I would like to offer another interpretation of the Grateful Dead’s song: Friend of the Devil .
The song’s narrator is obviously a damaged human being, probably a victim of some horrific childhood trauma. He is stumbling through his life wreaking havoc wherever he goes.
Here we are given the opportunity to feel what it’s like to be in his skin. Might we all feel some resonance within ourselves to this poor soul’s plight? Making no excuses for the damage he is creating, he is telling us how much it hurts.