Album: Sticky Fingers
Year: 1971
. . .
Like “Brown Sugar” and “Sway,” “Moonlight Mile” was written completely by Mick Jagger, but unlike those two, Keith Richards is nowhere to be found on the recording, which I think is the first time that had ever happened.
In any event, “Moonlight Mile” is an utterly sweeping and affecting “life on the road” song, which is one of the most crowded genres, to be sure, but it totally transcends just about every other song ever recorded in that genre.
It was worked up in Mick’s living room by Mick, Charlie and Mick Taylor — Keith and Bill not around — with Mick’s weird acoustic guitar riff as the basis for the song, Charlie using his mallets like Mo Tucker and Mick Taylor adding enough ideas that he was always pissed he didn’t get a co-write. It’s an etherial, ever changing arrangement, starting with Mick playing his acoustic riff accompanied by horn player Jim Price on the piano.
The melody line very much follows that acoustic riff, and because it’s so percussive, even Charlie is following it as Mick sings the first verse near the top of his range.
When the wind blows, and the rain feels cold
With a head full of snow, with a head full of snow
In the window, there’s a face you know
Don’t the night pass slow? Don’t the nights pass slow?
There’s a lot of debate on whether or not “head full of snow” is about another visit from sweet Cousin Cocaine or if it’s a metaphor for sadness, Mick dealing with the long boring stretches of travel in between the adrenaline rush of being on stage, which is getting less and less of an adrenaline rush as the tour wears on.
“Moonlight Mile” perks up for its initial choruses, Watts switching up from pounding on the toms to something resembling a backbeat, Mick Taylor adding licks and riffs, and a double-tracked Mick sounding pretty fucking sincere. For Mick, of course.
The sound of strangers sending nothing to my mind
Just another mad, mad day on the road
I am just living to be lying by your side
But I’m just about a moonlight mile on down the road
And then it drops back down for the second verse, Taylor doubling Mick’s guitar riff with his electric.
Made a rag pile of my shiny clothes
Going to warm my bones, going to warm my bones
I’ve got silence on my radio
Let the airwaves flow, let the airwaves flow
Mick’s singing on the whole song is just sublime, but his voice breaking on “shiny clothes” and “radio” are almost otherworldly, some of the best work he’s ever done, and that continues on the second chorus, now accompanied by Paul Buckmaster’s strings.
For I am sleeping under strange, strange skies
Just another mad, mad day on the road
My dreams is fading down the railway line
I’m just about a moonlight mile on down the road
Like the strings on “Sway,” they don’t sweeten the song so much as lighten it, in the case of “Moonlight Mile,” the lyrics might be about being stuck on a train missing his baby, but the song itself ends up soaring the moonlight, starting with the bridge in which Charlie alternates a straight beat with tom rolls, while the guitars and strings drive onward and upward.
I’m hiding, sister, and I’m dreaming
I’m riding down your moonlight mile
I’m hiding, baby, but I’m dreaming
I’m riding down your moonlight mile
I’m riding down your moonlight mile
And then as Mick sings “let it go now,” Mick Taylor plays a nearly-crunchy riff which starts playing call-and-response with the strings, betting bigger and bigger until it explodes into a fanfare so Mick can sing the outro.
Yeah, I’m coming home
‘Cause I’m just about a moonlight mile
On down the road
On down the road, on down the road
Yeah, yeah, baby
At this point, Mick abandons the sublime and goes for the jugular, in his big chill-inducing voice for the climatic “moonlight miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiile / on dowwwwwwwwwwnnn the rooooooooooad”
But instead of just ending with the big rave-up finish — as previous album closers “Salt of the Earth” and “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” had, “Moonlight Mile” goes in the exact opposite direction: an extended chill-out room.
And so as Charlie essentially disappears from the song, as Mick Taylor’s electric guitar, Mick Jagger’s acoustic guitar, Jim Price’s piano and the string section all wander around in a daze until strings finally end it with a flourish.
Out of all of the songs that ever closed a Rolling Stones album — and there have been quite a few heavyweights — “Moonlight Mile” is my absolute favorite, a unique combination of beauty, longing and power that added another flavor to their music that they would attempt to replicate over the years, but — with the possible exception of “Winter” — never even came close to again. And, as you can imagine, given the random intricacy of an arrangement that was essentially made up on the spot — though the strings (and Bill Wyman’s bass) were overdubbed later, “Moonlight Mile” didn’t exactly lend itself to live performances, and in fact, they didn’t even try until 1999 and again in 2015.
“Moonlight Mile”
“Moonlight Mile” live in Los Angeles, 2015
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