In this very special piece from the Uncut archives, an all-star cast, including Johnny Marr, Frank Black, Chris Hillman, Joe Strummer, Wayne Kramer, Ian Astbury and many more, pick the Stones’ 40 greatest tracks. The feature originally appeared in Uncut Take 56 (January 2002) and was updated in 2026.
40 LAUGH, I NEARLY DIED
A Bigger Bang album track, 2005
DON WAS: There was something about it that really struck me when they were cutting it. There’s almost like a chain gang kind of chant in the middle, and we even had pick axes that we recorded for percussion in the background. They sing, “Been travelling far and wide / Wondering who’s going to be my guide.” It’s just about someone being lost, someone who’s been all over the world and is wandering around and feeling lost and small. And I thought about how, back in high school, I looked to the Stones and The Beatles and Bob Dylan for philosophical answers. They were like our leaders – they were more than just entertainers. Then I hear them singing this song and I thought, ‘Wow, the leaders are lost too!’
I thought it was a pretty brave lyric to write. I don’t think people look to them for particularly meaningful lyrics, but that’s a mistake because I’ve watched them write for 30 years, and there’s nothing haphazard about it, nothing thrown away. I think both Mick and Keith are really great poets when they want to be. That track had a great slinky groove going on underneath, too…
39 ANGRY
Single from Hackney Diamonds album, 2023
MICHAEL BONNER: “Angry” had a lot to live up to. On one hand, it was the opening salvo for the Stones first album of new music for 18 years. Critically, it was also their first without Charlie Watts, who’d died in 2021. Perhaps there were those who expected the Stones to return in a reflective and questioning mode, still processing the unexpected loss of their friend and bandmate; but in fact Watts’ loss seemed to galvanise them. “Angry” strained at the leash to show how vital and dynamic the Stones still are: propulsive riffs, an hilarious tale of quarrelling lovers and a blistering Jagger vocal.
38 HOT STUFF
Black And Blue album track and B-side of “Fool To Cry”, 1976
TIM BURGESS: I love the sentiments of this song, which is basically putting down a girl or a guy who think they’re hot stuff, the kind of people who walk across the road saying, “Look how amazing I am.” Mick almost seems to be saying, “Yeah but you’re not as amazing as me.” This has a great funky vibe to it, and once again the video is just ridiculous. For all their devil blues imagery in the past, it’s often forgotten that they had a good sense of humour.
37 UNDERCOVER OF THE NIGHT
Single from Undercover album, 1983
JULIEN TEMPLE: Obviously there are personal reasons because I directed the video. With this track, there was a sense of Keith reclaiming his place, and this song has a devil/outlaw feel to it that they lost for a while. Here, they’re not trying to be complicated, it’s a stripped down and raw, almost punk rock song. I also like songs that have a social edge to them. Having worked with the Pistols, I didn’t want to work with the Stones to be honest, although I loved them when I was a kid. It was quite funny because I thought they wouldn’t do an edgy video, but again they were reclaiming an edge and danger they had lost.
IAN ASTBURY: Their great comeback after punk. Proved you could be cool at 40.
MIKE JOYCE: Obviously they were going for more of an Eighties feel, but it worked. Knowing the way Charlie Watts is, I can imagine him sitting at the back when they were making it with his head in his hands going, “No, no, please no!” Which is why I like it.
36 MEMO FROM TURNER
From the Performance soundtrack
JON SPENCER: Strictly speaking, this isn’t a Rolling Stones song. But it was written by Jagger and Richards and it works just as brilliantly as a deviant rock song as it did on the soundtrack to Performance.
35 DOOM AND GLOOM
Single from the GRRR! compilation, 2012
MICHAEL BONNER: One of two original tracks released to accompany GRRR!, the band’s 50th anniversary compilation, “Doom And Gloom” was a million miles away from a will-this-do throwaway for completists. Driven by a fantastic riff, it’s a tall tale about an aeroplane crashing in a Louisiana swamp, energetically delivered by Jagger. At that point, the Stones’ first new music since A Bigger Bang seven years previously, “Doom And Gloom” was the kind of swaggering, unrepentant number you could be forgiven for thinking they’d long since forgotten how to write. Their best single since “Start Me Up”, at any rate.
34 RESPECTABLE
Single from Some Girls album, 1978
PHILL JUPITUS: I’ve got this one on the original seven-inch vinyl – so it’s nice to know that amidst my fascination with the Sex Pistols and The Buzzcocks et al, I hadn’t shunned the Stones like so many of my peers. My all-time favourite Charlie Watts record. I can see him sitting there so completely minimal in his approach as to make Bertolt Brecht look like Andrew Lloyd Webber. His summation of their career in the 25th anniversary documentary 25 x 5 is my favourite rock quote: “Five years work, 20 years hanging about.”
33 START ME UP
Single from Tattoo You album, 1981
BOB HARRIS: It’s such a great record and I have a sentimental attachment to it because it was the first record I ever played on Radio 2. I thought, “We’ll set the stall out with this one.” It was symbolic, with that great riff to set us up and say, “Right, we’re in business.”
32 WAITING ON A FRIEND
Single from Tattoo You album, 1981
JOE PERNICE: For completely nostalgic reasons. It was one of the first songs I ever learnt to play in a medley, along with Roddy Frame’s version of “Jump”. The chords, at least to my ears, are alarmingly similar.
SCOTT KANNBERG: It’s just a great confessional song that the Stones are pretty good at doing, I just love it. It’s got a weird sound to it. The video is one of my favourite videos of all time; it’s like they stand out in the yard looking really weird and wasted. The song is intimate and honest. I don’t really remember it as a kid. I discovered the Stones when I was 18 or 20 years old, and started to listen to all their records. I got into all their important records, and it was a song that really got to me. It’s also massively underrated and it’s easy to forget how many great songs they’ve written.
IAN ASTBURY: It captures being in a band and the intense friendships within that. This song lets you into their world.
31 SOUL SURVIVOR
Exile On Main Street album track, 1972
JOHNNY MARR: By the time I got into Exile On Main Street, I’d already decided the Stones were the greatest band there’d ever been. It took me a few listens because of all the brass, but when I started getting into it from a groove and rhythm guitar point of view, I understood what they were doing. It’s another archetypal Keith riff, and I just love the R&B aspects of it.
30 LADY JANE
Single from Aftermath album, 1966
WILL SERGEANT: You can imagine Mick trying to cop off with some posh bird, you know, having her in the back garden, in the maze or something. It just had that sort of great imagery and again they were more than just rockers and pretty out there for the time. I also like the harpsichord on it – simple but effective. I heard this track on the first Stones record I bought, Gimme Shelter, a Decca compilation with a live side on it.
MICHAEL GIRA: I’m old enough to remember the Stones when they first came out, but young enough (10 or 11 years old) at the time to allow a direct mainline of their music into my ill-formed psyche. When I first heard The Beatles, I went out and bought a Beatle wig and pointy shoes. When I first heard the Stones I started taking drugs. I listened to this again recently and the lyrics are ridiculous, but the atmosphere created by the auto harp (or is it dulcimer?) is enough to smear the Elizabethan pretensions of the words with proto-psychedelic prettiness and anxiety, confusing everything.
29 THE LAST TIME
Single, 1965
ADAM SWEETING: This one seems to get overshadowed by “Satisfaction”, which hardly seems fair. The relentlessly-cycling guitar riff sounds like it’s being played on sizzling high-tension cables, and contributes to a mounting sense of panic as the combo whip up a rare old stomp behind Jagger’s malignant sneer-fest. The guitar solo sounds like a herd of Ford Zephyrs being shoved over a cliff, and the “Well-I-don’t-know” climax snaps at your ankles so ferociously, a rabies shot would be in order.
DUKE ERIKSON: “Satisfaction” usually gets the ‘best guitar riff’ award, but the opening of this song is every bit as powerful and exciting. The song rolls relentlessly with great Jagger vocals, a couple of strong acoustic strums and little harmony bursts by Richards. I’ve never really been asked my early influences, but this was one of the first guitar lines I was determined to play.
STEVEN SODERBERGH: My favourite Rolling Stones song. It’s just a great hook, one of the all-time great guitar licks. If I had to put one on and listen to it again and again, that would be it.
28 SHATTERED
Some Girls album track, 1978
NEIL HAGERTY: I was very young when this single came out, but I was really proud of the way they managed to steal elements of punk and disco to make this song. It still has elements of rock and blues bubbling underneath the surface, but the overall sound totally tapped into that late Seventies/early Eighties New York vibe.
JIM SCLAVUNOS: This is the consummate New York song that encapsulates the mood of the Eighties as much as “Gimme Shelter” encapsulated the end of the hippie idealism. I like the blunt clarity of the lyrics and the way they sound like social commentary from a uniquely malcontent point of view. “Get Off My Cloud”, “Mother’s Little Helper”, “19th Nervous Breakdown” – whatever Stones songs you listen to, they offer a crystallised slice of life.
27 UNDER MY THUMB
Aftermath album track, 1966
CHRIS HILLMAN: I doubt if it’s any woman’s favourite song. At least you knew back in those early days, you could see Mick the raving misogynist, jumping down on women! It’s an interesting thing, and you could see it back then, in ’64 or ’65 or whenever, and I’m sure he was just having a good time with a certain mind-set. But there’s his early misogyny coming out. But great song, great bass line and chorus.
26 MOONLIGHT MILE
Sticky Fingers album track, 1971
SIMON GODDARD: With a truly majestic string arrangement scored by Paul Buckmaster (of “Space Oddity” fame), finding “Moonlight Mile” at the end of Sticky Fingers – this great ugly beast of an album (“Bitch”, “Brown Sugar” et al) – is to savour the supreme calm after the roughest of storms. The kind of song you’d quite happily listen to as a last request before facing the firing squad, such is its poignant optimism. The story goes that the Stones nailed this in the studio about four o’clock in the morning. Keith was so fucked he missed the session so all credit to Mick Taylor whose divine 12 string pluckings more than fill the void. It fits that “Moonlight Mile” is still best experienced at four in the morning, large whiskey in hand.
DAVE MARSH: Like “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”, this will reveal the whole point of staying up all night, if you listen to them at the crack of dawn, as I have been doing for as long as they’ve existed. The former is scarier every year as it becomes less and less a projection of a moment and more and more a hideous truth of daily existence, the latter is the only example I know of where cocaine reference points add up to true emotional insight. Both are beautiful, in a way the more cynical later Stones would never dare to be, and among the band’s last examples of real musical ambition.
25 BEAST OF BURDEN
Some Girls album track / US single, 1978
NILS LOFGREN: When I saw the Stones’ Steel Wheels tour in LA, we were at the soundcheck. There were like eight people in the stadium. They came out one by one. To my amazement, they went into “Beast Of Burden” and they did the whole song right in front of us and Mick comes out on the catwalk all the way to the middle of the stadium and starts flirting with my wife. It was just a great moment. Some of their greatest stuff is the tender stuff and it’s more when the tenderness appears in the harder-edged beat.
IAN McCULLOCH: I love Some Girls, it’s a great album. It came out in the middle of punk and I just like the spite of it.
24 CHILD OF THE MOON
B-side of “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”, 1968
JOHNNY MARR: I like it just for personal reasons. When I first discovered the Stones, I was spending a lot of time at a youth club in Manchester, and they had “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” on the jukebox. I used to hang out with the older kids who used to play that and other stuff like “Layla”, Free’s “Wishing Well” and Led Zep’s “Living Loving Maid”. They were the staple tracks. So after “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” had been played five or six times, they’d put the B-side on. So that reminds me of discovering the Stones and it opened up a whole new world for me. In a way, it’s a parallel track to “Rain” by The Beatles, in that it’s a similarly woozy, vaguely psychedelic tune, a B-side that never came out on anything else.
23 ROCKS OFF
Exile On Main Street album track, 1972
FRANK BLACK: This is a great example of Keith Richards’ guitar playing and the way he always introduced tracks with really catchy chords. Twenty seconds into the song and bang, you’re hooked! I also really like the way Jagger mixed comedy and venom in lines like “The sunshine bores the daylights out of me.”
PHILL JUPITUS: After “Safe European Home” on The Clash’s Give ’Em Enough Rope, the greatest opening track to an album in my collection. I always preferred Jagger’s vocals slightly on the back foot. It’s almost as if when he was belting them out you could hear the prancing. It’s one of those tracks you find yourself turning up with the onset of each chorus. The horn refrain cuts into your head with each blast. The thing about Exile is the layering of the sounds is so delicately interwoven. You can pick out everybody’s parts, it’s a nice, spacey album.
TERRY MILES: My best friend and I were comparing the sonic brilliance of Jethro Tull’s Aqualung to Deep Purple’s Book Of Taliesyn late one stormy winter’s night (just after losing a healthy bout with our first bottle of Canadian whiskey) when our new friend Nico arrived. He ‘rolled one up’ and put on Exile On Main Street. That sound just changed everything. It was raw, murky and funky (but only in that good way). It kicked my ass. Nico was also responsible for turning us on to Dylan. I think he teaches grade school now. I put “Rocks Off” first because that’s the first track on the greatest Stones album ever. Thank you, Nico!
22 GET OFF OF MY CLOUD
Single, 1965
IAN MacDONALD: This was the Stones’ most Dylanish single and their main contribution to the ‘protest music’ genre that was big in 1965, entering the UK charts right after Barry McGuire’s “Eve Of Destruction”. You hear Dylan’s influence in those long, jam-packed lines, almost shouted out. The Stones’ stance was a sort of solipsistic surliness, so there’s no virtuous ‘we’ consciousness, no social conscience here. The song’s a rant that sends itself up as it goes along – a kind of anti-protest song. As with all the Stones’ singles around this time, the production and performance are fantastic, especially Watts’ drumming.
21 I JUST WANT TO SEE HIS FACE
Exile On Main Street album track, 1972
RYAN ADAMS: That was the first Rolling Stones song I ever believed in. I loved them growing up, but there was a period in my life when I was into art-rock and Sonic Youth and stuff and stopped listening. Then I was living in a house in Raleigh, North Carolina with a friend of mine called Tom Cushman, who was a huge Stones fan. It was a beautiful day and it was snowing, and I remember that song being in my head. I went into Tom’s room and played it 20 times. There’s something about the memory of that moment. I’ll never be able to detach myself from that song. It makes me want time to stand still. It feels like they’re in a church and it’s just so wrong and beautiful. It sounds like a band that has gone all the way through and is exhuming and honing the great tradition of American music.
RICHARD LLOYD: Another religious statement. To see the truth of this philosophical search in amongst songs like “Monkey Man” and “Midnight Rambler”, with its look at white hypocrisy, is really quite earnest – a lovely piece. Unbelievable recording, the tom-toms and echo, the whole timbre of the recording. It’s an unbelievable piece.
MICHAEL J SHEEHY: They were at their most decadent and outrageous when they wrote this song, so it never ceases to amaze me what a great gospel number it is. I’ve seen a few clips from Cocksucker Blues and I think I can safely say Jesus must have been the last thing on their mind when they composed this.
IRA KAPLAN: I guess there are a couple of different things that I like about the Stones. Some of their songs it seems you never understand no matter how many times you hear them – there’s still a sense of mystery. And “I Just Wanna See His Face” always seemed like the greatest one of those. I just never wanted it to end. I’ve always wished it was much longer. The way it comes out of nowhere. And the fade. Just everything about it is great.
20 CAN’T YOU HEAR ME KNOCKING?
Sticky Fingers album track, 1971
RYAN ADAMS: It’s the ultimate riff of all time – the quintessential Keith riff. It’s the most rocking thing you’ve ever heard. It’s perfectly savage and totally loose. Not to mention that by the end of the song they’ve broken out into some total fuckin’ free jazz shit. It must have been a total accident, which is why the ending of that song will never be paralleled. It’s one of the finest recorded moments in rock’n’roll. To be able to free yourself like that and get jazzy, like Eric Dolphy or John Coltrane, is unheard of.
HOWIE BECK: What can I say about this song? Man, the way Charlie Watts and Keith Richards played off each other is incredible. The whole track sounds like they had a great time in the studio, just jamming away and bouncing off each other. The end of the song also has an awesome vibe.
JAY FARRAR: That to me represents kinda the quintessential Stones song: the driving Keith riff on electric that starts the song and the interplay between the other musicians is kind of the essence. The transition to the jam is great, too.
19 WILD HORSES
Sticky Fingers album track, 1971
BUTCH VIG: A lot of their early songs were about social rebellion and being the new bad boys of rock’n’roll, but this song is almost tender. It has a lovely, bittersweet quality to it, great guitars and seductive lyrics.
MICHAEL J SHEEHY: I personally think The Flying Burritos’ version is better than the Stones’ version, but the vibes of this song, and the way Jagger delivers each note, is just beautiful.
CHRIS HILLMAN: To be honest, it’s not one of my favourite songs. It felt at the time, and I still feel the same now, that Gram [Parsons] probably pestered them to get the song and to further forge his link with Keith. Gram was a charming, persuasive man, but I don’t know why we ended up doing that song. It took the Burritos out of the honky tonk realm and into maudlin balladry. I like the Stones’ version much better than ours. I think Gram and Keith had a very close relationship for a while, then it became a burden. Their ‘recreational pursuits’ got in the way of reality. As I recall, I think Keith politely asked him to leave. Having worked with Gram – as talented a guy as he was – he wasn’t someone you could work with over a long period of time. It was destructive, not productive. Music is creative and it’s not something you wallow in despair over. You don’t need to wallow in despair at all. That’s a myth. But, yeah, they had a brief sharing of enlightenment together.
MICHAEL GIRA: One of the most beautiful love songs I’ve ever heard. “Angie” sounds like music for termites compared to this.
THEA GILMORE: I think my being born was bad news for the Stones because if they’ve made a great record since the year of my birth (1979), I haven’t heard it. My dad was a big fan, so I grew up with their music playing in the house, especially the Sixties hits and the Sticky Fingers album. I loved the vibe of their stuff, though as I grew up a bit the whole hip-thrusting misogyny thing came to be a bit of a problem. I guess that’s why the stuff I like best is where Mick actually allows a bit of vulnerability to seep through – “Take It Or Leave It” is a neglected gem which shows what beautiful pop songs they could write, though The Searchers did a much better version of it. “Sister Morphine” is pretty chilling, along with the prophetic vibe of “Gimme Shelter”, but “Wild Horses” is my number one because of the way it aches from the first note. It’s got a ‘just before you jump’ feel about it, and while Mick is being as tender as he can allow, it’s very claustrophobic and desperate. The Stones were hanging out with Gram Parsons at the time, and I think his influence is really strong on this track. It’s only testosterone and guilt… but I like it!
18 RUBY TUESDAY
Single, 1967
CHRIS HILLMAN: Another out-of-left-field song. They were kind of in a weird place then. I think Brian Jones took them there and everybody was getting hippied out, as I call it. But again, like most of their songs, it holds up years after the fact. And that’s a great accomplishment. That was the thing that was drilled into The Byrds when we were younger with our manager [Jim Dickson]. He said we needed to record songs that we could listen to in 10 years’ time, not some goofy, novelty thing. And he was basically right. It was the same with the Stones. It’s a great song. Lyrically, it still has something to say.
PHIL MANZANERA: For its time, this seemed quite luxurious and elegant since it wasn’t the hard R&B side of the Stones, it was the sort of pop, or the ‘mincey’ side of the Stones. It’s very ‘Swinging Sixties’, there’s a very English side to it, and I suppose there’s that slightly medieval-ish thing in there too. “Ruby Tuesday” just added another dimension to their music.
MICK FARREN: An odd choice? I’ve always thought of this as poor Brian’s true epitaph, plus I also dug the Stones’ flower power medievalism as a move beyond apeing the blues to mannered and decadent Anglo subversion. An amazing piece of writing with its multi-sectioned verses building to the anthemic punch of the chorus, and the genesis of devices that would henceforth become a major part of the Jagger/Richards bag of tricks.
17 SWAY
Sticky Fingers album track, 1971
ED HAMELL: This is beautiful, transcendent junk. It sounds like The White Stripes on their best day of dreaming. I was at the South-By-Southwest music conference in Austin, Texas a few years ago. It had been about five nights of no-sleep, intense partying, non-stop talking, listening to music. The kind of exhaustion that brings about a life-confirming epiphany or brutal self-examination suicide. The festival (at least in those days) would culminate in a performance by Alejandro Escovedo on Sunday night at the La Zona Rosa club. What remained of the festival, some 2,000 strong, would meet there. He performed “Sway”. The line “It’s just that evil life that’s got me in its sway” cut through the haze of that crowd like a razor. It’s as close to a religious experience as I’ve ever had.
J MASCIS: My fave Stones song, even though Jagger is playing guitar.
16 BROWN SUGAR
Single from Sticky Fingers album, 1971
JOHNNY MARR: As is often the case with classic Stones songs, pretty much anyone in the Western world can recognise it within the first two seconds. And that’s to do with Keith Richards inventing a complete guitar style and genre all of his own, which is no mean feat. He didn’t just invent a sound but a whole new guitar style, possibly the coolest style since Robert Johnson or Hubert Sumlin, Howlin’ Wolf’s guitar player. It strips out any unnecessary intellectualising, prettiness or technical nonsense and just gets to the heart of it. This has got such a vicious groove. It’s primal and sexy. Evocative of the heart, body and spirit rather than the mind.
PHIL MANZANERA: As a guitarist, that riff is just the most fantastic thing to listen to and to aspire to play. It took me years to work out the tuning as it’s not standard guitar tuning and it’s played on five strings. There’s pages and pages of stuff about it on the Internet – it’s wonderful. When you realise how Keith did it, it seems simple but he was the first to do it. I’ve studied it in great depth. It’s just so raw, so simple, so perfect.
DAVE BALL: It was the first time I realised what brown sugar meant, the obvious drug connotations. It’s about heroin. What? He wrote it about Marsha Hunt? Maybe he did, that’s probably just me seeing drug references in everything. Bob The Builder? That’s about crack, isn’t it?
15 HAVE YOU SEEN YOUR MOTHER, BABY, STANDING IN THE SHADOW?
Single, 1966
JOE STRUMMER: I just have great memories of this coming out. I was at school, and the times were really defined by the Stones and all those great Sixties bands. There certainly was no time to do any school work. This is just thrilling – it swoops, falls, picks itself up and comes at you full face on, ruthless descending guitar, brilliant harmonies. And the “baby” in the lyric – very important that “baby”. It came in the middle of a frantic run of Stones singles. It was such a feeling to know that next week something like this would be out among us. And the picture sleeve was breathtaking – Charlie Watts in a satin hat!
IAN McCULLOCH: First heard it as a kid, and always loved the Stones more than The Beatles. This is just full on and I always think, “How did they make that bloody record?” This was in the old days before snazzy production. I remember hearing it in a pub in Henley when we were recording an album, and this just blew my head off. It also seemed darker and druggier and dangerous. It’s more punk I suppose. More of a link between them and the Velvets.
IRA KAPLAN: This is the most mysterious one of all. I’m sure I have friends who are more astute about listening to records and knowing how they’re made, but to me it’s completely impossible to play that song and put it on tape. I can’t even imagine how it was written. The whole thing, I mean, is amazing. It’s a great song.
IAN MacDONALD: The Stones were the first pop/rock act to make relentless transgression their main pitch. They just trod on corns in every direction, doing songs about psychotically wanting to paint everything black on a sunny day, women having nervous breakdowns, mothers addicted to tranquillisers. “Have You Seen Your Mother…” is the climax of this assault on good taste and was too far out to get to No 1, despite the group dressing up as their mothers to promote it. The production of the record is mind-blowing – this great, dark, echo-drenched wall of sound, raging away on the edge of total incoherence. Amazing.
14 HONKY TONK WOMEN
Single, 1969
ED HAMELL: I had lunch one time with Jimmy Miller, the brilliant producer of
this record who plays the cowbell at the beginning. This was well into the ’80s, well after his association with the Stones had ended, and well into his much-publicised heroin addiction. He was a shadow of his former self. Later in the ’80s I got a book signed by Marianne Faithfull, whose Stones association as well as junk addiction was behind her. Marianne is one tough cookie. I relay these facts because, as much as I love them, these Stones guys will chew you up and spit you out if you ain’t too careful. This track is as perfect an example of a rock’n’roll song as I’ve ever heard. It’s like higher-fucking-math. If you’re a guitar player, you can only marvel at the finesse and originality of Richards’ signature riff. If you’re a producer, you marvel at the simplicity yet power of the arrangement. There is no bass on the verses! When was the last time you heard that on a hit record? Where was Wyman? If you’re a fan, you can only marvel at how great it is, how nothing else has sounded like it since, from them or anyone else.
JIM REID: It’s just got one of the best intros of a rock’n’roll song ever. Just fantastic the way the drums start and that opening line – “I met a gin-soaked bar room queen in Memphis”! What a fucking brilliant line.
WAYNE KRAMER: In my humble opinion, a perfect rock’n’roll recording. The lyrics are salacious, the beat has raw sex. Guitars all distorted and funky. Very subtle horn chart in there. Chorus to die for. What’s not to like?
MICK HUCKNALL: This track embodies The Rolling Stones from the start of Keith’s magnificent guitar lick. It’s sexy, dark, and suits the Stones. It’s what Jagger sings best.
13 2,000 LIGHT YEARS FROM HOME
Their Satanic Majesties Request album track, 1967
JOHNNY MARR: It’s not surprised me that this song’s become more popular over the last 10 years or so. I think it was overlooked at the time. It’s simple, it’s got a groove and great coolness about it, and Brian Jones’ Mellotron keeps it interesting. And again, a really good riff.
RICHARD HAWLEY: Possibly one of the Stones’ strangest offerings. When everyone else had flowers up their arse the Stones tried to follow, but ended up with a hangover in a spaceship, bleaked out by it all! Dark psychedelia at its very best.
WILL SERGEANT: It’s because it’s totally different from what you’d expect from the Stones. They’d taken acid and you can tell they’re still fucked up. Just some of the sounds on it are amazing – the Mellotron, all the Brian Jones stuff on it. That’s always my favourite Stones period because he provided them with mystique. This shows the Stones as innovators, and I’ve always liked Keith as a guitarist.
12 HAPPY
Exile On Main Street album track, 1972
PHILL JUPITUS: The sound of a man inches from death having the time of his life. The opening chop of the first couple of chords and the subsequent joyful avalanche of sounds always lifts me at a very primal level. Amidst this track that sounds like a soundcheck falling down the stairs, there’s such a louche, gangling precision. It beggars belief to think of the state Keith was in when he made and produced this truly astonishing record. And, by the way, fuck what anybody else thinks, I reckon he’s got a lovely voice. And I’m not just saying that because of the scarf he gave me.
IAN McCULLOCH: I don’t like Exile . . . much – it’s too long and bluesy. But I love this one, love Keith’s vocals on this. I always prefer their melodic stuff.
J MASCIS: A great moment on the greatest record ever.
ED HAMELL: Lucinda Williams, when she has lost her joy, goes to west Memphis and Slidell to find it. I need look no further than this song. I’ve been playing the shit out of this lately.
JAY FARRAR: I love it because it’s an unadulterated Keith Richards song. He evidently plays all the guitars on it, even the bass. I like the lyrics. “Never wanna be like Papa, working for the boss every night and day.” That sorta resonates. The placing of the song is good, too. It gives a good sense of the second half. And Exile . . . is my favourite Stones album. I always like the songs Keith sings. And Keith’s guitar is the essence of the Stones – that’s what always pulls me in.
11 YOU CAN’T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT
Let It Bleed album track, 1969
IAN McCULLOCH: It’s an obvious one – it’s been used on adverts, but that’s never bothered me. I love it. The intro’s great, it’s just a brilliant melody, the chorus, the way he sings it. Like all their best stuff, it’s never lost its appeal because it’s proper rock’n’roll. Actually, when I was a kid, having thick lips, I always felt I had more in common with the Jaggmeister anyway. Even though he couldn’t have punched his way out of a paper bag.
RICHARD HAWLEY: I was going to have “Jigsaw Puzzle” with its surreal, Dylan-esque lyrics, but this is more original, really. The title is an eternal truth for almost everyone – we all get by on what we’re given and do the lottery with hope in our pound, but also it’s pretty mental – a little country-funk groove that ends up by singing “Hallelujah!” to everyone who would like vintage wine but settles for a couple of lite ales. Ho, hum!
MIKE SCOTT: A magnificent and epochal recording/performance – probably their best ever.
10 WE LOVE YOU
Single, 1967
BOB STANLEY: I always find it incredible when people say Satanic Majesties is unconvincing psychedelia and thank God they did “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”, which is absolute bollocks. Obviously, “We Love You” is an amazing record as powerful as “Tomorrow Never Knows”, certainly a match for anything on The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. “We Love You” is just so incredibly loud and frightening, with amazing sound effects and production. Never known how much it was down to Brian Jones, whether it was his idea to get the harpsichords and sitars out. Maybe it was – after he died experimentation went out of the window. Then again, he’s such an unpleasant character it’s hard to imagine him coming up with these ideas. Also, the weird thing is Bill Wyman produced Satanic Majesties towards the end, so maybe it was him. But when you hear “Je Suis Un Rock Star”, it’s hard to believe.
JULIEN TEMPLE: This still sounds great. I love the sneering tone, the two-fingered joy that they got away with something. On this they were talking about the media but in a very hip way. Again, there was something about this production sound that still really appeals to me.
ANDY ROURKE: If you think about when they did this, it’s really ahead of its time, the whole production with the backing vocals and the piano on it. There’s just a top vibe to it. I love the promo film they made of it as well, the whole trial thing was just brilliant.
9 PLAY WITH FIRE
B-side of “The Last Time”, 1965
JOE STRUMMER: This shows their genius, I think. There they were in London, building up a great frame of reference from the blues and American culture, and suddenly they switch back to this. It was great to hear places like Stepney and Knightsbridge suddenly spring out of the lyric, and the music is like something from another era, another era of English history.
MARC ALMOND: It’s really weird, because I just went and bought a Rolling Stones album with this on a couple of days ago. I heard it used in the background of a TV show recently and really loved it. It was going around and around in my head so I went out and bought it in the end.
BOB STANLEY: It’s the B-side of “The Last Time”. I hadn’t heard it for ages; it’s a quiet song, and it makes you realise how powerful they must have been at the time. There’s a real sense of danger here, and that minimal production makes it even more eerie. It’s fantastic. It’s perhaps because it’s not that familiar which makes it still sound potent.
DUKE ERIKSON: Flip “The Last Time” over and you’ve got this amazing song that starts off very understated then grows into this dark, threatening, sexual song. As an American kid in love with all things British, I especially liked the London references in the lyrics – Knightsbridge, Stepney – and the overall Englishness of the whole song.
MICHAEL J SHEEHY: I like the way this song name-checks Stepney Green since I used to spend quite a bit of time there. The real reason it gets me, though, is it seems quite a mean song with basic rock chords, bluesy guitars and a good, soulful chorus.
MICK HUCKNALL: Since I was a kid I’ve identified this song with Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, and posh aristocracy. The images are so vivid. To me it’s about how working-class boys dealt with toffee-nosed women.
8 JUMPIN’ JACK FLASH
Single, 1968
JEFFREY LEWIS: If the Stones could’ve still been writing songs like this just 10 years afterwards, there would have been no difference between them and The Sex Pistols. Rock just doesn’t get any better. How can you even compare The Beatles to this?
MICK FARREN: A great exercise in tempered anger, it’s simply a gas, gas, gas. The Stones’ greatest demonstration of raw power and their seminal contribution to the spawning of punk rock. The song also defined the dangerous cartoon character that nearly ate the band alive.
7 19TH NERVOUS BREAKDOWN
Single, 1966
BUTCH VIG: There’s a lot of classic Stones songs, but this sounds just as contemporary now as it did then. It also pinpoints how a lot of people can’t get by without hiding from reality. For my money, half of the Western world are probably popping pills right now to try and escape their lives . . . The song also has a great hook.
ANDY ROURKE: When we were younger, where me and Johnny [Marr] used to rehearse was like an old school hall. They used to stock records there of what they were going to use in the next week’s jumble sale. Me and Johnny used to rummage through them all and nick the good ones. I remember finding “19th Nervous Breakdown” there and really getting into the Stones from that.
CHRIS HILLMAN: Their raw energy always grabbed me. When I was in The Byrds, [drummer] Michael Clarke and I always wished we could be in The Rolling Stones. We just loved that rawness. “Breakdown” has that riff, a wonderful guitar riff, one of many to come from Keith Richards. That hammer-on he does is really something else. And the lyrics are great too – that rawness pounding into you.
MICHAEL GIRA: I don’t know how much we 12-year-olds knew about such matters, but it made me want to go there. Again, the sound of the recording is in itself a narcotic inducement.
IRA KAPLAN: I remember hearing the title before I ever heard the song and thinking what a great title that was and being really young and not really knowing what it meant but still just really wanting to hear a song with that name. And when I did, I mean, I love that song. The guitar line, the lyrics and of course the bass thing at the end when it comes down is really something magical. All the sounds on that record are amazing. It’s miraculous to me. It’s not as immediate as “Satisfaction” or “Get Off Of My Cloud”, but it seems to grab at a different place.
JOHNNY MARR: That whole run of singles from ’65 to ’67 was a big influence on The Smiths from the second album onwards, from the perspective of energy and arrangement. British rock’n’roll in three-and-a-half minutes. I took a picture of that period as being a subversion of the record charts. Because I was so obsessed with looking at videos and pictures and listening to the records, I was seeing at that point in time a band who were starting to understand their power. They were on a roll, completely fearless, and in a business that was even more conservative than today. The fact they were so dandified and audacious, not just in music but in the lifestyle. It was something I found very attractive and aspired to. A friend of mine has a theory about all great bands entering a period he calls ‘going imperial’. And that great run of Stones chart singles is them going imperial. It’s when that initial blueprint gets built on, and the style and music becomes more flamboyant and daring. It’s them really hitting cruise control.
6 PAINT IT, BLACK
Single from Aftermath album, 1966
MARC ALMOND: Kind of an obvious one for me. I was always much more of a Stones person than a Beatles person. And I’m a massive fan of Mick Jagger – he’s one of the nicest people in the world. Recently I was on my way to New York with a friend of mine, and Mick Jagger was in the airport lounge. I was starstruck and awestruck, but Mick went over to the person in charge and said, “Please make sure these people get through customs and immigration . . .” And when we got on the plane there was champagne, fantastic seats, they upgraded us and everything – with a limousine waiting at the other end. So Mick Jagger can’t do a thing wrong in my book.
BUTCH VIG: This song never fails to put a smile on my face. I love the Middle Eastern motif, which I reckon Keith Richards played while Brian Jones got drug-riddled. The tempo is fantastic, the drums are pounding and the lyrics are so dark and scary you wonder what was going on in Jagger’s head.
IAN ASTBURY: What an incredible comment on the late 20th century. They were smart enough to realise that all the institutions you were supposed to look up to had begun to crumble. I’m always more interested in the darker aspects of the Sixties, and for me the Stones captured that better than anyone else, especially that lascivious sexual power. The Stones really tapped into the blackness, the carcass of late Sixties society that was dying. On this track they had that urban voodoo sound down brilliantly.
RICHARD HAWLEY: Again, even though Brian Jones has the sitar, and it could all go hippy dippy, it doesn’t. It’s all about depression and dark urges – it’s always what distances them from all the rest: the dark urges.
JIM SCLAVUNOS: It both illuminates and exaggerates the kind of romanticised decadence they loved to flirt with.
ED HARCOURT: I was watching Full Metal Jacket the other day and this came on and it sounded fantastic. I think there was always a nasty streak about the Stones. It’s a track that every time I hear it, I get blown away.
CHRIS HILLMAN: I like this because it shows Brian Jones’ influence. We all write him off, but he really was an integral part of the band. He had this whole R&B thing goin’ and did things that people never gave him credit for. I always consider myself a footnote and I think Brian was like that, too. He was the guy who didn’t get as much recognition down the road. And though, sometimes, death brings on iconic status – you look at Gram Parsons and Jim Morrison – in his case, he was forgotten . . .
MICHAEL GIRA: Growing up in sunny suburban California, this was about as opposite to my surroundings as it was possible to be. It was definitely a healthy psychological/sonic balm. Probably used to sell cars by now, but it doesn’t matter. If this song were a world, I would want to live in it.
LYNDON MORGANS: “Paint It Black” is like sauntering down the Kings Road one fine summer’s day in 1966. I love everything about the record: the slow intro (the Stones were always sublime at intros – even if there wasn’t always a decent song attached), Charlie’s toms and the sitar glissandos, the surly vocal and only half-audible lyrics, the sheer propulsion of the thing. As original and exciting as “Strawberry Fields Forever”, “Good Vibrations” or “Like A Rolling Stone”.
5 TUMBLING DICE
Single from Exile On Main Street album, 1972
JOE STRUMMER: I like every period of the Stones really, but this is an amazing song and a great, great performance. It surges forward, but it’s not a straightforward tempo. It’s halfway between a slow and straightforward rocker. It has a mystical beat, and when it comes on I just sing along with everyone else – there must be some way of finding out the real lyrics, though I’ve been told Jagger makes up versions when they play it live. But part of what makes this special is that the words are a conundrum, like “Louie Louie”.
CHRIS HILLMAN: Typical of the Stones in that the working relationship of Jagger and Richards just couldn’t be beat in that particular era. Wonderful guitar hooks coupled with great lyrics.
NILS LOFGREN: There’s a lot more going on than you’re used to in a Stones song. It seems a little bit disjointed but then once you get a chance to process it all and get your mind used to hearing a Stones song with that much information, there’s just this great rollicking love of rock and blues-funk and swing and everything that’s great about popular music in there.
ED HAMELL: Shit, this isn’t even my favourite song from my favourite album. That’s how strong my love is. But if you’ve ever travelled to the southern US, where all this began, there is an indefinable vibration. It ain’t for everybody. It is as intangible as Jagger’s words. It’s as simultaneously loose and precise as Charlie’s drumming. (Is that guy a fucking genius or what?) It is as historic and contemporary as Richards’ guitar. It is a host of contradictions. Beautiful, angry and weird, this country, perfectly personified in this song.
4 (I CAN’T GET NO) SATISFACTION
Single, 1965
MIKE SCOTT: The greatest rock’n’roll single ever.
DAVE MARSH: That riff is as close as any guitar player will come to being a one-man version of the Memphis Horns.
MICHAEL GIRA: To me, the song embodies optimism – a sustained pre-orgasmic shiver. This is one of the best-sounding recordings I’ve ever heard. The room it was recorded in is the most important instrument, seconded by the guitar hook, which sounds like it was recorded in a giant’s bowels.
MICK FARREN: The ultimate and classic masterclass rock song, and textbook blending of guitar hook and vocal shout, so perfect that it held up even when Otis Redding and the Stax horns drove it hard around the block. Also it replaced Gene Vincent’s “Woman Love” as the complete yardstick by which all future howls of horny teen-male anguish had to be judged.
RICHARD LLOYD: It’s the riff. That’s the real beginning of their relentless presentation of craving and dissatisfaction. It’s a relentless guitar riff. It gets a little more complex later on, but at the beginning it’s just three notes.
3 SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL
Beggars Banquet album track, 1968
BOB GELDOF: I think the Stones have always been really underrated as lyricists. Mick’s so highly articulate and the words on “Sympathy For The Devil” are just amazing. That whole period from Beggars Banquet through to Exile On Main Street was astonishing.
BUTCH VIG: I recently saw the whole film about Altamont and it made this song seem relevant in a way the Stones probably never intended. The chords are really simple, but the hooks and the lyrics are awesome. I know there’s a couple of radio stations over here that just play The Beatles all day, but you could do the same with the Stones: they have a whole mountain of songs just as good as this one.
IAN ASTBURY: Probably my all-time favourite track by anyone. The subject material I absolutely loved, as I have a fascination for the arcane. They put it down in that sensual, erotic context. You can visualise them putting this together. Again, it captures the death of the Sixties dream, but also the sense that there was no way of going back. It’s probably been one of the most ripped-off songs as well, which obviously shows its incredible power.
ANDY ROURKE: It’s brilliant musicianship, great playing, and a great vibe. As a bass player, Bill Wyman did inspire me, although his style didn’t really lend itself to The Smiths so much. In fact, I find myself playing more like him now than I did then. Just in the kind of notes he used, he was definitely an influence. And I don’t move around much either.
WILL SERGEANT: It has a unique vibe, and I think it’s based on The Master And Margarita by Bulgakov. It’s just amazing. The thought of the devil worrying what people thought of him. It’s pretty cool imagery and shows how imaginative they were. And yes, you can never get bored of hearing it.
ARTHUR BAKER: Looking back, “Satisfaction” was filled with optimism for the Sixties and this song was the nail in the coffin. I was only a kid when this song came out, but I knew it was an end to the hedonism of the era and hippie idealism.
STEVE WYNN: My favourite guitar solo of all time. If someone was to ask me how to play this solo I would just advise: “Stick out your hand and raise your middle finger.” Same effect. This guitar solo swears at you, tells you to go fuck yourself and smiles while doing it. It also reminds me that Mick Jagger used to be such an incredible lyricist. The bit about the Kennedys was such an absolute ballsy thing to write in 1968 and doesn’t seem inappropriate or gratuitous. Just the anti-gospel truth. Hard to believe considering the type of lyrics he’s written in the last 20 years. I mean, “I’m so hot for her, I’m so hot for her, she’s so cold”? Give me a break.
MICHAEL GIRA: What can you say about this? It’s been covered, referenced, exploited, ridiculed, and probably used to sell Nikes by this point, but I can still listen to it and get inside the thing itself without getting distracted by the associations that it’s accrued since I first heard it. Plus, its ‘message’ remains as pertinent as ever.
JEFFREY LEWIS: Hideously impeccable production and arranging! It’s the way the whole thing builds in hypnotising layers, and that solo that makes you feel like you’re being jabbed with a white hot sonic sewing needle. Why is it seemingly impossible for anyone to be this damn good today? Jimmy Miller was probably a big part of the band’s sound on these albums, ’cause the Stones never sounded like this before or since his turn as producer.
ED HARCOURT: One of those tracks that shouldn’t work but it does. It doesn’t sum up an era for me, but it has stood the test of time and I love the lyrics. It’s also quite baggy for its time, which is odd, though that’s the percussion. It’s an hypnotic, relentless, tribal track that suggests there was a bacchanalian orgy going on in the studio.
RICHARD LLOYD: The middle guitar solo is 15 seconds of the greatest lead guitar in rock. Also, it’s a religious, primeval understanding, before good and evil. The depth of this song is amazing. You could write a college thesis on it.
2 STREET FIGHTING MAN
Beggars Banquet album track, 1968
IAN MacDONALD: I love this because of Charlie Watts’ behind-the-beat drumming with that huge slamming offbeat, and because the guitars sound like wire-string fanfares, and because Jagger’s melody sounds like crowds surging back and forth against police lines, and because the production makes everything sound a hundred feet tall. It’s just a colossally exciting record – the biggest beat on a Stones track apart from “Get Off Of My Cloud”. This is about the anti-Vietnam, anti-establishment marches of the late Sixties, in particular the Grosvenor Square battle outside the US Embassy. “Dancing In The Streets” redone as revolution. Dig those crazy maracas, dad.
JOHNNY MARR: It couldn’t have been done by any other band. It has that aspect of The Stones that’s almost become a cliché now – tight but loose. All of them playing in the same space, but that space not being uptight. It’s funky and vibey.
BOB STANLEY: Most of my favourite Stones tracks are power-pop, incredibly tough sounding stuff. On this the intro’s amazing as well. I don’t really like that much after ’67, and I wish they made more records like “Street Fighting Man”. Never been that big on their devil blues angle, and the wasted-in-the-south-of-France thing just bores me tears.”
BUTCH VIG: I used to hear this on the radio and I love the way it sounds so fucking intense when the groove kicks in. It’s an amazing performance and Jagger sounds on fire lyrically . . . For my money, he’s still one of the best lyricists in rock’n’roll. He writes great songs that manage to be both timeless and extremely relevant to the culture (or counterculture) they’re surrounded by. I don’t care what anyone says, Sticky Fingers and Exile On Main Street are both completely untouchable records.
ED HAMELL: As hard a rocking song as they’ve ever come up with, (and Lord knows there’s been some bastards), done entirely with acoustic guitars. I can relate. I wonder what the artistic, and specifically pop music, manifestations of this “new” world will be. This incredible external force. This internal frustration and bewilderment. And if there’s to be no “fighting in the streets”, will poor boys (and poor girls now) play in a band?
MICHAEL GIRA: This was the Stones at their apogee, in my opinion. Direct, rushing, joyful violence.
ANDY WILLIAMS: I love the way this sounds like it was patched together from a number of different recordings. It’s exactly how a lot of artists like The Beta Band deliberately make their music today… We actually spent three days in the studio trying to match the drum sound for one of our new songs, “Hit The Ground Running”. To get that tinny, DIY sound we had to put the drums through a tape recorder and try and degrade the sound. It’s just an amazing song with a real vibe about it.
JAY FARRAR: I think I first heard it via one of those double vinyl compilations.
To me it always kinda represents the pre-eminent raucous drinking song, but there are a lot of things I like about it, from the powerful lo-fi opening acoustic chords to the fading strings and piano. I kinda like it all. There’s also some legend about it. Like Keith’s acoustic guitar track at the start of the song was recorded on a cassette machine and transferred onto two-inch tape, which is why you get that lo-fi wow and flutter. And that Charlie played a fold-up toy drum kit. They may just be legends but, hey, I believe it.
STEVE WYNN: First of all, this is one of the best-sounding records ever made, and I’ve heard that the song was actually recorded into a cassette deck, explaining its intensely compressed sound. If that’s true I would say all modern studios should be burned to the ground and musicians should just be issued $20 condenser-mic cassette recorders for all future recordings. Man, this is amazing. Some of Charlie Watts’ best drumming, an incredible vocal and some of the best rhythm guitar ever. This is the kind of song that inspires you to start a rock band or to go outside and smash things up. Or both.
1 GIMME SHELTER
Let It Bleed album track, 1969
IAN McCULLOCH: It’s fantastic, it’s mega, absolute genius. From that intro to that chorus, the vocal on it – they’re genuinely brilliant. Also the backing singing is fantastic. It’s spooky. You can play it to death, you can dance to it and you can play it in the dark, just get totally tranced out by it.
IAN ASTBURY: This period of time was definitely a sense of crisis and again the Stones documented it perfectly. On this track you could feel their energy and their sensuality. With The Beatles it appealed in the head, whereas the Stones appealed to anyone taking drugs or having sex. And this is a track you can definitely lose yourself in. This has such an incredible, sensual sound. I remember it used to get played at an old goth club in London in the early ’80s.
MIKE SCOTT: Rock’n’roll dives headlong into the end-of-the-’60s abyss and still feels great.
RICHARD HAWLEY: This track makes me move every time. Cocaine paranoia is pretty much summed up with this one. “Rape, murder, it’s just a shot away” – maybe not that paranoid, although it does make me want to fuck, fight and drink! Maybe I’ll just have a lie down instead.
BOB HARRIS: The whole thing that was happening in the late Sixties, the idea of idealism hitting a wall with Altamont, the demonstrations in 1968, “Gimme Shelter” really locks that period of time together.
FRANK BLACK: This song would have to be Number One in the pantheon of amazing rock recordings. The rock spirit is so strong, the mood is tough and cinematic and the first piano chord that kicks in is so dramatic it leaves me speechless. It’s completely untouchable.
JIM SCLAVUNOS: The Stones never really embraced hippie idealism – they were always too dark. But this song publicly marked their disillusionment with youth culture. I was also coming into my puberty and groping around for the kind of answers young men seek, so it seemed to sing out to me in all its sweeping, evocative glory and epic paranoia.
GUY GARVEY: I adjusted the recording level on a tape of this tune to make it kick in harder when the drums came in. I love it, and think it inspired scores of bands, including ourselves and Primal Scream.
JEFFREY LEWIS: It’s the best rock recording ever, on the best rock album ever. It gives me chills just to think about it, and sometimes if I mentally recite it I get tears in my eyes. Musically and lyrically it sums up the pure distilled heart of human terror and hope. “Rape, murder, it’s just a shot away/Love . . . it’s just a kiss away.” Fuck, now I’m crying. Seriously.
MICHAEL J SHEEHY: This song has a great outlaw feel to it, and the mixture of harmonica and slide guitar is just magic. People talk about Charlie Watts’ unique drumming style, but I’ve always admired his dress sense and his wit in interviews.
STEVE WYNN: When Dream Syndicate were recording our Medicine Show album in San Francisco in 1984, I would go out each night and drive around the city blasting Let It Bleed from my cassette deck and building up a healthy steam of attitude and anger before tracking down one of the many liquor stores in the Tenderloin, buying a half-pint of Jim Beam and taking it all back into the studio to cap off an evening of musical mayhem. This song was so dark, so diseased, so foreboding, and it raised the bar so that it was hard for anything else to sound anything but wimpy by comparison. It’s one of those songs that’s both daunting and inspiring at the same time. And if this song didn’t invent Altamont, it was certainly the perfect soundtrack.
DUKE ERIKSON: Nothing rocks more than this, and Jagger had never sounded so urgent and desperate before. It’s classic Stones with Mary Clayton wailing until her voice breaks and Mick and Keith going back and forth between the guitars. It’s very hard to make great art that reflects the time it’s in so well and still stands up decades later, but “Gimme Shelter” manages it. This was how we felt then, and I guess it’s how we feel now.
MARC ALMOND: There’s just something about the chord changes in it, and the connotations, the whole Altamont thing and this whole darkness that goes around the song. What does he sing at the end? “It’s just a shot away, just a kiss away.” There’s just a great feeling about it.
ARTHUR BAKER: This is such an epic song that everything they’ve released since pales in comparison. From 1969 to 1972 no one could touch them, and everything after that just seems like a bad parody of the Stones we grew to love.
MIKE JOYCE: I was always influenced by punk but through Johnny Marr, the influence of the Stones sort of bled onto me. Rather than being just a time-keeper, Charlie Watts always went with what Keith was playing, which always stuck in my mind. In The Smiths, I always tried to play off Johnny in the same way. “Gimme Shelter”, though, has to be the Number One Stones record, just for the intro alone. It’s just beautiful. And from a guy that doesn’t even play six strings on his guitar.
JIM REID: I was thinking about the first time I heard “Gimme Shelter”. It was round about the punk days, William and me were really into punk rock and the raw energy of that, but then he played me “Gimme Shelter” and it was just…just fantastic.
CHRIS HILLMAN: This means a lot to me in a couple of ways. I love the song, the darkness of it. At the other end of it, I played at Altamont with The Flying Burritos, and “Gimme Shelter” tied into the whole of that… It was a very oppressive day, you knew something was happening. There was very much something in the air that day. From the minute we left the hotel to drive out to the site, things happened. It felt very bad. We had a car accident, and then we barely got in – I had to argue with the Hell’s Angels to get onto the stage with my bass, they were so out of their minds. And it really wasn’t the Stones’ fault for that situation. It was really that The Grateful Dead had gotten the Hell’s Angels to do security and it was a nightmare. It was a day that was oppressive and dark – the sky was dark, the mood was dark – and the ending was the worst scenario you could imagine. I mean, I love “Gimme Shelter” as a piece of music, but it also reminds me of a real interesting time in my life. I thought that day was the end of the Sixties – it had come from the wonderful innocence of The Beatles and Gerry And The Pacemakers to this… The Burritos’ country-style music actually calmed the crowd down that day. I remember talking to David Crosby, because Crosby, Stills And Nash had just played, and he was saying, “Boy, there’s something real strange going on here.” But once we got on to play, we actually got a brief moment of sanity. People actually stopped. Maybe it was the change of rhythm, but suddenly there was a more positive thing going on. We got a very good reception that day. And as soon as we were done, I gave the bass to the equipment fella and got out of there. It wasn’t until later, when I was back in my room, that I saw that the guy [Meredith Hunter] had been stabbed. And it wasn’t a surprise.
JOHNNY MARR: Without a shadow of a doubt my Desert Island Disc. I first heard it on a weird, unofficial album – I think it was actually called “Gimme Shelter” – and I remember hearing it at a friend’s house during school holidays. For me, it’s got everything I like about music, from the intro, which is white voodoo, to the riff, which has become an archetypal rock’n’roll riff, to Jagger’s vocal, which is real blues. It’s one of those examples of Jagger nailing a style which he made his own. It’s got a darkness to it and a true sophistication. For me, when the Stones get into that primal space, they are actually truly sophisticated. And Merry Clayton’s backing vocal is the most classic R&B wail of all time. It’s also the best guitar solo that’s ever been put on record. I think there’s about six notes in total in it, but it’s played with pure feeling, totally appropriate. This record to me sounds like a one-man agenda from a person who’s really onto something that no one else is.
Thanks to: Nick Johnstone, Rob Hughes, Simon Goddard, Neil Davenport, Sarah-Jane, Nigel Williamson, Gavin Martin, Chris Roberts, Michael Bonner, Stephen Dalton, Nick Hasted, Sean Egan and Damien Love