The three Stones EPs with their picture sleeves are amongst my most treasured possessions, relics of a bygone age when 45 rpm single cost 6s/8d (pre-decimilisation days here!) and an EP (extended play), which usually contained four tracks, 12s/6d.
In the 1960s the EP was an integral part of the recording industry, a middle ground between the singles and albums' markets. It provided an outlet for material not considered up to scratch for release as a single (although best-selling EPs sometimes featured in the singles charts, which in fact happened in the case of the Stones) or a taster for a forthcoming album featuring the most requested tracks. But EPs could also hold their own as separate and individual items, and the Beatles EPs are as essential to Beatles collectors as the three Stones ones are.
The Rolling Stones
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Released on January 17, 1964 to coincide with a British package tour the Stones' eponymously named first EP had been recorded the previous November in a one-day session at Kingsway Studio. With co-manager Eric Easton producing (Andrew Oldham being in Paris) the Stones cut a mixed bag of blues, soul and black rock and roll. |
Bye Bye Johnny (a.k.a, although very rarely, Johnnie B. Goode) was the group's second stab at the Chuck Berry songbook - at least on record, since, of course, they had been playing Berry songs for at least a couple of years. It was a flat-out rocker with Berry's licks slavishly shadowed by Keith dovetailing perfectly into the eight-to-a-bar boogie beat. It was the sort of song that the Stones could master and reproduce at will at any point in their career. Just listen to their take of Route 66 on their very last tour; Bye Bye Johnny itself was part of the 1972 set list.
Barret Strong's Money was a popular song of the day: it had already been covered by The Beatles and Bern Elliot and the Fenmen (two of whose members went on to join The Pretty Things) and was one of the five songs included in their set of the day. But this ragged and distorted recording sits uncomfortably with the rest of the EP. The Stones had plenty of other material at their disposal, so it is a mystery why they didn't include the excellent Fortune Teller (which had been recorded the previous August, but wasn't released until 1966 on Got Live if You Want it). It was reportedly Brian's choice.
Poison Ivy was stronger. The song had originally been intended as a follow-up to Come On (with Fortune Teller as the B side). But Decca shelved that plan and instead released both songs on a "Saturday Club" compilation, also in January 1964. For the EP, the band re-recorded Poison Ivy with Bill Wyman on harmony vocals. The song has a nice flow about it and is probably the nearest the Stones ever got to calamine lotion ("You're gonna need an ocean/ of calamine lotion/You'll be scratching like a hound/the minute you start to mess around").
But for one track, the EP probably would have sunk without trace, being poorly produced and with an odd collection of tracks. But, as it was, You Better Move On was the standout track, a southern soul ballad which had little in common with the R & B and hard-edged rock the Stones would later create. Already a mainstay of the live set by January 1964 this number was given an airing on the Arthur Haynes show, and a truncated version can be on 25x5 - the Continuing Adventures of the Rolling Stones. The Stones are a little self-conscious, Keith as a spotty-faced youth looking particularly uncomfortable, although Brian clearly relishes the spotlight. But, as Andrew Oldham reflected 36 years later when we contacted him, You Better Move On was a "piece of magic" that was actually better served as an EP cut rather than a single and gained the band some excellent exposure and actually becoming a Top 10 hit.
Five by Five
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By the time Five by Five was released the following August, the image of the Stones had become more clearly defined. So confident were they of their image and reputation in a ready-made market that the sleeve comprises just their photo and the Decca logo (an Oldham masterstroke which he initiated on their first LP, released in April). When I shelled out my 12s/6d on this little gem, I remember staring at the sleeve in awe (I was only 10 after all!). Here was everything that epitomised the Stones in those heady days of the summer of '64 - the brooding |
Phil Spector had booked Chicago's Chess studio for June 10 and 11, and when they arrived for the session at their musical Mecca one of their idols, Muddy Waters, even helped them to carry their gear from Stu's van. Under the supervision of legendary engineer Ron Malo the Stones felt completely at home, getting an infinitely better recorded sound than in London studios and recording on a four-track. A total of 16 tracks were recorded during those two days including their first number one, It's All Over Now, and the five tracks for this EP. Never one to miss an opportunity for free publicity, Andrew Oldham and the group began the second day by calling a press conference on a traffic island in Michigan Avenue, bringing the traffic to a standstill.
Around and Around was the opening number of the EP, one with which they were completely at home since they had been playing it since 1961/2 as Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys and had included it on a demo tape they sent Alexis Korner in the hope of securing gigs at the Ealing Club. Chuck Berry watched from the Chess recording booth as the Stones turned in a flawless performance - "as near perfect as any rock 'n' roll record can be," wrote Roy Carr. "It personifies in detail the pure essence of all the Stones admired and stood for." I would add that it's one of the few instances where the Stones managed to cut Berry with one of his own songs (Little Queenie being another). A key element is the keyboards of Ian Stewart, his finger-busting piano fills complementing the tightly meshed guitars of Keith and Brian, Charlie's superbly adroit drumming and Bill's fattened bass sound. It's all a perfect fit.
The soul balladry of If You Need Me was a precursor to the melodic pop of Ruby Tuesday and Back Street Girl with Stu's gospel organ enhancing the overall mood. This number was a regular in the live set during the second half of 1964 and there is a killer version of it recorded at the BBC and available on the many bootleg CDs of the Stones at the BBC (see Issue 19), most notable for Mick and Keith pulling off Everly Brothers-style harmonies.
The developing authenticity in the Stones' interpretation of blues standards was illustrated in Confessin' the Blues, a swing number from 1941 which the embryonic Stones had performed on their debut at the Marquee in July 1962. At the end of the marathon recording session the group found time to jam and came up with 2120 South Michigan Avenue, the Stones paying homage to their visit to Chess. Bill's rumbling bass and Stu's organ, set to "strangulated choke" (as Roy Carr described it), get the ball rolling before Brian cuts in with harmonica. There is an equally good take from the BBC recordings with Mick on harmonica and Brian on lead guitar with crystalline runs which are simply exquisite. In the sleeve notes on the EP, Andrew Oldham suggested that the number was included as an extra for the fans - could this be the first ever example of a bonus track?
Although it never saw action in the live set (apart from a mimed performance on Thank Your Lucky Stars), Empty Heart is mid-'60s white R&B at its best. Riding a single riff throughout, Keith's fractured rhythms give it the feel of a hybrid surfing number before Mick flickers into focus with lyrics of adolescent yearning - "well, you've been my lover for a long, long time", which are light years away from his brutal chauvinism on Aftermath. Mick's phrasing on the bridge reflects a new confidence and maturity and Charlie's drumming just kicks the whole thing along brilliantly. The last two tracks were credited to Nanker Phelge, a songwriting pseudonym for group compositions.
In less than a year the Stones would depart from the songs of Chicago and the Mississippi Delta and gravitate towards a more polished urban soul sound, recording exclusively at RCA Hollywood. But, as Andrew Oldham reflected nearly 40 years later, the Chess sessions were a turning point in the recording life of the Stones. "They were able to record and master their musical inspirations at the source."
Got Live if You Want it!
The Stones undertook yet another mini-British tour in March 1965, and engineer Glyn Johns recorded the mayhem on a three-track tape recorder - one for Mick,
another for the band and a third from a single mike dangling from a balcony on a length of cable on three separate nights, at Edmonton, Liverpool and Manchester.
Released on June 11, 1965, Got Live if You Want it! captures perfectly the scream-drenched era of mass hysteria when there wasn't a dry seat in the cinema and the band had to escape from gigs over roofs, through back doors and across railway lines. Keith's memories are vivid: "We'd walk into some of those places and it was like a battle going on, people gasping, tits hanging out, chicks choking and nurses running around. You know that weird sound that thousands of chicks make when they're really letting go. They couldn't hear the music and we couldn't hear ourselves."
The opening chant of We Want the Stones segues into Everybody Needs Somebody to Love which in turn leads into Pain In My Heart, the standout ballad from the No 2 album. Route 66 brings on more hysteria, Mick's arse-wiggling no doubt responsible rather than Keith's stunning solo.
I'm Moving On had been a huge hit for Hank Snow, topping the US country charts for 44 weeks and my bet is that this was Keith's choice - his grandfather Gus Dupree had played it in a country band. But the Stones turned it into a pounding electric power driver that couldn't have come from anywhere before 1965. Featuring Brian's vicious slide guitar and honking mouth harp from Mick (he achieved a similar train whistle effect on Silver Train), it's easy to overlook the excellent work from the rhythm section where Bill's pulsating bass and Charlie's driving beat convey the feel of a steam train thundering along.
I'm Alright had become part of the live set in early 1964 and was basically little more than a repeat guitar riff throwing the accent on and off the beat for three minutes but it served the rabble-rousing purpose well. The Hollies were one of the support acts on that tour (two shows a night) and Graham Nash's observations are worth noting: "There was an incredible difference between the depth of emotion expressed for the Stones and for us. We could certainly drive them crazy but it went to a new level when the Stones came on. It was somehow deeper and darker than Beatlemania."
As an interesting historical footnote to the Nanker Phelge songwriting credit, Andrew Oldham told Shattered that by crediting the opening chant and the last track, I'm Alright, to Nanker Phelge, he was getting one back on the record company which had refused to pay any royalties to either Oldham or the band for their highly successful cover versions. So now we know!
Got Live If You Want It abounds with primal energy and it remains a priceless document of the Stones frozen in time with their baying audience. Shame that the photo of Brian on the cover is inverted showing him playing the guitar left-handed!
Compared with other '60s' bands who released several EPs, it is perhaps strange that the Stones only released three. Here again an Andrew Oldham explanation helps us to know why, as he told us: "EPs were like piddling around. The record companies let you do one for having been good boys and done well with a single. Once we got busy, singles and LPs were it."
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Between the Buttons and Their Satanic Majesties Request capture The Rolling Stones in transit, the red-hot R&B-cum-ace singles band somewhere in between the long spell on the road and their re-entry in 1968 as the elder statesmen of raunch and the 'greatest rock 'n roll band in the world'. Mick and Keith have both virtually disowned 'Buttons' whilst Stones biographer Philip Norman described it as having a "curiously limp echoing effect, like a vaudeville show in a near empty hall". Rock critic Roy Carr went one step further calling it a "turkey". |
But they're wrong, of course. 'Buttons' remains one of my favourite Stones albums, not least because it contains two of my all-time Top 12 Stones songs - Connection and Complicated. (The others? Since you ask: I'm a King Bee, 19th Nervous Breakdown, Under My Thumb, 2000 Light Years from Home, Parachute Woman, Gimme Shelter, Silver Train, She Was Hot, Had it With You and Mixed Emotions.)
It's an album full of suburban sex melodies dripping with musical whimsy and quirky turnarounds, funny beginnings and even funnier endings. You can't see the roots for the blossom. It is essentially a pop album and a damned good one at that. Viewed now in the glorious certainty of hindsight, what then may have seemed poorly produced holds up astoundingly well under today's critical ear.
Much of the blame at the time was laid on Andrew Oldham and perhaps there was a grain of truth in this. Keith: "Oldham was so influenced by Phil Spector that anything was possible if you put enough echo on it." In many ways Oldham was a throwback to the Colonel Tom Parker syndrome, the circus barker and con man. He may have projected an image for the Stones but didn't seem to care about their musical development.
Five of the tracks were recorded in August 1966 following a US tour, with an upfront mix of bass, drums and keyboards, and scarcely a guitar in sight. The remaining seven tracks were taped at London's Olympic studios in November/December at the end of yet another British tour. Jack Nitzsche was recruited for some piano and harpsichord, in addition to the regular six Stones (including, of course, Stu).
TRACK BY TRACK
Side One kicks off with Yesterday's Papers in which Mick callously downgrades his discarded girifriend Chrissie Shrimpton to the level of waste paper.
This was the only track from the Buttons album that the Stones played on the 1967 spring tour of Europe. Mick's studied attitude of outrage and depravity
has always wandered pretty close to the edge as My Obsession clearly demonstrates. "My mouth is soaking wet/I think I blew it now" leaves little to the
imagination. lan Stewart supplies piano fills on this one.
Back Street Girl contains yet more brutal chauvinism - "Don't try to ride on my horse/you're rather common and coarse anyway/don't want you part of
my world/just you be my back street girl". The incongruous setting of an acoustic ballad complete with Parisienne accordion, set against misogynist lyrics
was nonetheless one of the album's high points.
Connection is one of the cleanest, tightest rock songs ever recorded. Rolling Stone journo Jon Landau called it the "drier than ice sound". The band played the song on Sunday Night at the Palladium, the infamous show where they refused to take part in the corny end of show wave to the audience. The song remained in mothballs until Keith aired it with the X-Pensive Winos and then sung it from time to time on the Voodoo Lounge tour.
She Smiled Sweetly captures the Stones in tender mood and features Keith on organ. This track was an odd choice for their appearance in early February of that year on the Eamonn Andrews Show. This was the night when Mick announced he would be suing the News ofthe World for libellous remarks about his possession of drugs. Retribution was swift. The Redlands bust came one week later and the band were well and truly thrown off course handling the bust and its fallout for most of the rest of the year.
Between the Buttons lacked Aftermath's unity of style, using more varied arrangements. The catalyst for such diversions was Brian Jones, whose talent for mastering and adapting almost any instrument that happened to be around was given full rein. He put the sitar and kazoo to colourful use on Cool, Calm and Collected. The song's bouncy piano and Mick's nursery rhyme lyrics delivered in a mannered English mode were a nod in the direction of the music hall. Perhaps it was this track more than any other which prompted Roy Carr to dismiss the album as a "bunch of Kinks outtakes".
On to Side Two and All Sold Out which finds Mick on the offensive again: "Never seen a mind so tangled/a girl so strangled/your mind has just jumped the tracks." The chauvinistic tone of his lyrics were undoubtedly influenced by the new social milieu into which the Stones had swept - the swinging London of debutantes, artists and photographers. As Brian supplied the musical seasoning, Keith continued to advance his basic rhythm technique. With its primitive Bo Diddley beat and distorted guitar Please Go Home was a perfect example of the jagged, flashy urbanised form of R&B which the Stones had developed a year earlier with songs like Mother's Little Helper and 19th Nervous Breakdown.
SATISFACTION? I COULD'VE WRITTEN THAT..
Bob Dylan once remarked that he could have written Satisfaction but doubted whether the Stones could have come up with Mr Tambourine Man. Who's Been Sleeping Here?
is arguably the closest Mick came to playing Dylan at his own game in what is a vastly underrated track. Mick's blossoming romance with Marianne Faithfull
was the inspiration behind Complicated, a brilliant number which really ought to be tried out live. Once again drums, bass and keyboards dominate the mix.
The Stones were now rubbing shoulders with London's upper crust, models and rich spoiled rats - "she's the darling of the discotheque crowd/of her lineage
she's rightfully proud". Miss Amanda Jones is more or less a filler and for me the only low point of the album.
In the four years since their formation, the Stones had gradually scaled their assault on staid, middle-class values. Veiled allusions to drugs and discontent in earlier songs like Paint It Black and Doncha Bother Me gradually evaporated until the meaning was quite obvious in Something Happened to Me Yesterday. This closing number offered aberrant items such as Keith on lead vocals for part of the verses (the first time he had sung lead), Brian on saxophone and trombone, and some facetious road safety advice from Mick delivered in true Dixon of Dock Green fashion (a hugely popular TV soap about the police force in the 1960s for those of you outside the UK).
The Stones' indistinct transition from pop to destinations unstated was mirrored perfectly in Gered Mankowitz's vaseline-smeared lens, the sinisterly simple sleeve with the buttons on Charlie's coat acting as cat's eyes capturing the very essence of he band. Snapped on Primrose Hill in London on a bleak winter dawn, the Stones had never looked more hollow-cheeked and unappealing.
It was no surprise that a few years or so ago Oasis, also seeking to move into new musical territory, went for the identical don't-give-a-shit image by using that very same location and the same photographer for a shot which they used on the cover of Mojo magazine. But there, of course, the comparison ends...
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As the swinging '60s recede into the distance, the Stones' psychedelic skeleton in the closet continues to divide Stones fans and rock critics alike. American writer Jon Landau said at the time "this album, despite moments of unquestionable brilliance, puts the status of the Stones in jeopardy" as the music press in general put the boot in. |
Before passing judgement, it is important to examine the circumstances surrounding the Stones in 1967. The big beat boom spawned on Merseyside was over and into the void came acid rock and flower power from America's affluent West Coast. Four years of solid touring had the left the group exhausted. Brian Jones and Keith Richards were barely talking to each other following the ill-fated sojourn to Morocco in February of that year. And on top of that, they had the Redlands drug bust and subsequent trial to contend with.
The hapless Jones, hospitalised twice that year for nervous breakdowns, had his own drugs trial in the autumn. As Charlie Watts said, "I think it was a miracle that we produced anything under the pressures and emotional upheavals within the group."
There were other problems. The rift between the band and producer/manager Andrew Oldham was widening and an intractable situation manifested itself during the summer. On two consecutive nights the Stones purposely fiddled around the studio playing the blues as badly as possible to force a confrontation. Oldham eventually walked out, never to return. The takeover of the Stones by the Glimmer Twins was underway.
An epidemic?!?
In spite of its title, Majesties was probably one of the least satanic of their albums. Almost a year in the making, an inordinate amount of money was
spent on its multicoloured 3D sleeve assembled at New York's Pictorial Production Studio at a reputed cost of between £12,000 and £14,000.
Released in December 1967, the album limped to No 4 in Britain but shot to No 1 in the US earning a gold disc and a trans-Atlantic message to Decca - "It's not a hit, it's an epidemic!" As for the music itself, well perhaps the critics were justified in some of their comments, for it is still a mystery how a group so instrumentally together as the Stones could produce the disjointed jams and under-rehearsed cacophony on Sing This Altogether, Part 2 and the whimsical Gomper, the album's two weakest tracks. I've often thought that had these tracks been replaced by Dandelion and Child of the Moon (B sides of We Love You and Jumping Jack Flash respectively) the album would have been improved without losing any of its unique spacey feel.
Although Majesties will always suffer in comparison to the Beatles' Sergeant Pepper, the Fab Four never created anything quite as otherworldly as The Lantern and Bill Wyman's In Another Land, both of whose shimmering electronic and vocal textures gave them a beautiful ghostly sheen. And the Stones, to their credit, never came up with anything quite as lame as the Beatles' godawful When I'm 64.
Wyman's snoring segues into 2000 Man which is really a beefed up C+W number showcasing Keith's ever-improving acoustic guitar technique. Fleshed out with random sounds from a Cockney street market and a striptease club, She's a Rainbow and On With the Show are the albums 's two most commercial sounding songs with session virtuoso Nicky Hopkins providing the classical runs.
A voracious reader at the time, Mick gleaned many of his lyrics from The Secret of the Golden Flower and The Morning of the Magicians in particular on the opening track, Sing This Altogether, which sets the tone for the rest of the album. Citadel, a dark Gothic rocker with Mick's futuristic lyrics set against Keith's magnificent power chording, is a vastly underrated and much neglected track which has never featured on any of Decca's or London's '60s compilations. (Roxy Music even nicked the riff for their 1973 hit Street Life.)
Like Space, Man
But one track which stands out amongst the rest is 2000 Light Years From Home. There is no other song which conveys such an awesome sense of distance
and isolation like this space anthem does. The lyrics were written during Mick's night on remand in Brixton prison. According to engineer Glyn Johns,
the basic track sounded very ordinary until Brian Jones added his haunting Mellotron, bathing the song in an eerie extraterrestrial light.
Propelled by Charlie's superbly tight drumming and Keith's perfectly underlaid rhythm part, 2000 Light Years provides an object lesson in dynamics and arrangement. Brian's contribution is all the more extraordinary when one considers his precarious state of mind at the time. A Top of the Pops clip from the July sessions clearly illustrated how this talented yet doomed young musician was slowly going to pieces. The archetypal musical dilettante and the Stones' houseminstrel, Brian supplied the peripheral instrumentation which gave the album so much of its exotic flavour.
It's often said that pop music should be true to its time and in that respect Their Satanic Majesties Request should be regarded as a success. It captures the essence of that acid-drenched summer of '67 and thus vindicates the Stones' one-off trip into psychedelia. But they would never again stray so far from their blues roots. Perhaps Charlie put the whole episode in perspective when he said: "The Stones never looked right in kaftans anyway."
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For most people it was the zip and those crotch-hugging, whiter than white underpants. But, for me, the real impact of Andy Warhol's Sticky Fingers cover was the inner printed card with that logo. It is the tongue that first hits you, leering eyes, lips and mammoth outstretched tongue on which had printed down each the five tracks of each side of the album. |
Recently, it came to light that the Andy Warhol-designed cover was an afterthought. The photo used in the inlay card (taken by Peter Webb) was the original cover before Andy Warhol propositioned Mick (as it were); Peter Webb's photos have now been officially acknowledged by the Rolling Stones office, according to a recent special issue of Q magazine on album covers.
But the really important part of the inlay card lies in the paragraph in the top left hand corner. Jimmy Miller's simple request: "turn it up". He needn't have worried. From the opening riff of Brown Sugar to the closing orchestral chords of Moonlight Mile, Sticky Fingers, slow songs, blues laments, hard rock, Chuck Berry-inspired riffs and all, is just meant to be listened to at maximum volume. As with his work on Beggars Banquet, Let it Bleed and Exile on Main Street, Jimmy Miller's sheer brilliance at capturing the Stones sound so perfectly on record means that the louder you listen, the better it is.
The Stones on a roll
Everyone has their own favourite Stones albums, and it is a fairly safe bet that most of us would choose one from those four. As John Perry so brilliantly
explained in his exposition of Exile, why we like music and why we have favourites is completely subjective and often incapable of being explained.
We like it because we ... well, we like it.
But context is important, too. Where were you when you listened to the record? What was happening in your life at the time? How old were you? In my case,
when Sticky Fingers was released I was at school - probably still cursing my not being able to catch the band on their short tour of England in March 1971.
It was a hot summer, the term when I was due to take 'O' levels and so probably spending more time indoors than I would really prefer for having to prepare
for the exams. All, but all of my friends, bought Sticky Fingers, so wherever you went you would hear it coming out of people's rooms. Sticky Fingers
entered our heads and soaked our souls.
10 of the best
Listening to the record 30 years later, I know exactly why Sticky Fingers is so good: it is the songs. Out of the usual Stones pandemonium came a
classic of 10 no-nonsense, out-and-out, solid gold, fan-fucking-tastic songs. They might not have the feel of Exile or the power of Let it Bleed, but each
song stands on its own, and among them you have got pretty much all the best: one of the Stones top three classics (Brown Sugar), the best ballad in the Stones
canon (Wild Horses), their best country song (Dead Flowers), their most soulful blues (I Got the Blues) and their best drugs song (Sister Morphine).
Not to mention songs with great lyrics. You know you are dealing with the best when you get lyrics that range from "I'm no schoolboy but I know what
I like" to "No sweeping exits or offstage lines" and everything in between. (I mean, what more could you honestly ask for?)
Sticky Fingers is a strange mix between the 'up' and the 'down'. You have the raw energy of Brown Sugar tempered by the melancholy of I Got the Blues, the all-out attack and distortion of Can't You Hear Me Knocking versus the exquisite delicacy of Wild Horses, the staccato attack of Bitch leavened by the majestic sweep of Sway. That is what keeps the listener totally engaged; at no point do you ever feel this is the Stones going through the motions.
Brown Sugar
Everyone in the whole words knows the Brown Sugar riff, and every single guitarist in the world - professional and amateur - thinks they know to play the
chords (myself included). But the truth of the matter is that no-one plays it like Keith. It is, of course, a great riff: when Keith slides the record on
to the deck in the film of Gimme Shelter you can see he knows he has nailed it, as his loose limbs jive to the song's rhythm. The key to the song is that it
is not taken too fast. The rawness of the electric sound is offset by a wash of acoustic guitar underneath, which curiously adds to the funkiness of the track
as much as Ian Stewart's rollicking barroom piano. And then you all know the rest - and we won't even go into Mick's lyrics..... The Stones re-recorded the
song a year after it was first recorded at Olympic Studios with Eric Clapton providing some tasty slide guitar and Al Kooper tinkling away on piano - and it
still sounds just as good! At one time, this was the version they were contemplating putting out on the album. In fact, it makes no difference to us fans
since, of course, we all have both versions.
This may be heresy but, in my book, this is the only Stones classic that sounds better on the record than played live - even though they will have played the song in every concert since it was recorded, starting off at Altamont when Mick Taylor suggested they include it on the spur of the moment, bar the band's last two shows of the 1960s (played in London).
Sway
One of a number of tracks recorded (in part) at Mick's house in Berkshire with the newly acquired Rolling Stones Mobile parked outside in the spring of 1970.
Mick Taylor (who probably still to this day reckons he should have earned a songwriting credit) lets rip a classic fluid series of guitar lines that mean we
don't even miss Keith's guitar playing on this track (and the absence of Keith may explain why the Stones have never played this one live). One of the buried
treasures in the Stones catalogue.
Wild Horses
Close your eyes, listen to those acoustic guitars and float away. As Keith does in the film of Gimme Shelter while listening to the playback, only to wake
up as the final chord fades, nod and give his assent to the superb recorded version (out of tune piano and all). To show how good the song structure is, you
can play it on standard tuning or in open G and both sound equally good. There is so much that is pure magic about this song that it is hard to single out
any one moment, but here's one that gets me every time. Keith's short G major arpeggio (or "archipelago" (!) as he mistakenly calls it as he fluffs the
introduction to Love in Vain on Stripped) underpinning Mick Taylor's second solo at 4:53 before the shift to A minor (hey!, I know that kind of shit, too!)
and the lead-in to the final chorus.
Curiously, this was recorded and released by the Flying Burrito Brothers (of which, of course, Keith's buddy Gram Parsons was the leading light) before the Stones' version. As was Marianne Faithfull's version of Sister Morphine - even though it was quickly taken off the shelves after its release in 1969 - thus making it perhaps the only album where two of the songs hit the airwaves before the Stones' versions.
Can't You Hear me Knocking
I defy anyone to come up with a more rollicking, dirty sounding opening riff than the one Keith slashes out to kick off Can't You Hear me Knocking.
Against that rolling, thundering riff, Mick Taylor plays straight half-beat chord patterns and Mick almost screams his vocals. Cocaine eyes, and speed-freak
jive, indeed! The song, after a blasting start, continues to pick up momentum in the choruses, thanks again to some impeccable Watts' sticksmanship. As the
band stretches out, you can't help thinking that this would make a great opening number in the live set (Mick and Keith, are you listening?). Again, a first
and a last: the only jam which made it on to an officially released studio album.
You Gotta Move
A third song recorded at Muscle Shoals (not acknowledged on the sleeve credits) because union rules prevented the Stones in theory from recording in
the States. The song is a raucous, unholy mess and all the more engaging for it. It sounds like it was recorded last thing before the studios were closed
for the night. Stones sloppiness at its best, which contrasts completely with.......
(pause to flip over the record)
Bitch
.......the tightness of Bitch. This song was apparently going nowhere until Keith, munching on a bowl of cornflakes (now there's an image to savour), put the
bowl down, put on his Chuck Berry hat and took control. Not to forget Charlie, who drives the song forward with his (at that time) standard rolling snare
drum pattern. It is one of Sticky Fingers' trademarks that a number of the tracks seem to "swell" as they proceed, either as more instruments get added, or -
and I swear Jimmy Miller does this - they get progressively slightly louder. Bitch is a good example of this pattern, as the songs shifts into another gear
when Keith rips into a spitting, stuttering guitar solo, and the brass section blast away. Again, the tempo is exactly right: just listen to this version and
compare with any of the live versions post-1989 and you can hear that in concert it loses some of its funkiness by (usually) being played too fast.
I Got the Blues
In an album of top-ranking songs this is one of the very highlights, and probably one of the most tender songs in the Stones' catalogue (and "tender" is not
often a word you often read in the same sentence as "the Stones"!). This was the Stones' tribute to Otis Redding, as Mick officially acknowledged at the 1999
Shepherds Bush gig, but that has more to do with the brass than the song itself. Personally, I think the brass actually detracts from the exquisite interplay
between Keith and Mick Taylor. Keith may have found the early '70s' incarnation of the band too "intellectual" but he and Mick Taylor never played as well
together as on this track - and rarely has the guitar sound been so spot-on. Mick's vocal positively aches with yearning, oozing late-night regret (at 3.00
in the morning indeed) and heartache. Greil Marcus calls I Got the Blues "monumentally contrived", which is about as monumental a misjudgement as is possible
to have.
Sister Morphine
Sister Morphine was recorded during the Beggars Banquet Sessions, which explains the presence of Ry Cooder, whose taut slide playing invests the song with
its stark, eerie quality. You would have to scour hard and deep in the Stones' entire catalogue to find a song that sounds anything like Sister Morphine.
Dark London streets, someone in the gutter, ambulances, doctors with no faces: man, someone is having a really bad hair day! Yet another song that builds
from very little, picking up new sounds and instruments as it develops. Special honours to Bill (at 1:25) and Charlie (at 2:35) who show exactly why they
were the perfect rhythm section for the band. But the masterstroke is the chord progression from F to E Major and back to the tonic of Am right at the song's
conclusion, as the blood seeps over the sheets and the narrator's life ebbs away. Pretentious, I hear you say. Moi?
Dead Flowers
And before we get too morose, in swings the country beat of Dead Flowers, in my opinion, Mick's best country song (with Evening Gown not far behind).
And swing is the key here: the Stones can never do anything without hitting the right groove, aided, of course, by Stu on the joanna and some more driving
drumming by Charlie. I can't be sure whether it is Keith or Mick Taylor who takes the solo (though my money would be on Keith), but whichever one of them it
is, they get it dead right by not trying to be too flash and upsetting the balance. And what a payoff line! "I won't forget to put flowers on your grave."
Only Elvis Costello with this Tramp the Dirt Down has managed quite so brilliantly to marry such top-quality melody with such vitriol in the lyrics. But lest
we get too morose, Charlie's short glass-chinking tap on the symbol and Stu's final boogie-woogie tinkle as the song fades to make sure we know this is a
country song after all.
Moonlight Mile
And for the closer, we switch tack again with yet another song that sounds like nothing else the Stones have ever done before or since. Jim Price's
piano gives the track an almost Eastern feel to it, and then the song takes over in another direction altogether with Paul Buckmaster's strings. At that
time, Paul Buckmaster was adding strings to Elton John's songs and that may be where Mick got the idea. This is the song of the two Micks (Keith otherwise
disposed) and it is said that Mick T always bemoaned not getting a joint writing credit. "Just another bad, bad day on the road," Mick J sings, sighing perhaps
at the chaotic legacy of Altamont and the end of the 1960s. Phew! What a way to finish a classic album.
And there you have it: 46:27 of great music. If they had recorded the album in the CD era, they may have felt obliged to include two or three more tracks, which would have only served to reduce the album's stunning impact. No doubt, one day it will be re-released with 'bonus' tracks, probably the demos of Tumbling Dice, Sweet Black Angel and Waiting on a Friend. But I am sure most of us would rather have a full bonus live CD of the Stones' performance at Leeds. Some hope!
One measure of a great album is how often you can listen and re-listen to it without getting sick of it. Sticky Fingers passes that test with flying colours: if anything, you can hear more each time you play it. Not as radical as Beggars Banquet, not as dirty as Some Girls and not as true to the band's roots as Exile, Sticky Fingers, nevertheless, in my humble opinion, transcends them all. What about Let it Bleed, I hear you say? Well, that is faultless, too - but that is for someone else to review!
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Is the enigmatic Exile on Main Street a misunderstood masterpiece or the fall from grace that rock critics suspected at the time? Having listened to the album only once and forced into snap judgements many writers at the time registered disappointment at the music's blurred edges and indecipherable lyrics. I have to admit that I was one of the doubters also until I hauled Exile out again four years later and the full impact hit home, and I haven't stopped playing it since. |
It is, as NME journo Nick Kent wrote in 1974, "the quintessential Stones album, a no bones about it rock 'magnum opus', so much so that when Exile was thrust upon us we couldn't even recognise it." Interviewed in 1976 the late Ian Stewart described Exile as his favourite Stones album, and most Stones fans I know are of the same opinion. The 18 songs cover all aspects of popular music - rock, blues, country, soul, even calypso. As Mick said on Exile's release, "It's like four single-sided albums, with something for everyone."
The band was really hot . .
It was the summer of 1971. The Stones had decamped to the south of France (for tax reasons), a tour of America was scheduled for the following year,
and they were under pressure from Atlantic Records for something special to counteract the flood of inferior compilations Decca were releasing (Milestones,
Stone Age (the cover of which the band completely disowned in newspaper ads), and Rock 'n' Rolling Stones). Despite occasional setbacks like the Stones'
chef blowing up the kitchen, Anita setting fire to the bed and thieves making off with most of Keith's treasured guitar collection, the Stones delivered a
classic.
Recorded in Keith's Nellcôte Villa basement under the working title 'Tropical Disease' the cramped conditions (Nicky Hopkins and piano sat in a separate cubby hole) somehow enhanced the overall character of the album. Exile is the Stones at their most dense and impenetrable with Mick's voice buried way down in the mix. Keith's sinister, brooding presence permeates the album, and all four sides bear the undeniable imprint of his personal and musical character. The guitar interplay is the real key with Keith's taut rhythm chording providing the perfect foil for Mick Taylor's diamond-cutter lead guitar. The rest of the band hook themselves around the two guitarists, packed in tightly for almost claustrophobic intensity. It's as if the physical confines of the Nellcôte cellar had somehow been transmitted onto vinyl. Even today, transferred to CD, Exile retains its primitive basement appeal.
The Stones celebrated 10 years in the business by regaining much of their early ruggedness with Exile which offers a more authentic, compelling insight into that particular underworld than the contrived and sometimes facile postures of its predecessor Sticky Fingers (still a great album, though!). Lyrically, Mick distances himself from the decadent posing and leering sexual bravado of Sticky Fingers and approaches his subject matter with down-to-earth honesty and frankness.
What is Mick singing?
The album kicks of with one of Keith's patented guitar scratchings on Rocks Off - "zipping through the days at lightning speed/plug in, flush out,
fight the lucky feed (or, according to some ears, "plug in, flush out, fight 'n' fucking feed") - then veers into the spin dizzy rushes of Rip This Joint.
With Stu bashing the piano, Bobby Keys' blistering sax and Bill Plummer's mazy runs on the upright bass, this track is without doubt one of the most
spontaneous and uninhibited moments to have been captured on record.
Bill Wyman is curiously absent on many of the tracks, with Keith and Mick Taylor sharing the bass duties (with Keith particularly impressive on Casino Boogie). Slim Harpo's Hip Shake mounts up as another plus, whilst Casino Boogie sounds strangely like a '70s remake of the chord progression from 1965's Spider and the Fly. Many of Exile's songs make the most of a riff, steering clear of melodic flamboyance, as is the case with Tumbling Dice, which only reached no. 5 in the UK singles charts. Brown Sugar, Honky Tonk Women and Jumpin' Jack Flash, all no. 1s, were a hard act to follow, it has to be said.
Keith's infatuation with country music comes to the fore in Sweet Virginia, a Gram Parsons-inspired lazy shuffle which tends to get hung on the over-emphasised "shit" in the round-the-campfire chorus (on which Parsons actually sung). Torn and Frayed is autobiographical, commenting on the wasted condition of Keith (disguised as "Joe") - "Joe's got a cough/sounds kinda rough/yeah, and the codeine to fix it/doctor prescribes, drug store supplies/Who's gonna help him to kick it?" Excellent steel guitar was added later by Al Perkins in LA (who was then one of Stephen Stills' Manassas, with whom Bill Wyman also did some sessions).
Next up is Sweet Black Angel, an acoustic paean to black activist Angela Davis; I distinctly recall this B-side of Tumbling Dice being a jukebox favourite in my hometown. Loving Cup dates back to the Let it Bleed sessions and was first performed at Hyde Park in July 1969. And these four songs made up the "stripped" side of the album.
Turd on the Run, with Keith's jangly Maybellene rhythm guitar and Mick's blueswailing harmonica, is a great little hustler of a song - "Gave you
diamonds/You gave me disease". Barbed lines like these appear out of the mix at every turn.
Ventilator Blues offers yet more frightening glimpses of hedonistic decay - "when your spine is cracking/and your hands they shake". Just Wanna See His Face
features a Dr John-influenced Voodoo incantation with Mick and the chorus sinuously wavering around a collection of jungle drums. The final 2:52 length
of the song was edited from a much longer version. As Keith told Roy Carr: "We just chopped the most interesting part out of it and threw away the rest."
Had Exile been a single album then this little gem would have ended up in the vaults. Thankfully, it didn't, for, as James Hector points out in his excellent
review of all the Stones music to date, it's in the margins that Exile's true greatness lies.
Lyrically and melodically Let it Loose is a classic in the mould of Memory Motel with Charlie's drumming and Mick's vocal performances making this
track my particular favourite, and the gospel backing vocals from Clyde King and Vanetta Fields towards the end of the song are simply breathtaking.
All Down the Line is a straight up no nonsense rocker, which also originated from 1969 sessions and was a popular live number throughout the '70s.
Mick blows a mean harmonica once again on Stop Breaking Down, an old Robert Johnson blues converted into a foot-tapper featuring scintillating slide
from Mick Taylor. Shine A Light is another disturbing vignette with the unforgettable opening line - "Saw you stretched out in Room 1009" - and
it was great to see this number resurrected (largely at the fans' instigation) on the Voodoo Lounge tour. Soul Survivor seals the bottle - "it's a
graveyard watch/running right on the rocks/I've taken all of the knocks". And did anyone notice that the opening riff of the coda was lifted directly by
Michael Jackson in Black or White? Soul Survivor defiantly announces that the Stones intend to survive, no matter what.
With Exile in the bag, the band headed off on what many regard as their best tour ever, the '72 tour of the States. In those days, two months was considered
a long tour. Keith told Roy Carr: "A tour of America is so arduous that it knocks you on your heels for the rest of the year....but I am sure we'd like
to get back together again in the autumn and tour England. The trouble is that people expect too much from bands like us." That was said 30 years ago!
With Exile on Main Street the Stones reached the zenith of their damaged vision where they walk to the edge and cast a doleful eye over the trail
of human wreckage incurred from all the partying. From pissing against a garage wall, to the nervous breakdowns, drug busts and court cases it had all been
great fun. They just don't make them like this any more.
Jagger's first-born, Might as Well Get Juiced, is as the singer puts it, "fake blues for the 1990s" and at the same time shows the band as close to
Iggy Pop or Gary Newman as possible. It would be a great opening number for the live shows. The album seems very much to be a Jagger thing. He opted for a
different approach altogether. "You have to break the mould," he told Rolling Stone. "That is why we went for different noises. I just wanted to
change the way grooves worked." So new producers were roped in to add some fresh ideas to some, well, already new concepts. "I was really impressed,"
says Dust Brother Mike Simpson about the Might As Well Get Juiced demo. "I said, 'Wow, it sounds like we already worked on this.'"
The use of new people and methods could in some way label this album a Black and Blue for the '90s. It certainly has the same urban feel to it, as its
1976 predecessor when the Stones were trying out new guitarists from various musical backgrounds.
Another oddity is the reggae-tinged Gunface. A catchy tune with dripping vitriolic Jagger lyrics: "I taught here everything /I taught here how to dream /
I taught here everything /I'm gonna teach her how to scream."
There is more reggae with the following track, You Don't Have to Mean It. Keith takes his Words of Wonder to a sunnier, more calypso like level.
All in all there are three Keith songs on the album. The two final numbers see Keith in his usual ballad mode, sounding more and more like his old mucker
Tom Waits. How Can I Stop is a great soulful little thing that just glides along nicely Keith-style. Thief in the Night, however, starts off promisingly
but the song just doesn't take off. Richards's voice doesn't carry enough emotion and the track lacks a climax. I think the Twins should have done a swap
where Keith took on Too Tight on vocals and Mick would take care of Thief in the Night with a slightly different arrangement, turning it more into an actual
song rather than a musical doodle But that is personal.
Although Too Tight might have perfectly suited Keith, it is one of the album's weakest tracks. It is a straight up fast rocker in true old-fashioned
Stones style that could have benefited from a prominent piano input a la Between the Buttons/Connection rather than it being so heavily guitar based.
In the rock department Low Down is much more interesting and has a nice heavy groove accompanied by some great backing vocals and brass.
Another impressive Jagger lyric too: "The headlines are screaming /They change every day/As long as I ain't in them /I'm happy that way."
Out of Control has been spiced up with strong doses of 'Shaft-like' soul (did anyone mention Baretta's Theme?), which probably emerged from Mick's recent
interest in old Curtis Mayfield records.
Then it is on to the ballads. Always Suffering gets the classic Stones treatment - a pretty song about lost love and departing trains building up to a
great five-part harmony chorus. Then, not done since Fool To Cry, the Stones will hit the charts with a slow song as their first single off the album,
Anybody Seen My Baby?. It's a slightly more uptempo number with the lead vocals hand in hand with the walking bass pattern, and could well have been
from the Steel Wheels sessions. A muffled rap intermezzo rounds off this atmospheric tale of imagination running away beautifully.
An absolute highlight is Already Over Me and not only because it would be perfectly suitable to send to my latest ex-girlfriend.
Revisiting Memory Motel, Mick delightfully wails his way through one of his strongest vocal performances set against the feverish background of
desolation and despair.
The ultimate killer on Bridges to Babylon must be Saint of Me. Shine a Light meets Out of Focus with a lyrical whiff of Sympathy for the Devil.
Above all it is the most diverse and inventive tune on the album still built within a classic framework, supported by some really tight Charlie Watts
drumming (even though looped, he is bound to deliver it live) and fluent guitar interplay from Keith 'n Ron, with Billy Preston back on Hammond B-3.
Bridges to Babylon is a great album. It is modern with an attitude yet hitting enough comforting Stone-y ground. The overall sound of the album is
excellent and fully vindicates the decision to use different producers. As Mick told NME, he was looking for a 'different textural approach' -
"I knew it wasn't going to be 100% different, nor did I want it to be." That's exactly why the album works so well.
It would be right up there with the classics (Some Girls, Sticky Fingers) if you only counted the first 10 songs with the last three as bonus tracks.
But that is the curse of the CD ('we have to fill 60 minutes') era.
Side 3 for me is the best organised of any on Exile, opening with Keith's Happy, which is the closest to a pop single on the album (and one of Keith's best
ever vocal performances)featuring producer Jimmy Miller on drums. Roy Carr, then of New Musical Express, interviewed Keith at the time of the album's
release and commented how similar his and Mick's singing styles were. "That's the Dartford accent," Keith replied.
Some Girls
IT STARTED OFF BEING CALLED ‘MORE FAST NUMBERS’, WAS RONNIE’S FIRST ALBUM PROPER AND MARKED THE RETURN OF KEITH INTO THE BAND AFTER 10 YEARS IN THE DRUGS’ WILDERNESS. ‘SOME GIRLS’ WOULD ALSO SELL MORE THAN ANY OTHER SINGLE STONES ALBUM. BUT HOW GOOD IS IT? HUMPHREY KEENLYSIDE REFLECTS ON A PIVOTAL ALBUM EXACTLY 25 YEARS AFTER ITS RELEASE.
with record decks (remember those?) in which you could listen to records at your leisure. For some reason, I felt guilty about listening to records, without knowing whether I was going to buy them or not. I must have been scared that I would be lambasted for getting something for nothing. I managed to assuage that guilt by just playing a couple of tracks at a time. Of course, the sales assistant probably didn’t give a toss, but it’s funny what guilt can do to you - especially in a foreign country...
Strange to relate, I remember being somewhat disappointed when I first heard Some Girls. That was partly because it took me quite a while to hear the record in its entirety. I was living in Germany, working as a swimming pool attendant (don’t ask) which, among the many advantages, had flexible working hours, leaving either the mornings or the afternoons free. When Some Girls was released (on June 9, 1978) I made straight for the local record shop, where they had booths
So there I was, day after day, playing successive tracks of the album and plucking up courage, in my halting German, to say, no, actually I didn’t want to buy the album. Why ever not, you may ask? Hard to remember. Looking back, I can probably think of a couple of reasons. For one thing, every track seemed to be in the identical key which gave the album a kind of ‘samey’ feel. (The journalist and supposed Stones ‘expert’ Nick Kent later commented that all Mick’s tracks were in the key of F. Actually, they are in A - close, Nick, but not quite right....) Secondly, I took an almost instant aversion to the faster ‘punk’ numbers (Lies, Respectable) and in particular to Mick’s ‘new’ vocal style which seemed totally contrived.
But, with every play, the album grew. As so often happens with me, it was the slow tracks that appealed. The more I listened the songs, the more I realised I had to have the album. Finally, I could say to the shop assistant, yes, I wanted to buy this album. And for the rest of the summer, Some Girls dominated my listening. Even today, when I put it on, my mind is immediately cast back to the lazy days working by the open air swimming pool in Munich.
GET THIS ONE RIGHT, BOYS!
Twenty-five years after its release, it is now possible to see quite how critical Some Girls was in the Stones’ career. After a trio of studio albums that had their moments but which came nowhere near to matching the glory years’ quartet, one more lacklustre effort could have finished the Stones off. It was also important because it was Ronnie’s first album with the Stones from start to finish, and all eyes were on him to see how well he performed - and integrated. Mick Taylor was certainly a hard act to follow. Just as importantly, Keith was back in the frame, supposedly having kicked heroin once and for all (you never know with Keith, but we will take it as read that he had started to focus on the music once again).
And, of course, the Stones had recorded in Paris for the first time, choosing a small room off the main studio in the Pathé Marconi Studios. Legend has it that Mick chose it because it was cheaper than the main studio but I prefer the explanation that the Stones found the smaller room generated a better sound. Indeed, the sound captured on Some Girls was fuller, yet more immediate than on any of their previous albums. Take a bow, Chris Kimsey.
Finally, the album was recorded in the teeth of the gale force that was punk, which threatened to consign the old rock bands to history (see Jaap’s feature). That threat of itself was probably enough to make Keith get off his arse and prove who was who and what was what (and here we are 25 years later, and guess who is still standing??).
The recording started in September 1977 and went through until March 1978. It was a particularly productive session in Paris, with according to James Karnbach and Carol Bernson (The Complete Recording Guide to the Rolling Stones), some 20 further songs over and above the final 10 put on Some Girls actually recorded or rehearsed. Some were clearly in near-final form (particularly the song, Claudine) as bootleg recordings attest. The idea was to get back to basics, just the five band members at the sessions without the “clever bastards”, as the erstwhile talented sidemen (Hopkins, Keys, Preston) were somewhat disparagingly called. Nevertheless, Ian Maclagan was invited along, as were saxophonist Mel Collins and harp player Sugar Blue, who was busking in Paris at the time!
TRACK BY TRACK
So what do we make of the 10 tracks that make up the Some Girls album?
Miss You: Cast your mind back those 25 years and try to remember the astonishment when the thumping ‘disco’ groove of Miss You leapt out of the, well.... record grooves, as you put the needle down. Was this really the Stones? We had got used to some unlikely album openers (Hot Stuff), and even others in a minor key (Dancing with Mr D), but this was something else. But by the time Mick gets to the line “With some Puerto Rican girls that are just dyyyying to meet you” you begin to relax - this is the good ole Stones, sure enough. Your feet are starting to tap, and, man, that is some funky guitar going down. This was the first of many examples on the album of a three-guitar attack, now that Mick had turned his hand to plank-spanking (encouraged by Ronnie, less so by Keith). The guitars on their own gave the album a very different feel to any of its predecessors.
Time has done Miss You many favours - it really is an outstanding dance track which works best in its studio version - far less well as a concert singalong, much though Mick would like it to be. There are two great instrumental breaks (by sax and harp respectively). More than that, Miss You was a showcase for Bill - even more so on the 12” version of the song, which was put out as the B side of Don’t Stop (about time, too) - to finally have a place in the spotlight. It is probably stretching it to say his bass playing makes the song, but it is a mighty close thing.
Also worthy of special mention is Ronnie, whose adept lead guitar fills (some of which were inexplicably mixed out in the 40 Licks version) helped to lighten the thump of Charlie’s at the time highly controversial ‘four on the floor’ drum pattern. As Mick pointed out in the 25x5 video, it was just a different beat, and he couldn’t understand why people got so wound up about it. Well, Mick, you ought to know the conservatism of rock fans. In short, one song into the album, it was apparent that we were listening to a new band and a whole new sound.
When the Whip Comes Down:
Not one of the strongest numbers in the Stones canon, but rescued by a good middle eight, some taut drumming by Charlie and a fadeout that seems to promise some better grooves to come. This was another three-guitar number, which the Stones developed further in their 1978 tour of America. Those who saw those shows say that this was arguably the band at their very best, no-nonsense rock and roll. What a pity we Europeans never got to see those shows. Ronnie, to this day, says that was his favourite tour with the band. Probably in today’s PC society, this song would have never made the final cut.
Imagination:
While the Temptations’ version of this song was a dreamy, wistful affair, Mick and the boys Stonesified the number and turned it into a rock-soul ballad which had the critics reaching for their pens (“sacrilege”, they cried), but, for me, this is a great song given a magnificent treatment. The band took a tremendous number and turned it into something better. A driving guitar sound, a perfect tempo, some wonderful fills by both Ron ‘n’ Keith, great backing vocals in the chorus and an inspired arrangement. Mick also invested the song’s lyrics with genuine emotion (“Soon we’ll be married/And raise a family/Two boys for you/What about two girls for me?”) which, as a family man he easily carried off. There’s masses going on, but, despite that, Imagination has a great live feel to it, and you could pretty much imagine yourself watching the band play it - but that is probably just my imagination running away with me...
Some Girls:
Another Mick song in the key of A and a real tour de force for the Mickster. This is a great vocal, with some superb bluesy harp playing. Naturally, everyone lighted on Mick’s lyrics (“Black girls just want to get fucked all night”), which caused some good old album burning as Mick reacts, “if you can’t take a joke, it’s too fucking bad”. More recently, Mick has switched the lyrics to avoid incurring too much wrath (“white” substituting for “black”). When the band played the song live for the first time in 1999, Mick, tongue firmly in cheek, said, “I hope I have offended everybody”. Attaboy, Mick!
Keith’s low rumbling bass lines give the song extra depth and groovesome flow. The band were really on a creative high, which meant that they never seemed to run out of ideas to embellish the songs; as Keith always used to say, you have to add a new element every 10 seconds or so to keep the listeners interested - and like Exile, the songs on Some Girls carry off his theory to perfection.
Lies:
The one major argument that permeated proceedings was the rift between Mick and Keith over the tempo and feel of Mick’s songs, which were heavily influenced by punk. “What the fuck do we need to try and sound like the Sex Pistols for?” Keith spat out. And on this one, I side 100 per cent with Keith. Without doubt Lies is the weakest song on the album, and given the many the band recorded for the album, surely a mistake for inclusion. Claudine would have made a much more interesting selection, especially given its shuffle-like tempo, although it is said the fear of legal action (the song was about Andy Williams’ wife and some murky goings-on) made this a non-starter. Lies was included in the live set for the 1978 tour, but has since dropped completely off the radar.
Far Away Eyes:
The album’s country song, Far Away Eyes was rightly placed at the start of side two, to break the sequence of driving rockers, but it merits such a key slot by virtue of its obvious star quality. Keith later complained that the released take was spoiled by Mick hamming it up, employing a faux country half-spoken, half-sung southern drawl after many “straight” takes. Otherwise, this is a damn-near perfect country song: a strong melody, a gorgeous chorus and a pedal steel solo by Ronnie that on its own was worth the band inviting him onboard. Probably for the first time, both Mick and Keith on piano.
Respectable:
For me, one of the least successful numbers on the album, which starts promisingly, but tails off in a succession of repeated choruses. Mick could definitely have come up with another verse, especially in the vein of one of his best putdowns ever (“You’re the easiest lay on the White House lawn” - allegedly aimed at Bianca and President Gerald Ford’s son, Jack). Ronnie’s solo is also pretty nondescript. Chuck Berry meets punk and fizzles out.
Before They Make Me Run:
Keith apparently worked engineer Dave Jordan to the bone recording this one, but it was worth it. It is a Keith classic, Keith’s nasal whine at his best, easily hitting the high notes, with a great, multilayered guitar middle eight, absolutely made by Ronnie’s pedal steel and some fine driving bass playing by the Riff-meister himself. And one of Keith’s best lyrics ever, “Gonna find my way to heaven/Because I did my time in hell” - what a great line!
Beast of Burden:
the classics are coming thick and fast at this stage of the album, none more so than Beast of Burden. Keith claims much of the credit for writing this one, but it is probably a safe bet that Mick gave the song a lot of the shape and structure. Originally, it was planned that he would sing it falsetto; thankfully, he didn’t. The song showcases some more fine background singing from Mick and Keith - another characteristic of the album. Ronnie’s guitar trills and Keith’s soft acoustic washes balance out some of the thump of drums and bass. One of the few songs in the Stones catalogue where the studio version has never been improved on live. When the Stones finally call it a day, this would be the song I put on last, for its sense of yearning and regret.
Shattered:
Just as Miss You had us all picking up our jaws from the floor, the album’s closing track was another that seemed to come out of nowhere. It is fair to say that at that point, none of us Stones fans had ever heard anything like this. A percussion-led track, Mick spits out the words as if his very life depended on it, setting the seal on the on the ‘New Yorkness’ of the album, with his references to the “7th Avenue, Manhattan, money grabbers, rats on the West side” et al. More outstanding guitar work from Ron ‘n’ Keith - who, beyond all doubt, showed they were the dream guitar team. And does anyone really know who “1 Moroccan, 1 Jew and 1 Wasp” on percussion were? A great album closer and a track to round off several months of the band at peak creativity. And, of course, a special track for all of us here at the fan club...
DOWNWARD SLIDE
Some Girls was arguably the last of the great Stones albums. Certainly the next album, Emotional Rescue, was as weak as Some Girls was brilliant. The sound was similar, but something had been lost: the songs were nowhere near as strong and of the many recorded many were inexplicably left off (Let’s Go Steady, We Had it All, No Use in Crying), Keith and Mick were starting to row again, and the focus had been lost. It wasn’t until Steel Wheels, more than a decade later, that the band were ‘in the same place’ again. All subsequent albums have had their moments, but have tended to lack the cohesion and feel of the 10 songs that collectively made up the Some Girls album. So, go on, treat yourselves - slide it into your CD player and bite the big Apple. Me, I think I might just put on the LP instead.
Bridges to Babylon
Review by Jaap Hoeksma
of the recording sessions. By that time Mick had already mapped
out the route they were going. Keith told Rolling Stone magazine: "When I heard Mick's Juiced demo, I knew there was a path to follow here. Then, by the
time I got to the studio with Flip the Switch and Low Down, I started to hear how the band was playing: 'OK, from now on, I am following this thing, I'm not
trying to lead it anywhere. Just sit on its tail and hang on.'"
Kicking off with a crisp Keith Richards rocker, the album takes you through a wonderfully refreshing collection of no less than 13 tracks (ooh yeah, ooh yeah). At first, Bridges to Babylon seems to carry on where Voodoo Lounge left off with Flip the Switch being reminiscent of the previous album's closing track,
Mean Disposition. This was one of the two songs Keith took into the studio at the start