Flowers

Certain Songs #2035: The Rolling Stones – “Sittin’ on a Fence”

February 16, 2021 by Jim Connelly

Album: Flowers
Year: 1967

. . .

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.

Certain Songs #2029: The Rolling Stones – “Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in The Shadow?”

February 9, 2021 by Jim Connelly

Album: Flowers
Year: 1966

. . .

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.

Certain Songs #2028: The Rolling Stones – “Mother’s Little Helper”

February 8, 2021 by Jim Connelly

Album: Flowers
Year: 1966

. . .

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.

Certain Songs #1661: The Psychedelic Furs – “Flowers”

October 21, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Psychedelic Furs
Year: 1980

. . .

For all of the discrepancies between the U.K. and U.S. versions of The Psychedelic Furs, one thing was consistent: the album started with the slow build of “India” and ended with the gorgeous dissonant rant of “Flowers.”

Given how many times the word “flowers” had already shown up in Richard Butler’s lyrics, it really wasn’t surprising that he penned a whole song by that name — though, by that logic, I guess he should have also penned one called “Stupid.”