Who killed the Kennedys? The Rolling Stones won't tell you anymore.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Who killed the Kennedys? The Rolling Stones won’t tell you anymore.
The rock legends stopped singing a sinister lyric from “Sympathy for the Devil.” Why?

By Paul Schwartzman
Updated July 11, 2024 at 9:00 a.m. EDT | Published July 11, 2024 at 5:00 a.m. EDT



From left, Ronnie Wood, Keith Richards and Mick Jagger perform in New Jersey in May. (Kevin Mazur/Getty Images)

We were in our seats high above the stage when the huge video screens turned a hellscape red and the clamor of piano and percussion merged with that familiar hypnotic chant: “Woo-woo! Woo-woo!” ... Everyone in the stadium knew Satan was about to introduce himself, as rendered for the umpteenth time by 80-year-old Mick Jagger, somehow still twirling away in a twinkling three-quarter coat, more than five decades after the Rolling Stones cut their classic “Sympathy for the Devil.”

“Please allow me to introduce myself/ I’m a man of wealth and taste,” Jagger began before reciting the song’s catalogue of Great Moments in Evil, including the slaying of Jesus Christ and the assassination of the “Czar and his ministers” in St. Petersburg, when “Anastasia screamed in vain.”

Anyone who loves “Sympathy for the Devil” knows what comes in the third verse, just as fans of “The Godfather” know what awaits Sonny when he rolls up to the tollbooth. Except, in Philadelphia on that night last month, Jagger blew past the lines that first astonished me years ago as a teenager, the audacious question, “I shouted out, ‘Who killed the Kennedys?’” (I thought we knew), and the sneering answer: “When after all, it was you and me.”

Wait, what? ... “Did I miss the Kennedy line?” I asked my wife, who was marveling that the octogenarian frontman was now skipping the length of the sprawling stage. If Jagger sang the Kennedy line, she also missed it. ... Had the Stones sanitized their ode to madness? Had “Sympathy for the Devil” become “Sympathy”-lite?

{snip}

By Paul Schwartzman
Paul Schwartzman specializes in political profiles and narratives about life, death and everything in between. Before joining The Washington Post, he worked at the New York Daily News, where he covered Rudolph W. Giuliani’s rise as mayor. Twitter https://twitter.com/paulschwartzman

[Docreed2003]

1. ? Why did they drop the line

Sorry it's behind a paywall

[highplainsdem]

2. I skimmed the article, and there's actually no explanation - just speculation that's knocked down.

Schwartzman emailed the Stones' PR reps, arranged a phone call with a Stones spokeswoman who told him everything she said was off the record, "rendering the explanation she may or may not have provided as unusable. She indicated that she would follow up with something printable."

She apparently didn't. At least not by the time the story was printed and then updated 4 hours later, yesterday morning.

So the WaPo story is much ado about nothing.

[Docreed2003]

3. Thanks for sharing that!

Weird. I saw them a couple years ago, and I'm pretty sure the line was still in the song at that time.

[IbogaProject]

4. Gee Mick missed a few lines in blistering heat

The news attempting to make a story about a passing flub. If the reporter was up to his task, he'd find recordings of the song from other tour stops and see if it was really 'cut' this tour or if he caught a typical live variance.