This is the fifth in a series of examinations of music legends and whether they are true or false.

Let’s begin!

MUSIC LEGEND: The Rolling Stones were performing “Sympathy for the Devil” when a crowd member was killed at the Altamont Free Concert.

STATUS: False

The song “Sympathy for the Devil” was written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones and appeared on the 1968 Rolling Stones album, Beggars Banquet.

The song is a first person narrative from the viewpoint of Lucifer/Satan/The Devil. In the song, he takes credit for a great deal of current tragedies, including the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers.

For years, this dark song has been linked to the death of Meredith Hunter at a free concert that the Rolling Stones played at the Altamont Theater in December of 1969 (almost literally the end of the 1960s, let alone figuratively).

The biker group the Hell’s Angels had been hired as security for the event, and the rowdy crowd had already gotten into many altercations with the Angels by the time the Stones showed up to play, and the Angels, in response, had gotten more aggressive as the day went by. The Grateful Dead, in fact, left the arena after hearing that a member of Jefferson Airplane had been punched in the head and knocked unconscious.

Eventually, a young man named Meredith Hunter pulled out a gun and a member of the Hell’s Angels responded by stabbing Hunter five times, killing him (Hunter is the man wearing the green suit below).

The concert was being filmed for a documentary, so everything was caught on tape.

The documentary was released under the title Gimme Shelter.

As time went by, the story became that the song that was playing when all of this went on (the Stones played eight songs in total AFTER Hunter died - they were not informed until after the concert that a man had been stabbed to death, they just knew a commotion took place) was “Sympathy for the Devil.”

That is not the case, as it was the song “Under My Thumb” that is playing when the main altercation took place, and three songs preceded “Thumb,” in case one wished to argue that something occurred directly prior to the actual fatal stabbing.

The confusion might have come from the fact that, like “Under My Thumb,” “Sympathy for the Devil” was interrupted by fighting in the crowds (leading the Stones to stop playing until the crowd calmed down).

In addition, in John Burks’ coverage of the event for Rolling Stone, he notes of the fatal altercation that

There is a soundtrack, but none of this can be heard, for the Stones are into “Sympathy for the Devil” at high volume.

So likely, those are the two reasons why the legend sprung up that it was “Sympathy for the Devil” that was playing as a sort of soundtrack for the violence, but I think that there are a few other reasons, including:

1. The fact that it just SOUNDED right - what BETTER song to be playing when a man is stabbed to death during a concert than a song about the devil?

2. There were a lot of folks who were at the concert who just generally blamed “Sympathy for the Devil,” as it was during that song that the violence really picked up, so while it was not playing while the actual stabbing (or the alteractions leading UP to the stabbing), it could still perhaps theoretically be called the INSTIGATOR for the stabbing.

and finally,

3. Don McLean seemed to allude to “Sympathy for the Devil” during his song, “American Pie.”

Oh, and as I watched him on the stage / my hands were clenched in fists of rage. No angel born in hell /could break that satan’s spell. And as the flames climbed high into the night, / to light the sacrificial rite / I saw Satan laughing with delight / the day the music died.

Whether McLean was actually talking about Altamont or not, that certainly has been how fans have interpreted that lyric, and to make that lyric work almost literally (as fans of “American Pie” seem to love to do), you’d almost have to take it as referencing “Sympathy for the Devil.”

Thanks to Rolling Stone for the John Burks article!

MUSIC LEGEND: The song “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” was inspired by the film “Roman Holiday.”

STATUS: Apparently True

In 1995, the band Deep Blue Something debuted their hit song, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”

It was on their second album, Home.

The song is about a couple in a relationship, and the speaker of the song is trying to convince the other half of the relationship that they should stay together, while she argues that they have nothing in common (”no common ground between us”) and he ends up relying on the fairly flimsy fact that they both liked the film “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” as grounds that they should remain a couple (as, after all, they have THAT in common, at least!).

It’s a really catchy song, but its genesis is pretty interesting…

The film Breakfast at Tiffany’s came out in 1961 and starred Audrey Hepburn…

However, amusingly enough, lead singer and songwriter Todd David Pipes actually wrote the song about a DIFFERENT Audrey Hepburn film, Roman Holiday (which came out eight years before Tiffany’s and featured Gregory Peck)!!

Pipes spoke about the situation to Billboard magazine in 1995:

I worked at the library when I was in college. I had 15 minutes before I had to get to work one day and there was an Audrey Hepburn movie on TV, Roman Holiday, and I’d been thinking about the name Breakfast at Tiffany’s for quite a while. It just sounded really romantic. So when I saw the movie I sat down, playing these really simple chords, thinking Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Just for fun, here’s some more of Pipes’ interview from that issue…

You’d be amazed at the amount of people who come to the show that just love the song. “That’s my favorite song, who’s Tiffany?” And I’m going, can’t you read in the lyrics, “I think I remember the film?” It’s about a movie. “What movie? Can you rent it?” I’m talking about hundreds of people: radio DJs, programmers, people at shows. You tell them it’s about a movie, and they’re just amazed. What amazes me was I thought the whole hook of the song was “Hey, I remember that movie” I thought that’s why people liked it so much, because they liked the movie.”

Thanks to Billboard Magazine and Todd David Pipes for the information!

MUSIC LEGEND: The Temptations’ “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” won a Grammy for Best R&B Instrumental!

STATUS: True

“Papa was a Rolling Stone” was likely the last massive hit song for the Temptations…

Released in 1972, it was a #1 hit song. It was featured on their 1972 album, All Directions…

The song was written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong for the Motown group The Undisputed Truth in 1971. Soon, though, Whitfield felt that the song would also work well with another group he produced, the Temptations (it was common at the time for a Motown producer to have multiple groups he was producing to release the same song - he did it frequently with the Undisputed Truth and the Temptations).

The Temptations were a bit hesitant to release the song, thinking it was going to flop. That said, one Temptation in particular REALLY had a hard time with the song. The song was done with the Temptations alternating lyrics, playing siblings who are telling the story of their father’s life and death.

Whitfield assigned Dennis Edwards the famous opening to the song, and Edwards resented it greatly. If you know the song, you know it opens with:

It was the 3rd of September/That day I’ll always remember/’cause that was the day/that my daddy died.

Well, Edwards’ father had, in fact, died on September 3rd, and he resented Whitfield for exploiting that fact (although Whitfield, naturally, pled ignorance).

Whitfield’s production of that part of the song, where he would make Edwards perform that one line over and over and over again until Edwards got the bitter delivery Whitfield wanted, was ultimately the straw that broke the Temptations’ back regarding Whitfield, and they fired him after this album.

Still, it WAS a huge hit, and it was critically lauded.

What it was lauded FOR, though, was pretty interesting.

The song won for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Group and Best R&B Song.

However, it ALSO won Best R&B Instrumental!!!

How, you might ask, could a song with such famous lyrics win the Grammy for Best Instrumental?

Well, on the album, the song was almost 12 minutes long.

This is because there was an extensive instrumental break on the tune.

When the song was released as a single in the United States, it had an A-side and a B-side.

The A-side was an edited down version of the song, sans the long instrumental break.

The B-side was the instrumental break.

And it was that B-Side that ended up winning the Grammy for Best R&B Instrumental!!

Pretty darn freaky.

Okay, that’s it for this week!

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com