Album: Goats Head Soup
Year: 1973
. . .
Thanks to the obsessive record-keeping of teenaged Jim, I can report with confidence that from February 1981 through Christmas 1982, I purchased no fewer than 19 Rolling Stones albums. Even tossing out the two duff live albums (Love You Live and Still Life) and compilations (Metamorphosis and More Hot Rocks — both of which were chock full of non-album cuts), that’s still 15 albums: the vast majority of their studio output up to that point.
In fact, there were only three of their U.S. studio albums I didn’t purchase during that spree: Emotional Rescue, the “eh” follow-up to the awesome Some Girls; It’s Only Rock and Roll, which I bought at some point in the 80s and I’ll talk about tomorrow; and Goats Head Soup.
And so I spent a long time ignoring Goats Head Soup, as it wasn’t supposed to be all that good and I wasn’t ever a big fan of “Angie,” though, as I pointed out yesterday I enjoyed “Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)” all the millions of times I heard it on 13 KYNO in 1973-74.
At some point in the 90s, though, a cassette of Goats Head Soup did come into my life under circumstances I cannot recall, and, of course I checked it out, as Stones albums had stopped coming on, well, any kind of regular basis.
And honestly, the only song that jumped out at me then was the “Winter,” the third epic collaboration between Micks Jagger & Taylor (after “Sway” and “Moonlight Mile,”), which opens with a meandering, almost abstract Mick Jagger rhythm guitar and some lovely Mick Taylor leads, and takes it slow and easy throughout.
And it sure been a cold, cold winter
And the wind ain’t been blowing from the south
It’s sure been a cold, cold winter
And the light of love is all burned out
The irony of “Winter,” of course, is that it was recorded in Jamaica, not exactly the place where the winters were cold and brutal. The Stones had settled on recording on Jamaica because there was basically nowhere to go: they were still tax exiles in England, Keith couldn’t go back to the south of France without getting arrested, and so they eventually settled on Jamaica, as you do. And the first thing they recorded — even before Keith showed up — was “Winter.”
It sure been a hard, hard winter
My feet been dragging across the ground
And I hope it’s going to be a long, hot summer
And the light of love will be burning bright
Some kudos here to Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman, who both negotiate the slow beat with grace and subtlety, Watts relying on his stellar right hand to keep things moving and Wyman — in one of his rare appearances on Goats Head Soup — playing a shitton of great runs. As does Nicky Hopkins on the piano, but of course Nicky Hopkins kills it on the piano. That’s just what happens when you have Nicky Hopkins on your song.
Meanwhile, Mick just continues evoking sadness.
And I wish I been out in California
When the lights on all the Christmas trees went out
But I been burning my bell, book and candle
And the restoration plays have all gone aroundIt sure been a cold, cold winter
My feet been dragging across the ground
And the fields has all been brown and fallow
And the springtime take a long way around
About halfway though, Mick Taylor takes a long long guitar solo, as the strings come swooping in, adding another layer of melancholy and sadness to the song, and there a breakdown as Mick sings the coda:
Sometimes I want to wrap my coat around you
Sometimes I want to keep you warm
Sometimes I want to wrap my coat around you
Sometimes I want to burn a candle for you
I was going to say that “sometimes I want to wrap my coat around you” is callback to “Blood Red Wine,” but can you have a callback to a song that was never released?
In any event, “Winter” is a tone poem, one of the most gorgeous things the Stones ever recorded, and maybe even the great lost Stones ballad, considering that they’ve never even once played it in concert.
Oh, and as far as Goats Head Soup goes, I gave it another chance last year when they put out the reissue and I quite liked it — especially the psychedelic callback “Can You Hear The Music” and the rocking and rambling “Silver Train” — though I’d never put it in the upper echelon of Stones records.
“Winter”
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