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Jagger was the principle lyricist, so it's plausible that the song was -- at least in part -- about Marianne Faithfull. Other inspiration(s) remain murky. I've never read a Jagger autobiography (is there one?), so who knows. The song's meaning is universal.

I never realized that Keith Richard was a "down-pointer."  I refer to where he points the neck of his guitar. Bill Wyman was a notorious guitar neck-hugger -- to the point of nearly looking like he was playing an upright bass -- but not in this video.

There is another very famous guitar neck down-pointer. Can you guess to whom I'm referring?

Full lyrics after the jump

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From 1981:

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The music for the song was recorded a decade earlier, intended to be part of "Goats Head Soup." But the song lacked something then (lyrics, according to Jagger) and was only finished for 1981's "Tattoo You."  The sax solo was added then too.

BTW, That's not Keith Richards playing guitar on "Waiting For A Friend;" it's Mick Taylor -- the forgotten Stone -- the one who just happened to be along during the band's peak (he replaced Brian Jones but quit in 1974). Taylor was not credited for "Waiting On A Friend" and ended up suing the Glimmer Twins and winning.

Other related trivia: In the beginning of the video, Mick Jagger is waiting for Keith Richards in a doorway. The building is the same one made famous earlier on the cover of Led Zeppelin's album "Physical Graffiti:"

I remember when that video first came out and was played to death on MTV.  Rewatching it, I had the exact same reaction I had then: look how ashen Keith Richards' complexion is.

That man will outlive us all.

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Keith Richards wrote that song 50 years ago and it was released in early 1967.  According to Wiki, there is some dispute concerning the late Brian Jones' contributions. That is Jones playing the recorder.

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That's Mick singing in Italian!  Lyrics after the jump

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Netflix is running a Keith Richards biopic called "Under The Influence"; I watched it tonight. I suppose it's a must see for Stones fans. I enjoyed it. One thing I did learn was that Keith wrote "Street Fighting Man" on piano and that the germ for the idea came from noodling around in the studio with Charlie Watts. Keith played only acoustic guitar on the song (no electric) and he also played bass guitar! In his words "I'm probably a better bass player than a guitar player."

Lyrics for the song (which set a personal record for me for "misheard lyrics") are after the jump.

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According to the Wiki, The Hollies never officially broke up; this makes them one of the longest lived rock and roll bands. I do wonder who takes that cake. Suggestions? The Rolling Stones date from 1962 but so too do The Hollies. Surely Dick Dale predates them, but he's more or less a solo act.

I've embedded the lyrics after the jump, in case you've ever wondered WTH the song was supposed to be about.

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I don't know much about the history of this much longer version of "Gimme Shelter." But I am sure that it was the same take as the one released on Let it Bleed in 1969. I think the album version was edited and remixed, but it was the same take. How can I tell?  Merry Clayton's vocal track (beginning at the 5 min mark). She could only have done that once. She went home later that evening (morning?) and miscarried her child. So actually someone may have been harmed in that recording.

The redeeming factor in this otherwise menacing song is the last verse: "Love, sister, it's just a kiss away."

Full lyrics after the jump:

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That's the original 1964 version which languished until a producer added (without Simon's or Garfunkel's knowledge)* faux "live applause," electric guitar and bass, and drums. But those changes got the public's attention and the immortal song climbed the charts 50 years ago.

The original version above has a sort of underlying purity; it's not an "unplugged" version of "Sound of Silence." The popular version was a studio creation -- much the same way that The Rolling Stones put together "It's Only Rock And Roll (But I Like It)." link  
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*Paul Simon was horrified when he first heard the remixed version after its release. The problem was that the original recording's tempo was uneven, and the studio musicians had to impose one. There's a point in the remixed song -- right about at the line "and the people bowed and prayed" where the drummer sort of stutters and resets the tempo. I find this whole story ironic in view of Columbia Records using the same studio musicians for the overdub that they used for Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" (sans Al Kooper). It was Kooper who famously couldn't keep the tempo in that song, forever giving it that characteristic "leading from behind" organ signature. 

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Fifty years ago, "The Last Time" was climbing the charts:

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This was not the Rolling Stones' first hit but it's the first one credited to the future Glimmer Twins, Jagger and Richards.

Liner notes:

Brian Jones actually played lead guitar on this tune as evident in the video; Keith Richards is just strumming along.

I always like how Bill Wyman held his bass guitar -- almost vertically. When I was a kid, I had a much older cousin who looked like Bill Wyman. But she was a woman.

Charlie Watts looked bored. I must say that his drumming was completely imitable.

Mick Jagger -- look how "preppy" he looked in 1965!  With lyrics like that, any woman who swooned for him deserved what she got if she couldn't see it coming.

Watch for the cameo by Pete Best.

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She was always the better looking of the two, in my opinion.
[added]  As if that's controversial.

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This is not my favorite song from that classic eponymous Rolling Stones album  -- that would be "Monkey Man."

Song lyrics after the jump.

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Hey, hey, you, you, get off on my cloud:

KLEM FM: Charlie Watts' Golden

The key to Led Zeppelin is that somebody is always playing a counter point. You can hear that. ~Jimmy Page

I know that Page was talking musically and about his band, but the observation popped into my head as I began write a tribute to Charlie Watts who will celebrate his 50th wedding anniversary in October.

Through all those years of temptation, one guy stays true and faithful to his wife in the context of The Rolling Stones. That's sort of a "counter point" isn't it?

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Let It Bleed

Brian Jones played maracas, oboe, alto saxophone, and harpsichord on that 1967 song. Shortly thereafter, things soured. Allegedly, the following exchange between Jagger and Jones occurred during the recording of "You Can't Always Get What You Want":

Jones meekly asked an agitated Jagger, "What can I play?" Jagger's terse response was 'I don't know, Brian, what can you play?'

A year later, Jones was dead. I'm looking for the source of that quote. I think it's in Keith Richards' "Life" however I can't word search it.

"Rock And A Hard Place"

How To Steal A Song And Get Away With It

Watch this brief video I made and then allow me to explain:

 

Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo

 

"Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, "Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)"'s lyrics relate two stories: one is a story of New York City police shooting a boy because they mistook him for a bank robber, and the second of a ten-year-old girl who dies in an alley of a drug overdose. Neither of these events are known to be factual."

After telling the story of the police shooting the wrong person, Jagger sings,You heartbreaker, with your .44, I want to tear your world apart.

The .44 magnum cartridge had been recently made famous by the 1971 film Dirty Harry, in which Harry Callahan uses "the most powerful handgun in the world" to cleanse the streets of crime. The lyrics complement the music, which Rolling Stone magazine described as "urban R&B", due to its funk influence and prominent clavinet part (played by Billy Preston).

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