Snakes are an interesting kind of animal, that walk without legs, can change their own skin, and often have a notable self-defense power, bound to the weapon of venom, and to the ability of charming prays. Since some million years ago, snakes have a long history of being the most dangerous predators of primates, the ancestors of men, that’s responsible of having caused an archetypal kind of fear, and an uncommon respect, often evolved in veneration. Primitive superstitions have generated the idea of transcendent entities, with supernatural attributions, who have become divinities, and have represented the focus of cults and religions. Logically, snakes were the earliest seeds of religiosity. With other words, even all that’s transcendent is rooted inside natural facts.
Historians of Christianity are aware that many traces of ancient, pagan religions are present in Christian doctrine, and Christian dogmas, as resulting from sacred scriptures. Naturally, the ancient symbolism of snakes is a clear example of that. While in the majority of ancient, pagan religions snakes had a divine nature, without any ethical connotation, in Christianism snakes have always been utilized for exemplifying the essence of evil, that’s a basic concept of the highly evolved kind of religion. Are snakes evil in themselves? No, of course. The Christian message is not a criticism to Mother Nature, but a warning against idolatry. Snakes are what they are, evil is extraneous to the animals. Evil can be a product of the idolatries based on a snake symbol, or, if you prefer, comes from bad human behaviors, that exploit Mother Nature for obtaining unnatural results, such as the slavery of man to man. In effect, the original sin is caused by a peculiar snake, coiled on the tree of knowledge, whose temptation consists of an indecent proposal to the earliest humans, at first to Eve and, indirectly, to Adam. The snake of evil has the purpose of obtaining a reject of God’s law, that’s a metaphor of a breakup in the harmony of creation.
Humanized snakes are powerful symbols, among which of wisdom, of fertility and sexuality, of circularity of life cycle, of renewal and mutation, of initiation and rebirth, and even of medicine. For that, snakes are massively present into rock and pop music, although not always according to the Christian tradition. The cited massive presence, obviously, has influenced disco dance music. For instance, in a page of the year 2013, I talked about a scandalous, illegal discotheque in NYC, active from 1973 to 1976 and named “Cobra’s Lair”, at the seventh floor of the McIntyre Building. The address was 874 Broadway and 18th street, Flatiron, NYC. The venue was something like the temple of a reptile god, and some true cobras were exposed in glass cases. At the end of 1976 the illegal disco was closed, and the cobras disappeared. For a long time, those snakes infested the Flatiron district of Manhattan.
Coming to music, naturally I recorded a special mix, suitable to discotheques resembling to pagan temples, where divine snakes are adored. Yes, the perfect mix for a blog dedicated to Satan.
File name is “idolatry of snakes in rock music, by Max Look DJ (Sept 2025)”, 1hour and 24’of danceable rock, about the myth of snakes.
The venomous playlist:
Mike Oldfield – viper (2002)
Styx – the serpent is rising (1973)
Iggy Pop – talking snake (2001)
P.J. Harvey – long snake moan (1995)
Doors – crawling king snake (1971)
Little Feat – snakes on everything (1971)
Sensational Alex Harvey Band – snake bite (1975)
Joss Stone – snakes and ladders (2004)
Frank Zappa – baby snakes (1979)
Blink-182 – snake charmer (2011)
Doobie Brothers – snake man (1972)
Motley Crue – rattlesnake shake (1989)
Testament – riding the snake (1999)
AC/DC – snake eye (1988)
Rainbow – snake charmer (1975)
Pixies – snakes (2014)
Rage Against the Machine – snakecharmer (1996)
Mint Juleps – the snake (1994)
Alice Cooper – snakebite (1991)
Underworld – king of snake (Fatboy Slim remix, 1999)
Spandau Ballet – snakes and lovers (1986)
ZZ Top – tube snake boogie (1981)
Lloyd Cole and the Commotions – rattlesnakes (1984)
