Rolling Stones

Certain Songs #2095: The Rolling Stones – “Undercover of the Night”

April 29, 2021 by Jim Connelly

Album: Undercover
Year: 1983

. . .

For two decades, The Rolling Stones got away with exploiting the tension between Mick Jagger’s restless desire for staying right on top of the trends and Keith Richards’ equally restless desire to find new nuances in the traditional. Then, in 1983, it all went to shit, when they released Undercover, an album that not only did I not like, I fucking hated.

As a matter of fact, I hated it so much, I didn’t even bother revisiting it for this project: the only one of their records I did that with. While 1983 Jim had a lot of musical opinions that 2021 Jim now scoffs at, I trust his judgement on this record: it’s a complete piece of shit. With one exception: the lead single “Undercover of the Night.”

Certain Songs #2094: The Rolling Stones – “Waiting on a Friend”

April 28, 2021 by Jim Connelly

Album: Tattoo You
Year: 1981

. . .

The first time I saw The Rolling Stones in concert was Friday, October 9, 1981 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Tim and I drove down the night before and were able to park on the USC campus and walk to the show rather than dealing with the traffic snarls caused by 100,000 people descending on the Coliseum on a Friday.

That’s because we had a friend, Anna, who lived in an apartment on campus and let us crash there (in exchange for tickets for her and her roommate), still one of my all-time favorite logistical coups for a big concert. In any event, I was so excited for the show — I was going to see the Rolling Stones! — I drank like a pint of vodka in order to get to sleep and was incredibly hungover for much of the wait in the long lines to get in. Despite all that, we went out for pizza after the show, as well as went to Westwood Village, and then drove home, getting into Fresno at around 6:00AM, because I had nothing but energy when I was 18.

Certain Songs #2093: The Rolling Stones – “Heaven”

April 27, 2021 by Jim Connelly

Album: Tattoo You
Year: 1981

. . .

Not all of the songs on Tattoo You were reclamation jobs from previous albums. There were a couple that were written especially for the record, both by Mick, as it happens, but still. The first, “Neighbors” was a drum-driven stomper all about Keith’s desire to annoy his neighbors with loud music, but the second, “Heaven” was something entirely different.

Performed by just Mick, Charlie and Bill, “Heaven” is probably the most atmospheric song on a Rolling Stones album since “I Just Wanna See His Face”

Certain Songs #2092: The Rolling Stones – “Worried About You”

April 26, 2021 by Jim Connelly

Album: Tattoo You
Year: 1981

. . .

Tattoo You was, of course, divided into “fast” and “slow” sides, the first half being mostly uptempo rockers — with the exception of mid-tempo groove “Slave” which compensated by having big big guitars. And naturally in 1981, rockboy Jim preferred side one to side two, but sometime in the last 40 years, that’s switched, and now I think that side two of Tattoo You has three of their greatest slow ones ever, starting with the opening song, “Worried About You.”

Certain Songs #2091: The Rolling Stones – “Little T & A”

April 23, 2021 by Jim Connelly

Album: Tattoo You
Year: 1981

. . .

As we’ve established previously, Keith Richards was never as much of a — let’s say — ladies man as either Mick Jagger or Bill Wyman, as his twin penchants for heavy monogamy and heavy drugs (mostly) precluded him going out looking to fuck somebody new every night.

And that why most of the Stones’ songs about groupies, from the “Spider and The Fly” on were written by Mick. Which isn’t to say that he was a saint — I mean, we’re talking about Keith Richards, for fuck’s sake — but it does kinda make sense that he came up with his groupie song during the period where he was (relatively) clean and (relatively) in between his relationships with Anita Pallenberg and Patti Hansen.

Certain Songs #2090: The Rolling Stones – “Start Me Up”

April 21, 2021 by Jim Connelly

Album: Tattoo You
Year: 1981

. . .

Tattoo You was born because the Stones wanted to go on tour in the fall of 1981 and they needed a new record out. (It was 40 years ago, and that’s just how it worked.) The problem was that Mick and Keith weren’t really speaking to each other, so Mick went digging through the vault, pulling and reworking tracks going all the way back to Goats Head Soup.

It should have been a mess, but with judicious overdubs, plus the conceit of having a “rocker” side and a “ballad” side, Tattoo You turned out to be a pretty good record, perhaps even their last great one. I certainly thought so in 1981, because I played the shit out of Tattoo You that year. I’ll betcha dollars to donuts that if you’re a person of a certain age, you did too.

Certain Songs #2089: The Rolling Stones – “She’s So Cold”

April 19, 2021 by Jim Connelly

Album: Emotional Rescue
Year: 1980

. . .

Emotional Rescue came out just a couple of weeks after I graduated from high school, but unlike its predecessor, it didn’t really dominate the summer, despite being an even more eclectic set of songs in the manner of Black and Blue. Apart from the straight-ahead rockers, the Stones tackled disco with “Emotional Rescue,” which made it to #3 but never did anything for me & “Dance (Pt. 1)” which is fine, but completely overshadowed by its sister “If I Was a Dancer (Dance Pt 2)”; reggae (the silly “Send it To Me”); slow blues (“Down in the Hole”) and two of the most tepid ballads they’d yet recorded in “Indian Girl” and “All About You.”

Certain Songs #2088: The Rolling Stones – “Claudine”

April 18, 2021 by Jim Connelly

Album: Some Girls (Deluxe Edition)
Year: 1978

. . .

One of the ironies surrounding the controversy surrounding the song “Some Girls” was that the Stones had actively tried to avoid controversy by not including one of the greatest songs from the Some Girls sessions, a raunchy rockabilly romp called “Claudine.”

In 1976, the singer/actress Claudine Longet shot and killed her boyfriend, the Olympian skier Spider Sabich, but got off with 30 days — to be served on weekends — and a fine due to sloppy police work and the judge believing her story that it was accidental — he was showing her how it worked. This proto case of Responsible Gun Ownership was a huge deal at the time, and inspired Mick Jagger to write the utterly unsparing “Claudine.”

Certain Songs #2087: The Rolling Stones – “Shattered”

April 17, 2021 by Jim Connelly

Album: Some Girls
Year: 1978

. . .

As I mentioned before, Some Girls is such an embarrassment of riches that I very easily could have found something to write about two more songs that I’m almost missing: Keith’s poignant acknowledgement of his fucked-up-ness, “Before They Make Me Run” and his acknowledgement that Mick had been running the show, “Beast of Burden,” which followed “Miss You” into the top ten.

But, of course, as iconic as those two songs are, I would argue that they aren’t nearly as iconic as the final song on Some Girls, the immortal “Shattered,” which takes one last hilarious look at New York City.

Certain Songs #2086: The Rolling Stones – “Respectable”

April 16, 2021 by Jim Connelly

Album: Some Girls
Year: 1978

. . .

So here’s a thing: Some Girls is the only album where I considered writing something about every single song. I wasn’t ever going to do that, of course, because that’s too much, even for me, but I pretty much could. I mean “Lies” is an energetic capper to perhaps the greatest single album side the Stones ever released, and over the years, I’ve come around to “Far Away Eyes” because the chorus is so gorgeous, counteracting my dislike of Mick’s faux-cornpone affect on the verses. (And should note that “thank you Lord, thank you Jesus” was a catchphrase for awhile, at least in my head.)

That said, please tell the affiliates that I’m skipping these songs “Respectable” is a weird song. Not the music — which is basically Punk Berry — or the satirical lyrics, but rather the structure of the song itself.