We're Not Who You Think We Are
Album: Their Satanic Majesties Request
Year: 1967
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As you know, here at Certain Songs, we have a weakness for songs about OUTER SPACE! And “2000 Light Years From Home” is a good one, describing a lonely astronaut who is traveling further and further away–what? Oh, right. Turns out that it’s a metaphor, he really didn’t get the jump on David Bowie and Elton John after all. BOOO!
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2037: The Rolling Stones – “2000 Light Years From Home”
Album: The Singles Collection – The London Years
Year: 1967
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From the start, the Rolling Stones cultivated an outlaw image that truthfully, they kinda had to grow into. Yeah, there were riots at their shows, and yeah there was “we piss anywhere, man” (which might be an apocryphal quote), but it wasn’t until they started singing and talking about taking drugs that the authorities started coming after them hard.
And so, in early 1967, the shit-ass rag The News of The World ran a series with the breathless title “Pop Stars and Drugs: Facts That Will Shock You” of which one of the shocking facts was that they saw Mick Jagger taking speed and smoking hash. Except that it wasn’t Mick Jagger, it was Brian Jones. Whoops! So Jagger sued The News of The World for libel. As you do.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2036: The Rolling Stones – “We Love You”
Album: Flowers
Year: 1967
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Flowers was a weird beast. Not quite a greatest hits album — even though it had “Ruby Tuesday,” “Let’s Spend The Night Together” and “Mother’s Little Helper” — but not quiet an odds and sods album, because it contained those songs, it’s one of the few Rolling Stones 1960s albums I’ve never purchased, even though track by track, it’s pretty fucking awesome.
And one of those awesome tracks was the all acoustic “Sittin’ on a Fence,” which combines an absolutely gorgeous melody with some of their most “fuck everything” lyrics.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2035: The Rolling Stones – “Sittin’ on a Fence”
Album: Between The Buttons
Year: 1967
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The final track on all versions of Between The Buttons is the jaunty “Something Happened To Me Yesterday,” which combines totally retro music — horn-driven music hall — with lyrics that were about an incredibly contemporary experience: Mick taking acid.
Naturally, nowhere in the lyrics is that ever specified, as we are talking about Mick Jagger here, but “Something Happened to Me Yesterday” is more about reflecting on the acid trip than what actually happened during it.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2034: The Rolling Stones – “Something Happened To Me Yesterday”
Album: Between The Buttons
Year: 1967
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Between The Buttons was a fucking weird album. Equally under the influence of Bob Dylan, The Kinks and whichever hallucinogens they could get their hands upon, it’s full of songs with dark lyrics, weird rhythms and strange mixes.
I can see why people might hate it — outside of the singles “Let’s Spend The Night Together” and “Ruby Tuesday“, which were stuck on the U.S. version by London Records — but I think its the peak of their experimental period. It’s more fun than Aftermath, more coherent than Their Satanic Majesties Request, and more unconventional than either.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2033: The Rolling Stones – “My Obsession”
Album: Between The Buttons
Year: 1967
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According to one of my sources for this insanity, the comprehensive if indifferently written The Rolling Stones All The Songs: The Story Behind Every Track by Philippe Margotin & Jean-Michel Guesdon, “Connection” is the first song where Keith Richard sings lead, which — given how close Mick is singing with him — is almost a distinction without a difference.
That said, ever since the X-pensive Winos tours in the late 1980s, Keith has essentially claimed “Connection” as one of his quintessential songs, like “Happy” or “Before They Make Me Run,” and given how much it foreshadows his future, it totally makes sense.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2032: The Rolling Stones – “Connection”
Album: Between The Buttons
Year: 1967
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On the shortlist of Prettiest Songs Ever Recorded, British Invasion Division, “Ruby Tuesday” was yet another quantum leap in ballad-making. It was also written almost entirely by Keith Richards, though it was based upon something Brian Jones came up with, though typically, Jones was cut out of the songwriting credits — just as Bill Wyman and Mick Taylor would be cut out in the future — as the “Jagger/Richards” imprimatur on Stones originals was just the law now.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2031: The Rolling Stones – “Ruby Tuesday”
Album: Between The Buttons (U.S.)
Year: 1967
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It’s clear Ed Sullivan fucking hated the Rolling Stones. After their first appearance, he apologized for having them on and swore that he’d never have them on again. He probably thought he was making a good bet: that there was no way that these shaggy-ass scruffy fucks were going to any kind of career.
Instead, they were on several more times, the final one when they performed “Gimme Shelter” in 1969, the world having changed completely in the intervening five years.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2030: The Rolling Stones – “Let’s Spend The Night Together”
Album: Flowers
Year: 1966
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Hoo boy. This is a tough one, because, on one hand, “Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadow” is a proto-punk thrill ride that features the first use of a horn section on any Rolling Stones single: finally, Keith got his soul horns on a song! On the other hand, it’s one of the great missed opportunities in the entire Stones catalog.
Album: Flowers
Year: 1966
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OK. So. In the U.K., “Mother’s Little Helper” wasn’t a single, but instead, the lead track of Aftermath. In the U.S., “Paint It Black” was the lead track of Aftermath, as well as a single on both sides of the pond, and “Mother’s Little Helper” didn’t show up on an album until 1967’s weird-ass Flowers compilation. And yes, this will all be on the final.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2028: The Rolling Stones – “Mother’s Little Helper”