Omitted from the US release of Between the Buttons though showing up on the UK one, (as well as the stateside compilation Flowers the same year), "Back Street Girl" is a folksy waltz that is one of many singular forays into experimental styles for the band. Around this time and culminating with the same year's Their Satanic Majesties Request, the Stones were trying any and everything to see what would stick, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards channeling their ever evolving and improving song craft into a tender ballad about keeping a female side piece in her place. It is one of those songs that is more misogynistic and tongue-in-cheek when solely reading the lyrics, but it seems more delicate in its recorded and sung form, with Brian Jones providing some gentle keyboards and vibraphone, and Charlie Watts merely delivering understated percussion.
Taking a foray into political terrain lyrically for the first time in nearly a decade, Tattoo You's "Hang Fire" is a satirical critique of Thatcherism on the rise, the narrator rightfully irked by England's working class not being able to get ahead. Adding to the sly humor which basks in laziness in the face of financial oppression, the jaunty musical arrangement clashes with the heavy subject matter, this being one of the more uptempo and easily most brisk tracks to appear on the album, clocking in at less than two and a half minutes. A little bit of growl and a little bit of falsetto intersect with the vocals, the whole band, (plus one of their several unofficial sixth members Ian Stewart on piano), laying down some straight ahead and effortless rock on a track that was initially recorded for the Some Girls sessions. Considering that said record was The Rolling Stones' answer to punk in a respect or two, this easily would have fit right at home there as well.
Apparently recorded at Chicago's Chess Studios a mere nine days after they initially heard the original Valentinos version during their first tour of the US when famous New York DJ Murray the K played it for them, "It's All Over Now" interestingly remains The Rolling Stones most Beatlesesque single. Likely a matter of the same type of British Invasion mojo simply being in the air, the Stones give the boppy, guitar-driven R&B tune a once-over, adding a different and chambery guitar intro while playing the rest of the song faithfully. It was the group's first number one hit back home in the UK, Brian Jones' 12-string and he and Keith Richards' harmony vocals making it a quintessential pop tune for its era.
A follow-up of sorts to the seminal Beggars Banquet opener "Sympathy for the Devil" is the Goats Head Soup opener "Dancing with Mr. D", said mister clearly referring once again to that ole Lucifer fellow that rock bands often sing about. Keith Richards' opening and frequented guitar riff sets the dingy and lethargic tone which would linger throughout much of the resulting album, this being the first Rolling Stones release post-Exile on Main St, that one reaching a peak that neither them nor hardly any band would touch again. Such an actuality can only be seen as a downside if we are to endlessly compare a group's subsequent work to their highest, and there are plenty of gems on Goats Head, this one just being the most dark and eerie in the lot.
An acoustic country-blues hybrid, "Dear Doctor" has Mick Jagger's patented Southern faux-drawl in pristine form, and it represents another moment on Beggars Banquet where the band was interpreting their rustic roots. In singular ways, the album was as experimental as their previous psychedelic freak-out Their Satanic Majesties Request, it was just that they were delving into traditionalist styles which they were at a musical maturity to filter through their own laid back grooves and increasingly sophisticated songwriting. Leaving the guitar behind as he was frequently doing by this point, Brian Jones lays down the harmonica, Bill Wyman grabs the stand-up bass, and Charlies Watts limits himself to a snare and a tambourine since no fat drum kit beats were required for a track that sounds as if it was unearthed in a tiny, underground, non-segregated Mississippi bar.
The Rolling Stones were doing such brilliant work on Exile on Main St. that one of the songs which was abandoned and lingered in obscurity for decades is as good if not better than a significant portion of their material. Granted, "Follow the River" was actually left unfinished throughout this time, finally emerging in 2010 once Mick Jagger was able to come up with a lyric and melody to go over the existing instrumental track which is driven by unofficial Stones member Nicky Hopkins' beautiful piano. Later era Stones collaborator David Campbell threw some tasteful and not overbearing strings on as well, plus the band's long-running backup singers Lisa Fischer and Cindy Mizelle give it a gospel feel that locks in in with Exile's "Tumbling Dice", "Shine a Light", and "I Just Want to See His Face". Beautiful stuff.
Everyone's favorite extra band member Billy Preston provided his largest contribution to a Rolling Stones recording with "Melody"; the bare-bones, infectious, lounge jazz boogie reworking of his 1973 song "Do You Love Me". Appearing on 1976's Black and Blue when the band was going through guitar players to replace Mick Taylor, (eventually setting on Rod Wood of course, who is absent here), it was Preston and Mick Jagger who put the song together when the former was noodling away on piano and the later began to flesh out a, well, melody to go over it. Preston may have gotten duped out of a songwriting credit, (as various other Stones contributes often were, sadly), but he shares call-and-response vocals with Jagger here and his imprint is all over it, one of many wide open jams on the album.
The finest moment on The Rolling Stones' twenty-second studio record A Bigger Bang is its second track "Let Me Down Slow", a song that has received little direct fanfare and has avoided the live treatment, yet still belongs in the echelon of the band's best material. Keith Richards referenced the "afterglow" lyric in his superb autobiography Life, referring to an incident in the 1960s where he fooled around with Mick Jagger's famous then-girlfriend Marianne Faithfull and nestled between "...those two beautiful jugs" before his frontman pulled up the driveway and Keith ducked out of the window while leaving his socks behind. Rock star problems. The actual song is equally driving and melodic, with Jagger tenderly pleading with a lady friend to tell him whatever bad news is a-brewing as gently as possible.
Emerging after a few years of noticeable and vocal tension between Keith Richards and Mick Jagger, Steel Wheels was the first of several dubbed "comeback" albums for The Rolling Stones that saw the songwriting duo in better and more productive spirits. In such a regard, the lead off single "Mixed Emotions" can be read as a musing on Jagger and Richards' often complicated relationship, (the lyric "Let's bury the hatchet, wipe out the past" being a dead giveaway), but musically, it fuhrer established the template of driving singles to announce that the band had a new album to promote. Even if that resulting album was decent if not exemplary, (and started the CD era trend of being a handful of songs too long), the track's rejuvenated nature is refreshing, and this was a fine way to top off an overall up and down decade for the Stones.
The second track from Exile on Main St., "Rip This Joint" fittingly rips from the speakers, a jaunty rockabilly song that stomps, hollers, and gets itself over with in less than two and a half minutes. It features a different William on upright bass, Bill Plummer standing in for Bill Wyman, with Bobby Keys blowing away on two ferocious sax solos as he was as consummate professional at doing. Tempo wise, this is one of the fastest numbers in the entire Rolling Stones catalog, and even if the outstanding album that it finds itself on would weave through various other forms of American roots music, this still establishes the correct rock and roll abandon tone that the entire record would adhere to.
What originally sprang from a recording session with Mick Jagger and Ron Wood at the latter's home studio The Wick in Richmond, London, "It's Only Rock 'n Roll (But I Like It)" would eventually become the lead-off single and title track from The Rolling Stones' next album, Jagger knowing and keeping a hit for himself when he heard one. Wood's contribution was delegated to acoustic guitar and an "inspired by" nod in place of a properly royalty split, (crafty business maneuver there on Jagger and Keith Richards' part), but the initial rhythm track with bassist Willie Weeks and Faces drummer Kenney Jones remained, a rhythm track that also kept David Bowie's backup vocals. Ironically only being a half-Stones recording, it has remained one of their signature tunes, with a critic-lambasting lyric that Paul McCartney would do his own take on two years later with "Silly Love Songs".
A Robert Johnson cover and one of two non-Stones originals to appear on their finest record Exile on Main St., "Stop Breaking Down" is ideally-suited for the album which ran through every iteration of American rock music's origins that the band was making their own. An oozing Delta blues workout, it differentiates itself from the initial version which is uptempo and almost jovial in Johnson's vocal, while the Stones double its length and sound as laid back as ever, embellishing it with slide guitar, harmonica, and Ian Stewart's piano. It has a jammy feel, (probably the jammiest on the entire double album), that breaks into two different vamp sections, the whole band laying into the swampy arrangement.
Keith Richards laying down one of his many patented open-G tuning riffs, "Hand of Fate" is subsequently the most structured and tight moment on the entire Black and Blue album, most of which saw the band indulging in slow, druggy workouts and funk grooves while auditioning and featuring different lead guitar players. On that note, the solid Mick Tayer-esque solos here were provided by Alabama session musician Wayne Perkins, coloring the song's dark, confessional lyrics about a doomed protagonist who is on the run after killing a man. It provides a memorable, sinister, and more straight-forward contrast to the horned-up funk of "Hot Stuff", the soul ballads "Memory Motel" and "Fool to Cry", or the reggae hooks on "Hey Negrita".
By 1994 and after the departure of Bill Wyman, The Rolling Stones could have easily settled into being a legacy act since they had so many hits, so much lauded material that new albums and new singles have pretty much just been cake icing ever since. Voodoo Lounge began what can likely be called the band's final act, (be it a lengthy one that is still soldering on mind you), and "Out of Tears" is the best "modern day" Stones song thus far. A Mick Jagger original, he doodled that opening piano medley while the group was working on material at Ron Wood's house, Wood laying down the slide guitar solo over a tender, unassuming, and heartbroken love song that keeps it simple. The lyric is nothing profound, but this is just the Stones effortlessly knocking out another in a long line of pristine pop ballads thirty plus years into their career.
Recorded way back in 1972 during the Goats Head Soup sessions, "Tops" eventually showed up on Tattoo You, an album full of "clearing out the vaults" material that proved how good the Stones were during the decade since the stuff that they left unfinished was just as solid as the stuff which they prioritized finishing when it was fresh. Unofficial band member Nicky Hopkins' ivories are present, as is ex-official member Mick Taylor's distinct guitar leads, the latter irked that his contribution was unrecognized and unpaid for when Tattoo You initially hit the shelves. While the original track likely appears in full, Mick Jagger's dynamic vocals were allegedly the new addition, the frontman bouncing between a roar, some breathy moans, and powerful falsetto on the frequented chorus.
Appropriately, "Casino Boogie" is in fact a laid back boogie-woogie tune with exemplary guitar weaving between slide and conventional lead, possibly both performed by Mick Taylor as Keith Richards was once again on bass. Bobby Keys' saxophone and Nicky Hopkins' piano add their usual welcomed coloring, the whole song having a dingy vibe that captures Exile on Main St.'s legendarily haphazard recording sessions which would go on after sleeping during the day, hitting the French Riviera casinos, (hence the song's title) at night, and recording till the wee hours of the morning when it was time to go to bed again. Mick Jagger was inspired by William Burroughs for the lyrics, writing a series of random phrases on cue cards and assembling them just as arbitrarily by pulling phrases out of a hat in order to have something to sing with his usual English hillbilly twang.
Nearly ground zero for Mick Jagger and Keith Richards' songwriting, "As Tears Go By" is a more interesting early original from the duo in that it bares no similarities to their patented rhythm and blues influences and material which they were performing in the band's infancy. The song was first properly recorded and released by a then seventeen year-old Marianne Faithfull as her first single, the Stones putting out their own version several months later which only features Jagger, Richards, and a string quartet that was arranged and conducted by Mike Leander. While Keith many not have been a fan of it, (quoted as calling it "..a terrible piece of tripe" at one point), it has endured as one of the group's finest, if atypical ballads, with mournful lyrics beyond Jagger's years about waxing poetically on times past.
Another Emotional Rescue leftover, "No Use in Crying" found its way onto Tattoo You as the penultimate track, one of two which Ron Wood received a songwriting credit on. Never performed live by the band, it was also put out as the B-side to "Start Me Up", yet is a slower and more somber counterpoint to said defining album opener. The lyrics are outright heartbreaking, Mick Jagger proclaiming to a lost love that he "ain't never, never coming back" and that any visions that she has of him doing so are merely mirages. The refrain "Ain't no use in crying, stay away from me" is sung ad nauseam in Jagger's usual higher register, as the band lays it way back with the always steady piano playing of Nicky Hopkins providing the most prominent musical accompaniment.
Some filthy, sleazy blues fitting right at home on Beggars Banquet, (this was the album whose rejected cover was a dirty and graffitied bathroom after all), "Parachute Woman" sounds particularly muddy due to the unorthodox manner in which it was recorded. Laid down on a cassette player first and then multi-tracked later, the band therefor just layered over a demo for the final version. The raw track is Keith Richards on acoustic guitar, Mick Jagger on harmonica, and Charlie Watts merely on a snare drum. Brian Jones also threw some harmonica on later, as well as redoing the acoustic, but the underlying fuzziness provides an ideal atmosphere for Jagger to sing blatant innuendos about wanting to get in a woman's pants, as he made a habit of doing. Meaning making a habit of both getting in a woman's pants and singing about getting in a woman's pants.
Baroque balladry of the Renaissance variety, "Lady Jane" is ideally suited for a galla of Elizabethan dancing while royalty in period costumes sip whine and fan themselves. A Mick Jagger composition, the instrumentation was largely the work of Brian Jones who turned the gentle acoustic Aftermath number into something more antiquated and in turn, more interesting. He plays the dulcimer on it, (one of countless instruments that the gifted musician seemingly picked up and figured out for the sole purpose of adding it to a Rolling Stones song), with Jack Nitzsche providing the harpsichord, Charlie Watts on xylophone, and Mick Jagger singing in an archaic spoken word vernacular. The only thing "rock and roll" about it is its bold eschewing of convention, but it is expertly crafted and lovely all the same.
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