Beggars Banquet

The album's most celebrated tracks are 'Sympathy for the Devil,' a samba-inflected narrative sung from the perspective of the Devil throughout history, and 'Street Fighting Man,' inspired by Mick Jagger's encounter with anti-war protests in London. Both songs became enduring classics in the Rolling Stones catalog.

Beggars Banquet was one of the last albums to feature significant contributions from Brian Jones, whose drug problems and creative differences were escalating during the recording sessions. Jones was dismissed from the band in 1969 and died less than a month later.

The original planned album cover featured a graffiti-covered bathroom wall, which their label Decca Records rejected as offensive and released the album with a plain white cover instead. The graffiti cover was eventually restored for later pressings and reissues.

After the psychedelic experimentation of Their Satanic Majesties Request in 1967, Beggars Banquet marked a deliberate return to the Rolling Stones' rhythm and blues roots. This shift toward stripped-down blues, country, and roots rock set the template for their most acclaimed era, including Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers.