Here’s a fun clip of the Stones on the Ed Sullivan Show, syncing to this tune in 1966. It doesn’t appear that any of group listed this one in their Top 10, probably rightly, but it is a catchy original tune that defies categorization. Reportedly one of the first songs to incorporate guitar feedback (can this be true?) and the first Stones song with a horn part, it was also supposedly one of the first songs Richards composed on the piano and can be seen miming the piano part in the video.
But in the recording it is Jack Nitzsche and Brian Jones who played the piano, with Richards on guitar.
And the lyrics are straightforward, mysterious and mysteriously salacious. Nicely done.
This is awfully, awfully hard. There are a slew of tremendous songs I’m leaving off, like everyone else. And if I did this list in 48 hours, I could have a lot of changes. The Rolling Stones catalogue is ridiculously deep.
(The number is how many points each song gets, with 30 points allocated for 10 songs.)
5 – Gimme Shelter – Not necessarily my favorite Stones song, but I think it’s their best. I recognize that’s a nebulous point. For me, it’s how I consider Pulp Fiction the best film I’ve ever seen, but it’s not necessarily my favorite (though it rates very well, too).
4- Rocks Off – To me, the quintessential Stones number. The lyrics are a perfect kick-start to Exile (also kicking off the fourth album in what is probably the best Rock and Roll run in history, Banquet to Exile), but what really gets me is everything going on behind Mick, especially the horns and Hopkins piano. Mick could sing about Peanut Butter & Jelly and this is still fantastic.
4- Bitch – Yeah, it’s been played into the ground, but rock doesn’t get any hookier than this.
3- Can’t You Hear Me Knocking – Mandatory for Marty’s mob pictures.
3- Ruby Tuesday – I loved it at first listen, but I’ll admit I loved it a little more when it turned up in the key scene of The Royal Tenenbaums. (I also hated to leave out I Am Waiting, which framed the most melancholy 90 seconds of Rushmore.)
3 – Moonlight Mile – Japanese Thing
3 – Under My Thumb – Sarcasm font didn’t exist in the 60s.
2 – Waiting on a Friend – The Stones don’t get enough credit for the 80s. Maybe they weren’t hitting 100 on the gun then, but they still cranked it up into the high 90s.
This exercise started because Gene said Monkey Man was on his Stones Top 10, and I didn’t see how he’d find room for it AND Gimme Shelter.
I haven’t looked at anyone else’s list yet, so I don’t know that he did. But my guess is he made it work.
This exercise is also ridiculous, since the distinctions between scores of songs are slight. Is Gimme Shelter better than Monkey Man? I would say yes, simply because the subject is sublime instead of epic, searing instead of hot, plus there’s Merry Clayton. But those are two great songs on just one of many albums.
As Les, our newest remnant, pointed out in an email yesterday, while the Stones’ greatest stretch of creativity extended from Beggars Banquet to Sticky Fingers, the album Aftermath may be their greatest. And while some would say that’s based on the string of hits that grace the UK side one (I’m thinking Mothers Little Helper, Under My Thumb and Lady Jane) and Paint It Black, which lands on the US side one, the record is a trove of brilliant blue rock songs, including High and Dry, Think, Flight 505, Going Home, and I Am Waiting. Among others!
I could find a place for all these songs on my Top 10, and yet when I looked at the 10 songs I did name, none of them are on Aftermath. There are just too many other songs that for one reason or another are ranked higher.
Is this right? The only answer is there is no right and wrong, and it’s my hope that each of our Top 10 lists is an introduction to some surprises. And that the composite list is collectively smart rather than collectively dumb. It could go either way.
So please, enjoy these notes and clips while knowing that on any other day things could have gone very differently.
(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction–Out Of Our Heads (1965)
If there is a single greatest rock song, this is it. It was the first Stones single to hit No. 1. The propulsion of the opening riff, Jagger’s vocals and the harmonies, the specifics of the lyrics, the driving unrelenting ensemble beat, are all just about perfect. Played too much? Heard too many times? It doesn’t matter. That’s how good this is.
Get Off My CLoud–December’s Children (and everyone’s) (1965)
The band’s follow up to Satisfaction is kind of a rockin’ version of (I Am A) Rock, but the Stones crush Paul Simon by turning isolation into a dance party in a back room. How else does the Get Off My Lawn call and response chorus also become a party chant. In any case, a swinging rock song that also reached No. 1 in the states.
Heart of Stone–Rolling Stones Now! (1964)
This is a slow country blues that has the lyrics of a suburban teen, perfectly and candidly describing his reactions to his cold cold heart and his desire for something warmer. Twining guitars, a cleverly syncopated backbeat, and a Mick’s vocals makes some kind of soul music that sounds of the world, but is made only by the Stones.
No Expectations–Beggars Banquet (1968)
What sets this blues apart is Brian Jones’ slide guitar, but the whole ensemble is in there, having stripped the country blues down into it’s base parts. Simple, direct, unadorned, lovely, distilled and aged, smooth and rich. It’s here and then its gone.
Sway–Sticky Fingers (1971)
Sludgy Stones music. Not blues, exactly, and not country, but a ton of layered instruments interweaving, with Mick Taylor’s guitar sliding over the top when Jagger’s voice isn’t doing it. Written by Taylor and Jagger, according to Taylor, though credited to Mick and Keith, it is just a spectacular evocation of some sort of eternal gloaming and perpetual unfulfilled desire, uncategorizable and deliciously decadent, too.
Brown Sugar–Sticky Fingers (1971)
As rifftastic as Satisfaction, but somewhat more problematic lyrically, this still stands as one of the great rock songs of all time. Charlie’s dead simple drum beat (one at a time, mostly) creates a perfect syncopation with Keith’s rhythm guitar. Airy and easy and rocking, with plenty of room for piano and sax solos. One day while in high school, preparing to throw a house party, I blew out two sets of speakers playing this song too loudly for technology. The party went on anyway, but quieter.
Shine A Light–Exile on Main Street (1972)
Not a typical Stones song. Mostly written by Jagger, mostly played by Mick Taylor and Billy Preston (will Jimmy Miller on drums), this was typical of the hodge podge sessions that produced Exile. It is the gospel sounds of the keyboards and the backup singers that turn this into that great double album’s emotional climax.
Gimme Shelter–Let It Bleed (1969)
This is the one great Stones song that has become freighted with cultural signifiers. It is a summary of the 60s, and yet it is so sonically and musically powerful that it shouts down years of lame summary montages of political unrest in the states and the war in Vietnam. The bottom line is that it really does sound as big as history, and yet is a simple blue-rock stomp. Let’s thank Merry Clayton for her clarion call.
Parachute Woman–Beggars Banquet (1968)
Utterly simple blues evokes the road north to Chicago, and echoes with desire and lust, without menace, yet menacing and dark and deeply weird, too. This isn’t a major tune by any stretch, but it is a distinctive and great recording by every measure, pulsing and catchy as it bores into your head, seemingly trad and avant garde at the same time.
The Singer Not the Song–Decembers Children (and Everyone’s) (1965)
A bit of Merseybeat built on a memorable lyric and jangly guitars, it came out originally as the b-side of Get Off My Cloud in the UK and on this odds and sods collection of miscellanea in the US. Maybe my untoward affection comes from learning to play it on guitar as a teen, spending many afternoons hammering away while singing the lyrics. It also seems like the perfect capper for a Stones’ top 10.
Postscript:
Just want to call out some other Stones songs that could easily been included in this list: As Tears Go By, (Have You Seen Your Mother Baby) Standing In The Shadows, Stray Cat Blues, Rip This Joint, (Doo Doo Doo Doo) Heartbreaker, Jigsaw Puzzle, Connection, The Last Time, Factory Girl, Winter, Torn and Frayed, Can’t You Hear Me Knocking, You’ve Got the Silver, Amanda Jones, and 2000 Man. Plus many more!
The tough part of compiling a Top 10 like this is that I can pare a catalogue of tunes down to 15-17, but then all bets are off.
So, while picking my choices, I went for a combo of my favorites that are still songs I will crank up on the radio or stereo or my IPhone or whatever music delivery system is in fashion.
Otherwise, this list does not need much of an introduction.
It’s All Over Now: Once I heard the opening riff of this song, I loved it. And, I still do, despite it being a staple of the Biletones tunes (I get to sing it) since Day 1 of the band.
As previously noted in the Obit of last week, the song was penned by Bobby Womack, but it was as clearly deconstructed by Keith and Mick as was All Along the Watchtower written by Dylan, but owned by Hendrix. To me the Stones own It’s All Over Now as well.
She Said Yeah: From the first time I heard this song, it was instant love. Rocks as hard as any punk song ever, yet pre-dates by 15 years. From the first album by the Stones I bought, much to the chagrin of my older brother who wanted something more mainstream.
I won and still have my December’s Children copy.
Out of Time: I actually heard the great Chris Farlowe version, which at the time I did not realize was even a cover, before I heard the Stones treatment. Farlowe does have a monster voice, but over the years I came to prefer the Stones copy better, even though Farlowe more than put his stamp on this bad boy.
Here is Farlowe first, though awful awful dubbing/lip-synching. Just close your eyes.
This version, however, is deadly.
Moonlight Mile: There is something so dreamy about this tune, one that probably conveys the sensation drugs can provide as well if not better than any song ever. Sticky Fingers had so many great tunes, but this one is my favorite.
Dandelion: I was always more of a pop guy than a blues guy, and with this song the band really sealed it for me as clever and tuneful and interesting as well as willing to grow. And, man Charlie Watts is just righteous in this one.
Hand of Fate: I never expected to like this song as I was much more into the punk and new wave stuff when Black and Blue came out, but my roommate of the time, Bill Emrick simply bought every Stones album irrespective. This song came on the turntable one day and it has stuck with me ever since.
A great guitar song.
Connection: Seems like a throwaway in the context of all the great songs the Stones produced, but this has a hook, great licks, and a chorus that simply will not go away.
19th Nervous Breakdown: The Stones did one thing differently than the other bands: they seemed to distance themselves from their audience such that when they wrote about drugs or heartbreak there was a detachment between them and what they were playing/singing.
In fact in Mother’s Little Helper and this song, they are almost sneering at the rest of us victims of society and social pressure that we are.
Great bass run at the end, by the way.
2000 Light Years From Home: Released in the shadow of the Beatles Sgt. Pepper, I actually think Their Satanic Majesty’s Request borne the test of time better than the Beatles classic which doesn’t sound as fresh to me these days.
Maybe I heard Sgt. Pepper too much, but this number–with some killer guitar work–is just great. And, I spent so many hours scouring the 3D of Satanic Majesty cover looking for all four Beatles (easy to find Paul and Ringo and George, but John took forever).
Factory Girl: Funny that my favorite Stones album only placed one tune in my Top 10, and at the bottom for that matter.
But, it doesn’t detract from just how fucking good and rootsy and bluesy Beggar’s Banquet is.
I did put these in order of my favorites in the moment of writing, but that could change by tomorrow.
The second half of this piece is Patti Smith’s review of the Stones show at Madison Square Garden on July 25, 1972. The only time I saw the Stones live on stage was during that series of shows, with Stevie Wonder opening.
But the first half tells the story of the pubescent Patti hearing her dad yowl at the TV because the greatest rock band in the world are on the Ed Sullivan show, supporting their album Aftermath, an event which apparently brought Patti to climax and caused her to reevaluate her relationship to her dad.
In other words, she creamed in Creem. Back when rock writing mattered.
We watched Noah Baumbach’s The Squid and the Whale tonight, which ends with the first of the three parts of this rather incredible song. I posted this same clip last October after Lou died.
The video, by the way, is made up of Andy Warhol screen tests, as well as other clips of Warhol’s. Notably, Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips, who wrote the original music for The Squid and the Whale, later went on to make an album of songs to accompany the screen tests. I haven’t heard that album.
Also notable, the start of a section three features spoken word by Bruce Springsteen, whose three year recording exile in the mid-seventies was coming to an end with the recording of Darkness at the Edge of Town, at about the time Street Hassle was recorded.
A few days ago Gene McCaffrey posted a list of his top 10 favorite Beatles’ songs. In the next few days each of the other contributors to Rock Remnants will be posting theirs. Here’s mine.
Please Please Me
When the Beatles first arrived in the US, radio seemed to be playing only 3 songs — I Want to Hold Your Hand, She Loves You and Please Please Me. Please Please Me is my favorite of the Big 3 that introduced me to The Beatles and changed my life. Really.
There’s A Place
It’s all about the vocal harmony. Man, these guys could sing! (And not just John and Paul — George could hold his own too.) The harmonies they created are beautiful and There’s A Place is a wonderful example.
What You’re Doing
A terrific rocker with a cool arrangement that demonstrated the band’s continual development. The drum intro, the chanted first word on each line of the verse, the syncopated rhythm guitar — all perfect for the song. Oh yeah, don’t forget the honky tonk piano behind George’s guitar solo.
Day Tripper
This song kicks butt. Again, they got me at the intro. I love the way The Beatles were using tambourine during this period of their recording history. The 16th notes lead to a rattlesnake shake that is emphasized by a perfectly placed drum roll and cymbal splash. I makes you want to get up and move.
Run For Your Life
John famously had a mean streak and this is him at his worst. “I’d rather see you dead little girl, than to be with another man…” More tambourine and harmony, but add in acoustic guitar and a country flavored solo.
For No One
Paul wrote a trio of songs that were in a very similar style both lyrically and musically — Eleanor Rigby, She’s Leaving Home and For No One. For No One is the most beautiful. Each tells a story accompanied by an arrangement with classical influences. In For No One this is accomplished with a French horn solo that is repeated later in the song as a counter melody to Paul’s vocal. It’s beautiful.
With A Little Help From My Friends
Paul spent hours and hours alone in the studio working on his bass parts to the Sgt Pepper’s set. It shows on this song. It’s a great song that Joe Cocker interpreted superbly, but it’s on my list for Paul’s clever bass part.
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
This is George at his finest. It’s such a beautifully written song. Most people point out Clapton’s guitar playing as the anchor to the song and it is terrific. But there’s a demo version where George plays it (essentially) solo — just voice and guitar. If you listen to that, you hear just how well the song stands on its own. (And there’s an extra verse not heard on the White Album version too.)
Here Comes the Sun
It’s the perfect pop song. What more needs to be said to defend a choice like this.
I’ve Got a Feeling
As everyone now knows, the Lennon/McCartney songwriting team didn’t really exist. Aside from some very early songs (The One After 909) and a few where one wrote the verses and the other contributed a chorus or bridge (We Can Work It Out, A Day In the Life), the boys wrote songs independently. I’ve Got a Feeling is another example of a true collaboration — the combination of three unfinished songs.
, of her pictures of music fans.
