waverings millions / Who need leading but get gamblers instead / Spare a thought for the stay at home voter / His empty gaze at strange beauty shows / A choice of cancer or polio. Verse four is about as political as the band has ever gotten in their music, calling attention to the lack of change, due to the lack of voting. A choice of cancer or polio exemplifies the political climate of 1968 in a way nothing else could, a line that a blunt recount of why exactly so many people saw their indecision as the best option, because they didn’t have any options. There was only evil, there was only options of wrong do-ers, nothing was going to change either way so what was it to matter if one was to fill their mind with mindless entertainment? There’s a cultural awareness about The Stones that sets them apart from most of their contemporaries. They have always been aware of the world around them, so much of what makes them beloved is their refusal to sugar-coat or shy away from the ugly truths of the lives many lead, it’s what draws people in and pushes others away. The album uses all it’s might to be ugly, yet still ends on a piece that showcases understanding of those who have let the people highlighted exist how it has. It’s a hopeful note to end on, even if it still doesn’t shy away or mince it’s words about the state of the world. There’s an understanding reached, good and bad people have failed the world. Drink to those who do what they can, at the very least. The ones who get mislabeled, underappreciated, misunderstood, and unloved. The ones who become lumped into camps they don’t belong due to outside factors, the ones who ultimately take the brunt of the punishment for those who are evil.
I think that’s the ultimate point of Beggars Banquet, to understand parts of humanity you feel compelled to ignore. The issues plaguing the world weren’t gonna go away because of a few songs. Riots were still gonna break out, children would remain abused, bias would still prevail over understanding, and the factory girl would still go to work with the zipper down her back broken, but The Stones don’t blame the listener for the world. They understand the inclination to sit and watch things move further into chaos, that one person's vote won’t change anything if people will die no matter which way they go. What’s shocking is to look at an album so of its time, it’s radicalization so specific to the year in which it was created, and still see it as a piece that is so current. Nothing has really changed since the album was released, at least not enough for it as a whole to feel trapped to its time, a relic of what was happening then that can be looked seen and gawked at, mummers of ‘how could that even happen’ surrounding discussions of it. No, Beggars Banquet is exactly how it’s always been: a mirror and apology to the people. Maybe five British guys can’t do much more than croon that they see the world for what it is too, but it’s a hell of a lot more important than just that. One of, if not the greatest pieces of media about humans ever given to the public. It didn’t aim to reinvent The Stones how it did, nor to push the musical envelope, it was just simply for and about people. All the terrible, horrible, disgusting low-life people. All the good hearted, wrongly villainized, hard working people. It celebrates and condemns humanity in a way only the Rolling Stones could. Happy 55th anniversary for what may just be the most important album in a storied career of important albums, a piece that dared to showcase the world without any filter.
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