Rolling Stones, “Wild Horses (acoustic)”

The Stones are releasing a deluxe version of Sticky Fingers in May, which includes this acoustic version of Wild Horses. Nice enough, but I couldn’t get over the thought that Jagger sounds like he’s got a head cold.

I went back to the original, because my thought was that it was pretty acoustic itself, and it is, except for some electric guitar flourishes from Keith. Plus the album version has healthy harmonies on the chorus. Both of which enrich the song a lot.

One funny bit of trivia from Wikipedia. The song was recorded at Muscle Shoals and even though Ian Stewart was present, the piano part was played by Jim Dickinson. It seems that Stew didn’t like to play minor chords!

One other item of note. Many are reporting that this reissue of Sticky Fingers commemorates the 50th anniversary of the album’s release. Nope. The album came out April 23, 1971, forty four years ago this month. Math.

3 thoughts on “Rolling Stones, “Wild Horses (acoustic)”

  1. Agree, the album version is vastly superior. Nothing wrong with this but it’s obviously a demo. Is that Keith doing the fills? It sounds more like Mick Taylor to me. There is a stylistic merging of the two at times, over the entire time they played together, which I just love because it shows how in tune with each other (and with the songs) they were. An academic point but I wonder.

  2. According to Wikipedia it’s Keith on the electric (and 12-string acoustic), Taylor on the acoustic. Also, Taylor used Nashville tuning, in which the EADG strings are tuned one octave higher than regular tuning.

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