Album: 12 X 5
Year: 1964
. . .
In June 1964, The Rolling Stones toured America the first time. Unlike The Beatles, they weren’t topping the U.S. charts, but there was still a considerable amount of hype surrounding them, which they used to their advantage to finagle recording sessions at Chess Studios in Chicago. They did this three times in 1964-1965, and those sessions produced many of their classic early songs, the first of which was a cover of the Valentino’s “It’s All Over Now,” a song that the legendary DJ Murray The K had turned them onto only a week or so before.
Written by Bobby & Shirley Womack, “It’s All Over Now” is the timeless tale of a guy who is pretty much done with a toxic relationship and is ready to move on.
As done by The Valentinos, “It’s All Over Now” is straight-up R&B strut, driven by a bouncy bassline and clattering drums. But, as they often did when reinterpreting R&B songs, The Rolling Stones took it in a different direction: opening with an massive echoing guitar, “It’s All Over Now” settles into a Sun Sessions groove, with Brian & Keith’s guitars circling in and around each other — Brian’s rhythm guitar hitting like blocks of granite — as Mick sings the defiant lyrics. Some people heard it as country, but I hear it as straight-up rock and/or roll.
Well, baby used to stay out all night long
She made me cry, she done me wrong
She hurt my eyes open, that’s no lie
Tables turn and now her turn to cry
As Charlie Watts’s hard-as-diamonds snare drive the song ever forward, “It’s All Over Now” effortlessly slinks into its chorus, Keith singing a raggedly evocative high harmony.
Because I used to love her, but it’s all over now
Because I used to love her, but it’s all over now
One of the great Rolling Stones vocal tricks shows up here: Keith is singing the harmony, but he’s ever-so-slightly ahead of Mick, adding just an extra bit of friction to the chorus, especially when compared to the precise-as-math Beatle harmonies. Jagger & Richards were never going to sing as well as Lennon & McCartney, and so they emphasized that fact over and over again.
Well, she used to run around with every man in town
She spent all my money, playing her half-assed game
She put me out, it was a pity how I cried
Tables turn and now her turn to cry
Apparently, according to all of the lyrics sites, what Mick is really singing here is “high-class game” — and in fact, that’s what Bobby Womack sang in the original — but he slurs it up, omitting any “kuh” sound whatsoever and what I hear is “half-assed game,” which is both dirtier and funnier. Also dirty & funny: Keiths guitar solo, a disjointed spindly thing that gets launched with a “yeah” from Mick feels like the missing link between “Louie, Louie” and “You Really Got Me” and goes on much longer than anybody — including Keith, actually — expects it to. It’s sloppy as fuck — apparently John Lennon dissed it to Keith’s face — which is why it’s so awesome.
In one of their first great codas, after the final “it’s all over now” Brian cranks up his volume, playing utterly gynormous block chords over Keith’s twinkling guitar, and that’s what drives “It’s All Over Now” right through the fade. Given the fact that they’d never even heard the song before they got to America, the power and brilliance they bring to this cover is utterly astounding.
And the audiences responded: well, in the U.K., anyways, where “It’s All Over Now” became their first chart-topper. Here in the U.S., it only made it to #26, actually a couple of notches lower than their previous single, the somewhat pedestrian “Tell Me.” It was also a highlight of the first side of their second American album, 12 X 5.
“It’s All Over Now”
“It’s All Over Now” live on the TAMI show, 1964
“It’s All Over Now” live 1995
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