The first Rolling Stones title track was "Let It Bleed"; a lazy sing-a-long that seems to be wallowing in a haze of drugs and emotional dependency. Bill Wyman actually plays not just the instrument that he is supposed to for once, but also an autoharp which occasionally cuts through the heavy mix of acoustic and slide guitar, (both performed by Keith Richards since they were minus an official lead player during the record's making), Charlie Watts' prominent drums, Ian Stewart's honky tonky piano, and Mick Jagger's lethargic and quasi-unrecognizable vocal delivery. This is particularly the case in the beginning where he takes his American South enunciation to parody levels, all the while singing about opening up his bosom and narcotic supply to any needy woman who wishes to partake.
One of Keith Richards' most instantly recognizable and hooky riffs kicks-off side two of The Rolling Stones' best single album Sticky Fingers, a riff that is mirrored and answered by Bobby Keys and Jim Price's horn section. Two different versions of the initial recording exist, one the more famous and frequented album track and another that properly emerged decades later featuring the band jamming it out for several extra minutes. Pick your sweet delicious poison, but each one showcases the band in top form, emphasizing the interplay between Richards' riffing, Mick Taylor's always tasty leads, the brass section, and Charlie Watts propelling things along with one of his most driving grooves. Also put out as a B-side to "Brown Sugar", it was so infections that it became a radio and live staple in its own right.
Opening up one of the greatest albums ever made, (double or otherwise), "Rocks Off" sets the stage for Exile on Main St. with its upbeat groove, laid back dual vocals, and full band arrangement featuring prominent brass and piano on top of their well-oiled guitar, bass, and drums attack. The song is also a pristine example of how not pristine the recording sessions and mixing went down, featuring Mick Jagger's wailing less up front sonically, making the druggy subject matter of the lyrics difficult to decipher. It all gives the track a mysterious and dangerous edge though, which mirrors where the band was at the time, working on tracks in rough conditions down in the sweltering hot basement of Keith Richards' rented villa in the south of France. The chaotic way in which the album was put together is just as legendary as the album itself, "Rocks Off" crystalizing the whole tumultuous yet gloriously productive affair in just four and half minutes.
Put out as a double A-side with "Ruby Tuesday" ahead of appearing as the opening track on the American release of Between the Buttons, "Let's Spend the Night Together" is as good of a pop single as any band produced during the 1960s. Being the massive hit that it was, the Stones performed it on the Ed Sullivan Show in January of 1967, Mick Jagger, Bill Wyman, and Brian Jones all hilariously rolling their eyes on camera at Sullivan's conservative insistence that they change the chorus to "let's spent some TIME together" to imply less hanky-panky. Because we all know that rock and roll songs are never ever about fucking. Jones on organ, an uptempo quarter-note groove from Charlie Watts, Keith Richards on guitar, bass, and piano, Jack Nitzsche also on piano, some police truncheons keeping time, (long story); there is nothing not to love here.
Sticky Fingers was the studio album that first properly featured new guy Mick Taylor in full capacity, the lead guitarist proving that he was the right guy for the job and delivering some of the best axe-slinging yet heard in the process. His imprint is all over "Sway", a track that he felt he was owed a songwriting credit on but as was almost always the case, such titles automatically went to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards where The Rolling Stones' originals were concerned. Taylor's leads are top notch, and curiously, Richards only provides background vocals, with Jagger playing the rhythm guitar on electric for the first time. This was also the band's first track recorded at the frontman's spacious manor hours Stargroves, (the same one that Doctor Who's Pyramids of Mars utilized for exteriors), putting their famed mobile recording studio to proper use.
The Rolling Stones' first non-cover to be released as an A-side in the UK, "The Last Time" nevertheless borrows the lyrics from The Staple Singer's "This May Be the Last Time", which in itself was an interpretation of a sermon and gospel hymn. Label it a traditional reworking then where the band got an "original" out of preexisting inspiration and were able to take a song about the lord and morph it into an infectious, upbeat, and bluesy pop tune about a girl, the Stones version is propelled by Brian Jones' outstanding guitar riff, one of the hookiest in the band's repertoire. Phil Spector assisted with the production, (explaining its echo chambered sound), and this is the Stones at their British Invasion best, arguably their finest moment before they solidified their sound during the Beggar's Banquet era a mere three years later.
A gospel honky tonk gem off of Exile on Main St., "Torn and Frayed" wears its Gram Parsons influence on its sleeves, Parsons having been present at Keith Richards' Nellcôte villa in the south of France during the tumultuous making of the record. Also, the country rock pioneer's frequent collaborator Al Perkins performs the pedal-steel guitar, with the Stones' usual trumpet player Jim Price on organ, Nicky Hopkins on piano, Mick Taylor on bass, and Richards handling all of the guitars, including of course that gorgeous finger picking lick that comes in at the onset of the fade-out. Mick Jagger's lyrics are typically descriptive, painting a vivid picture of a gruff musician's dealings with rough gigs on the road, unkempt wardrobes, dingy backstage areas, and of course drugs.
Sleazy, offensive, and funky as all get out, "Hey Negrita" fused reggae, Latin, and of course funk sensibilities together in a seamless and steamy stew of jammy looseness. New guy Ron Wood brought in that dynamite riff which he weaves through Keith Richards' just as swampy phrasing, Billy Preston being once again heavily featured on keys, vocals, and marimba. Charlie Watts, (as he was wont to do), kills it from behind the kit, the key word being "behind" as he lays way back in order for the rest of the band, (including Mick Jagger), to improvise on top of it. The lyrics are about a guy trying to get a prostitute's price down, some more of the band's patented misogyny that is not meant to be taken seriously and honestly comes off as an afterthought in order for everyone to simply lay into that ridiculous groove.
The final song recorded for Sticky Fingers, "Moonlight Mile" was written by the two Micks, Jagger and Taylor, and it remains one of the few from the band that Keith Richards does not appear on at all. This was due to Keith being absent, (and likely drugged-out), for large portions of the album's recording, Taylor instead collaborating on a Jagger composition with the working title of "Japanese Thing". The Stones' trusty trumpet player Jim Price got behind the ivories on this, Jagger playing all of the acoustic guitar, and Paul Buckmaster doing the fittingly beautiful string arrangement. It is the perfect comedown to an exemplary record for the band, Jagger wearily lamenting his exhaustion and disillusionment with the rock star lifestyle that the Stones were very much on about.
While The Beatles may have been the first to lay a sitar on a pop song, The Rolling Stones were the first to garnish a massive and enduring hit out of such a practice with the raga rock benchmark "Paint It, Black". That opening guitar riff is one of Keith Richards most famous, Mick Jagger's lyrics are some of his most overtly bleak, and the whole song was one of the band's most collaborative. Brian Jones provided the sitar melody, Billy Wyman's laid down some fretless bass slides and his Hammond organ inspired the tempo and Easter-tinged switch from its original "House of the Rising Son" knock-off arrangement, Charlie Watts memorably bounces between primitive jungle quarter notes on the toms to a particularly busy full kit groove, with various other percussion thrown into its hypnotic arrangement. The song may have been long played to death by now, but it is one of those archetypal classic rock staples that deserves to be.
More exceptional balladry from The Rolling Stones, "Memory Motel" is the finest example on the down and dirty Black and Blue album, a gorgeous intermission from the sweaty and drug-fueled funk and reggae grooves found elsewhere on the record. One of their longer at over seven minutes with dual lead vocals from both of its songwriters Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, Jagger allegedly wrote it at Andy Warhol's house of all places, spinning a mournful yarn about a one-nite stand with a bright, headstrong woman at the motel of the title. Richards does not play guitar on it, instead providing some of the electric keys, (along with Billy Preston), while guitar duties were handled by Harvey Mandel and Wayne Perkins who were auditioning for the vacated lead guitar spot/contributing to the recording sessions at the time.
Written quickly by Keith Richards at his rented Nellcôte villa in the south of France during the band's anarchic recording sessions for Exile on Main St., "Happy" was laid down on tape just as hastily on the same day it was conceived. The only two Stones to appear here are Keith and Mick Jagger, the latter providing background vocals while Richards handles all of the guitar and bass. Jim Price and Bobby Keys are on horns, and producer Jimmy Miller gets behind the kit since they all probably wanted to capture the inspiration while it was hot and Charlie Watts was not around at the time, (his rented France home being several hours away from Nellcôte). This would be the most successful single that the band put out with Keith singing lead, getting in and out in three minutes and representing the Stones' co-leader in peak form.
Though it never got the single, (B side or otherwise), treatment, Let It Bleed's "Monkey Man" remains a fan favorite, occasional live staple, and one of the best straight-ahead rock songs in the Rolling Stones cannon. That sexy piano and vibraphone intro from Nicky Hopkins and Bill Wyman over a sinister chord progression quickly leads into the full band jumping in for Keith Richards to lay down one of his all time finest riffs, with Mick Jagger yelping about all kinds of nonsense in a bizarre and often times funny stew of sleaze. Food, Satan, drugs, violence, animals, sex; Jagger manages to throw most of his interests into the mix with a lyric that was allegedly inspired by if not directly about the Italian pop artist Mario Schifano whom Mick and Keith had recently become acquainted with.
Noteworthy for the unorthodox groove and manner in which Charlie Watts comes in, (either intentionally or purposely late on the beat), "Ventilator Blues" remains one of two Rolling Stones songs that Mick Taylor received a proper writing credit on, having come up with the opening riff. Another in a stream of laid back and muddy blues work outs for the band, it was painstakingly put together in the studio, ran through countless times where everyone had difficulty getting a satisfying take. Though Watts ultimately nailed that lax groove, getting there was anything but easy as Bobby Keys came up with the phrasing and couched the drummer along until it loosely locked into place. It is overall a performance piece for the group, Mick Jagger doing his best Delta blues belting while Keith Richards slides on top of it, making this arguably the sexiest and slitheriest Exile on Main St. track.
By 1972, The Rolling Stones were in peak form all around, and had developed their own unique way of seamlessly jumbling together their Americana influences into material that always sounded authentic yet was never played conventionally straight. The Exile on Main St. track "Sweet Virginia" is a laid back country song, ballad-esque in some respects yet also featuring gospel-tinged background vocals and lead sax soloing from Bobby Keys. Mostly worked on at Keith Richards' villa Nellcôte in the south of France where just so many drugs were consumed, it is a joyous romp, with narcotic-inspired lyrics and the wonderful "Got to scrape the shit right off your shoes" line to close out the swampy chorus, a shuffle groove from Charlie Watts, Mick Jagger wailing away on harmonica during the intro, and the entire band appearing on it behind their proper instruments.
The eighth and last number one single that The Rolling Stones had in the US, "Miss You" is also their premier stab at disco, a blueprint crossover track that everyone from Kiss to Rod Stewart took a stab at emulating around the time. Not only did it get the Stones in the discotheques, (an eight minute 12-inch version also being released to further capitalize on such a thing), it was directly inspired by those very same discotheques, Mick Jagger, Bill Wyman, and Charlie Watts all visiting them and made note of the grooves that were topping the charts at the time. While it can certainly be labeled as calculated then, no one can deny that the song has hooks for days, Wyman's funky as hell bass line, Watts' four-on-the-floor time keeping, Jagger's half yelped/half rapped vocals, that wordless chorus, and Mel Collins' smoking saxophone solo each being strong enough to make any song a hit.
Never did The Rolling Stones paint a more harrowing portrait of drug use than with the ominous Sticky Fingers addition "Sister Morphine". It was co-written and originally released as a single by Marianne Faithfull, said recording being done back during the Beggars Banquet sessions with Jack Nitzsche on piano and organ, Ry Cooder on slide guitar, Mick Jagger on acoustic, and Charlie Watts on drums. The Stones cut it themselves a few years later with tweaked lyrics and the same personnel, Keith Richards and Bill Wyman joining the fold while Mick Taylor sat it out. Though it can be literally read as the downtrodden pleading of a person in pain after suffering a physical accident and needing a medicinal "score" to numb the pain, everything from the haunting arrangement, to the somber chord structure, Jagger's lethargic vocal, overt drug references, and the cavernous ambience make it an eerie narcotic comedown that for anyone who has done their Stones homework, knows that various members certainly had first hand experience with.
Inspired by the bogus murder charges faced by Angela Davis at the time, "Sweet Black Angel" is one of a small handful of political songs that The Rolling Stones cut, less overt from the outside since it can be interpreted as an inspired love diddy at first glance. This was one of the Exile on Main St. tracks that was not worked on in the south of France, instead originating when the band was putting material together at Mick Jagger's Stargroves home, eventually getting finished back in LA's Sunset Sound as many of the album's tracks were once everyone had enough of Keith Richard's sweltering French basement. An acoustic country-blues hybrid and one of many from the Stones, the format is tweaked by its West Indian rhythm, Charlie Watts, producer Jimmy Miller, and Richard 'Didymus' Washington all providing unique percussion.
On the long list of best Stones ballads, "No Expectations" is not even the best one on Beggars Banquet, which is saying something about how outstanding the band's material was at this point once they locked into their loose, American roots music melding. It is equal parts country and blues, with gorgeous slide guitar played throughout by Brian Jones, melancholic lyrics inspired by imagery that Robert Johnson would frequent, understated piano playing by Nicky Hopkins, also understated bass by Bill Wyman, and no Charlie Watts drum kit groove necessary. This was one of the last Rolling Stones songs to feature any significant contribution from Jones, the band also playing it during their Rock and Roll Circus taping which marked the founding guitarist's final live performance with the band.
Though it may be lyrically allusive, (Mick Jagger even going on record as stating that the song is void of concurrent meaning), and fails to mention anything of a spiritual nature, "Let It Loose" remains a strong contender for The Rolling Stones' finest gospel song. Such influences run prominently throughout Exile on Main St., (having African American backup singers on most tracks will do that), and the soul is laid on thick here. Jagger took some of the lyrics from the traditional American folk song "Man of Constant Sorrow", singing his ass off and channeling his love of spiritual choirs and hyped up preachers in his delivery. Along with the impassioned vocals by everyone behind the mic, (even including Dr. John for some reason), Nicky Hopkins' piano and Mellotron are the driving musical components, trailed closely by Bobby Keys and Jim Price's supportive horn section.
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