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Mick Jagger

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17 Apr, 2010

Following The River

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The band releases, Following The River, from the album, Exile On Main St. (2010 re-release). Jagger:

It’s a good feeling when it all comes together. There’s a track called Following the River, which is a ballad. It’s a got beautiful piano on it, which I didn’t play. And I’d heard this before but it didn’t have any lyrics at all. I could hear different melodies but I didn’t know how I was going to get the melody to fit with this already existing track, which is very heavily piano. And when it came together, I was just singing onto it, I was putting it on the stereo and I was singing along, trying out different melody lines and trying out different words. And when it actually came together, it’s a very good moment, you know? There’s a moment – there’s a frustration, there’s a build-up of this [makes discouraged face], and then try, try, try, try, and there’s a moment when it really comes together for you.

The Rolling Stones - Following The River

5 Dec, 2005

Rain Fall Down

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The band releases their song, Rain Fall Down, from the album, A Bigger Bang. Jagger:

Rain Fall Down is a song about London. It has a line, ‘Feel like we’re living in a battleground, everyone’s jazzed.’ That was in my head already. There were so many armed police in the streets. Walking around, seeing machine guns, is not how you imagine London to be. If we keep going down this track, we’re not going to get back.

The Rolling Stones - Rain Fall Down - OFFICIAL PROMO (EXPLICIT)

1995

I Go Wild

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The band releasesI Go Wild, from, Voodoo Lounge. Jagger:

‘Waitresses with broken noses’ – that’s Ronnie Wood’s specialty. He knew every waitress in Dublin, and so I thought I’d put that line in for him. I like that song. I really got into the lyrics on that one. One of the wordy ones.

The Rolling Stones - I Go Wild - OFFICIAL PROMO

1 Nov, 1983

Undercover Of The Night

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The band releases their song, Undercover Of The Night, from the album, Undercover. Jagger:

I’m not saying I nicked it, but this song was heavily influenced by William Burroughs’ Cities Of The Red Night, a free-wheeling novel about political and sexual repression. It combines a number of different references to what was going down in Argentina and Chile. I think it’s really good but it wasn’t particularly successful at the time because songs that deal overtly with politics never are that successful, for some reason.

The Rolling Stones - Undercover Of The Night - OFFICIAL PROMO (EXPLICIT)

15 Sep, 1978

Respectable

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The band releasesRespectable, from the album, Some Girls. Jagger:

I was banging out three chords incredibly loud on the electric guitar, which isn’t always a wonderful idea but was great fun here. This is a Punk meets Chuck Berry number. The lyric carries no fantastically deep message, but I think it might have had something to do with Bianca.

The Rolling Stones - Respectable - OFFICIAL PROMO

9 Jun, 1978

When The Whip Comes Down

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The band releases their song, When The Whip Comes Down, from the album, Some Girls. Jagger:

I don’t know why I wrote it. Maybe I came out of the closet (laughs). It’s about an imaginary person who comes from L.A. to New York and becomes a garbage collector.

The Rolling Stones - When The Whip Comes Down (Live) - Official

Far Away Eyes

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The band releases their song, Far Away Eyes, from the album, Some Girls. Jagger:

You know, when you drive through Bakersfield on a Sunday morning or Sunday evening, all the Country music radio stations start broadcasting black Gospel services live from L.A. And that’s what the song refers to. But the song’s really about driving alone, listening to the radio.

The Rolling Stones - Far Away Eyes - OFFICIAL PROMO

26 Jul, 1974

It’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll (But I Like It)

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The band releases, It’s Only Rock N Roll (But I Like It), from the album with the same name. Jagger:

The title has been used a lot by journalists, the phrase has become a big thing. That version that’s on there is the original version, which was recorded half in Ron Wood’s basement, if I remember rightly. It was a demo. It’s a very Chuck Berry song, but it’s got a different feeling to it than a Chuck Berry song. You can’t really do proper imitations of people. You always have to start out by imitating somebody. In painting, some famous artist always starts out by being an impressionist. And then they become the most famous abstract artist. Or an actor starts out by imitating someone else’s style. And then you develop your own. And I think that’s what happened with this band and all the musicians that have played in it. You start off with one thing, and then you mutate into another, but you still acknowledge the fact that these influences came from here and here and here. Because not everyone knows that. But you make this new amalgam. And out of all this different music, all out these Blues, out of all this Country music, out of all this Jazz and dance music and Reggae music, you know, you make something that’s your own.

The Rolling Stones - It's Only Rock 'N' Roll (But I Like It) - OFFICIAL PROMO

Dec 1973

Star Star

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The band releasesStar Star, from, Goat’s Head Soup.  Jagger:

People always give me this bit about us being a macho band, and I always ask them to give me examples. Under My Thumb… Yes, but they always say Starf–ker, and that just happened to be about someone I knew. There’s really no reason to have women on tour, unless they’ve got a job to do. The only other reason is to f–k. Otherwise they get bored, they just sit around and moan. It would be different if they did everything for you, like answer the phones, make the breakfast, look after your clothes and your packing, see if the car was ready, and f–k. Sort of a combination of what (road manager) Alan Dunn does and a beautiful chick.

The Rolling Stones - Star Star (Live) - Official

1973

Sympathy for the Devil

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The band releasesSympathy for the Devil, from, Beggars Banquet. Jagger:

Songs can metamorphosize. And Sympathy for the Devil is one of those songs that started off like one thing, I wrote it one way and then we started the change the rhythm. And then it became completely different. And then it got very exciting. It started off as a folk song and then became a samba. A good song can become anything. It’s got lots of historical references and lots of poetry.

The Rolling Stones - Sympathy for the Devil - Live in St Louis

20 Aug, 1973

Angie

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The band releasesAngie, from the album, Goat’s Head Soup. Jagger:

People began to say that song was written about David Bowie’s wife but the truth is that Keith wrote the title. He said, ‘Angie,’ and I think it was to do with his daughter. She’s called Angela. And then I just wrote the rest of it.

The Rolling Stones - Angie - OFFICIAL PROMO (Version 2)

14 Apr, 1972

Tumbling Dice

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The band releases, Tumbling Dice, from, Exile On Main St. Jagger:

This was originally titled Good Time Woman. It started out with a great riff from Keith and we had it down as a completed song called Good Time Women. That take is one of the bonus tracks on the new Exile package; it was quite fast and sounded great but I wasn’t happy with the lyrics.
Later, I got the title in my head, ‘call me the tumbling dice’ so I had the theme for it. I didn’t know anything about dice playing but I knew lots of jargon used by dice players. I’d heard gamblers in casinos shouting it out.
I asked my housekeeper if she played dice. She did and she told me these terms. That was the inspiration.

The Rolling Stones - Tumbling Dice (Live) - OFFICIAL

23 Apr, 1971

Dead Flowers

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The band releasesDead Flowers, from, Sticky Fingers. Jagger:

I love Country music, but I find it very hard to take it seriously. I also think a lot of country music is sung with the tongue in cheek, so I do it tongue in cheek. The harmonic thing is very different from the blues. It doesn’t bend notes in the same way, so I suppose it’s very English, really. Even though it’s been very Americanized, it feels very close to me, to my roots, so to speak.

The Rolling Stones - Dead Flowers (Live) - OFFICIAL

5 Dec, 1969

Midnight Rambler

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The band releases their song, Midnight Rambler, from the album, Let It Bleed. Jagger:

That’s a song Keith and I really wrote together. We were on a holiday in Italy. In this very beautiful hill town, Positano, for a few nights. Why we should write such a dark song in this beautiful, sunny place, I really don’t know. We wrote everything there – the tempo changes, everything. And I’m playing the harmonica in these little cafés, and there’s Keith with the guitar.

The Rolling Stones - Midnight Rambler (Live) - OFFICIAL

Gimme Shelter

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The band releasesGimme Shelter, featuring Clayton, from, Let It Bleed. Jagger:

That song was written during the Vietnam War and so it’s very much about the awareness that war is always present; it was very present in life at that point. Mary Clayton who did the backing vocals, was a background singer who was known to one of the producers. Suddenly, we wanted someone to sing in the middle of the night. And she was around. She came with her curlers in, straight from bed, and had to sing this really odd lyric. For her it was a little odd – for anyone, in the middle of the night, to sing this one verse I would have been odd. She was great.

The Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter (Live) - OFFICIAL PROMO

Jul 1969

You Can’t Always Get What You Want

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The band releasesYou Can’t Always Get What You Want, from the album, Let It Bleed. Jagger:

It’s a good song, even if I say so myself. It’s got a very sing-along chorus, and people can identify with it: No one gets what they always want. It’s got a very good melody. It’s got very good orchestral touches that Jack Nitzsche helped with. So it’s got all the ingredients.

The Rolling Stones - You Can't Always Get What You Want (Live) - OFFICIAL