The Rolling Stones: Singles Box 1965-1967
Starting with one of The Stones' biggest hits, following that with another one, this incredibly fertile period ended up with the group's ill-advised psychedelic phase. However, even the hippy stuff was good shit, man. Listening to this whole collection is just a real pleasure.
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
The one that gave us the Stones riff for the first time. The song spawned numerous myths about its creation - Jagger and Richards locked in a room by Andrew Oldham until the had written a number one hit etc etc. Whatever, it has become possibly their most famous song. From its iconic "dah-dah-da-da-daaaah" singalong riff to Jagger's precociously cynical vocals taking swipes at the shallowness of the advertising industry and contemporary consumer culture. This was one of the early occasions where a pop song had such sneering, questioning lyrics. If you feel you have heard Satisfaction just too many times, just close your eyes and put yourself in the place of someone hearing it for the first time in August 1965. Now how good does it sound? Its effect must have been seismic for so many people.
The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man
One of my favourite Stones deep cuts here. Nanker and Phelge get all cynical about the music business in the USA, unsurprisingly, as they were in the middle of touring the country and were at the mercy of God knows how many "promotion men". It's a great early Stones hidden gem.
The Spider And The Fly
A slow-paced drawling blues that saw Jagger warning young girls not to get caught in his spider's web of lechery, or maybe he is just telling them that he's going to catch them in it anyway. Either way, lyrically, it is wry and clever. This sort of what would be now considered casual sexism was de rigeur in 1965, and all very harmless it was too, I have to say. Sorry. Back to the song, I love its bassy, bluesy slow grind.
Get Off Of My Cloud
Were two better singles ever released within two months of each other than this and (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction? Even better, for me, than Satisfaction was this one, a number which showcased Charlie Watts' rat-a-tat machine gun drumming and also gave us more world-weary lyrics. Such observational cynicism from ones so young. Jagger sings from the point of view of someone living in a typically sixties new-build high rise block, looking out of his windows, musing on the word outside and getting annoyed at his neighbours' loud music and his own ringing telephones. It is a rant at modern life delivered perfectly, propelled furiously along by Watts' insistent drums, like a migraine hammering into your stressed-out head. It was the new, frenetic, pressurised sixties life in three minutes. From Jagger's first "urrgh" at the beginning, the song takes no prisoners.
I'm Free
Another Jagger/Richards number once more appealing to the rebellious teenage fanbase who fantasised about being free to do what the hell they liked, I'm Free served as something of a clarion call to the young. Very sixties. Very swinging London.
The Singer Not The Song
Rated by many reviewers that I have read as a killer deep cut, notably Sean Egan in The Rough Guide To The Rolling Stones, this syrupy pop ballad divides fans' and commentators' opinion, it seems. Alan Clayson in The Rolling Stones Album File thinks it's rubbish. Me, I'm kind of half and half. As The Stones may have said - I'm just sittin' on a fence. Musically, it has hints of The Stones baroque tendencies mixed with some high-pitched Beach Boys-style harmonies near the end, a slightly unusual thing on a Stones record.
As Tears Go By
In direct comparison with the incendiary Get Off Of My Cloud comes the disarmingly beautiful and sensitive As Tears Go By. Jagger sings as if he is a tired, weary old man totally fed up with the world and longing for some gentle beauty in his world. The song gives him that, in its wistful lyrics and its stunning baroque-influenced melody and string-dominated instrumentation. This song did as much as any to convince many that these weren't simply a bunch of gobby, unwashed oiks.
Gotta Get Away
Upbeat and r'n'b in style, Gotta Get Away taps into the whole teenage angst thing as young people considered leaving home in a way they never had done before. Times were changing. Jagger was not singing about leaving home though - it was one of several tracks that saw Jagger griping about his ex-girlfriend Chrissie Shrimpton in a way that made the listener wonder what he ever saw in her. Musically, it is extremely catchy, though.
19th Nervous Breakdown
Along with Mother's Little Helper, poor old stressed-out housewives didn't get much sympathy from the insensitive Stones, did they? However, this song may not have been addressed at them, more at a paranoid man unable to cope with modern life. I always felt it was a partner to Helper, though, aimed at a woman. Either way, the character is a figure of sneering contempt for The Stones. The song is notable for Bill Wyman's rumbling, rubbery "dive-bombing" bassline at the denouement.
Sad Day
An acoustic driven mid-pace number that is part slightly underwhelming, part charming, particularly in its Elizabethan-sounding mid-song keyboard instrumental bit that backs the chorus. For me, it has a bit of a deep cut appeal. It has a very Rolling Stones 1966 vibe to it.
Paint It, Black
Much more impressive than much of the UK Aftermath album's material was the song that preceded Have You Seen Your Mother Baby, Standing In The Shadow? as a single - a Stones classic in Paint It, Black. Why the comma in the title though? A processing typo apparently, I'm told. Utilising Brian Jones's Eastern instrumentation obsession to the max, featuring him playing the sitar on the song's now iconic coda and getting right in on the hippy thing, the song is at the same time a hippy freakout and a solid upbeat rocker. It is packed full of energy, hooks, instrumental bits you can sing along with as well as a killer vocal.
Stupid Girl
Although the songwriting of Jagger and Richards was developing at quite a pace, however, some puerility still existed in their schoolboyishly sexist lyrics at times, notably on the organ-driven grind of Stupid Girl. Jagger had written a fair few songs in this period moaning about ex-girlfriend Chrissie Shrimpton. He really didn't let up for a while. It makes you wonder what he saw in her in the first place! The song was robustly covered by Ellen Foley on her 1979 Nightout album, she turned it into a bitchy gripe against another woman.
Long Long While
The Stones revisit their bluesy sound circa 1964-65 on this Cry To Me/Pain In My Heart-style blues rock ballad. Unusually for this period in the group's songwriting, Jagger admits he was wrong and his girl was right! The song has never been played live by the group and has probably been totally forgotten. A bit of a shame, as it has its understated merits. Just how prolific were Jagger and Richards in this period?
Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadow?
Motown was huge in 1996 and big brass breaks were everywhere - The Beatles used one notably on Revolver's Got To Get You Into My Life and Keith Richards freely admits that he wanted to get a sort of Otis Redding Stax-ish sound to this odd choice for a single. While that was most laudable in that his influences were impeccable, the song wasn't actually that good. Beginning with some jangly guitar, the brass then arrives in punchy style but the overall sound is really muffled and indistinct. Jagger's vocal is hurried and the whole thing seems just too damn frantic to me. There is a bit of punky energy to it but it is the impression of sonic murk that has always remained with me. No amounts of remastering seem to have improved things. The best bit is the very sixties-ish bit where it slows down for a short while.
Who's Driving Your Plane?
Classic Stones blues rock deep cuttery for you here. I have no doubt it will appear on many Stonesologists' list of hidden gems. It chugs along with a huge bluesy, grinding thump almost a couple of years ahead of the time the went full-on blues rock with Beggars Banquet and Let It Bleed. It was one of the heaviest blues numbers they had done thus far. Top marks.
Let's Spend The Night Together
Let's Spend The Night Together was a very controversial song at the time, prudish US radio and TV shows asking the lyric be changed to "let's spend some time together". How things soon changed. That very summer everyone was sharing the same bed, man. The song is a frantic, attitude-bearing rock number that was covered superbly, in my opinion, by David Bowie on his 1973 Aladdin Sane album. He gives it a wired-up, electric sexuality that outdoes even Jagger, amazingly.
Ruby Tuesday
A wonderfully tuneful, hooky and totally infectious Stones ballad is up next in Ruby Tuesday, one of my favourites of the "slow Stones" songs. It has lovely, evocative verses and imagery along with an irresistible chorus. As with quite a few Stones songs, it has been covered by others, perhaps in an arguably superior style. Two of these are Rod Stewart on his 1993 Lead Vocalist album and Melanie Safka, whose early seventies throaty "goodbye Roo-bay Toos-day" rendition has always done it for me, big time. I love it. The Stones' version still retains a simple innocence though.
We Love You
This was The Stones' "thank you" to their fans number. It is lightweight in a freaky, psychedelic fashion typical of the summer of 1967. Featured on backing vocals are no other than John Lennon and Paul McCartney. The song is full of overdubs and indulges Brian Jones' desire for oddball experimentation. It marks the height of The Stones' thankfully short-lived Beatles-imitation period. It carries with it a strange appeal, however.
Dandelion
The 'b' side to the We Love You single, the light, inoffensive Dandelion catches on to the hippy movement's often blissful, child-like themes. Once again, McCartney and Lennon join in on backing vocals. No doubt they were all drugged up. Apparently they were all dressed in Paisley and velvet. Gotta love it, man.
She's A Rainbow
The best of The Stones' psychedelic material, She's A Rainbow is a brilliant, addictive piece of pure 1967 in the same vein as Love's She Comes In Colours. It has an unforgettable keyboard hook and an affecting Jagger vocal. It just sums up the zeitgeist, man. I love it and always have done.
2000 Light Years From Home
Along with communality, drugs and peace, the other leitmotif of the late sixties/early seventies era was space travel. It was here, on 2000 Light Years From Home, that The Stones produced something that was ahead of the game. This got on the space rocket a few years before others, expressing the perceived loneliness of space travel before David Bowie (Space Oddity) and Elton John (Rocket Man), and the mystery of space travel in general long before Hawkwind's 1972 Silver Machine single. Instrumentally, it is also a most impressive track, great drum sound and psychedelic guitars and an ethereal vocal. It is by far the high point on the album. Along with She's A Rainbow they were the Satanic Majesties album's only two really properly memorable tracks.
In Another Land
Oddly and rarely, In Another Land features Bill Wyman on vocals. This was not surprising, maybe, as he wrote the song (finally breaking the Jagger-Richards monopoly) and only he and Charlie Watts of the regular Stones appeared (fully, apart from later backing vocals) on it. Steve Marriott of The Small Faces played guitar and Nicky Hopkins played piano. It has one of those medieval-sounding keyboard pieces. It has echo, reverb vocals and a general 1967 "hippy rock" sound that often sounds more like Pink Floyd or Cream or Traffic with hints of The Kinks than it does The Beatles, although the drum sound is very Ringo. I have to say that the snoring at the end has always put me a little on edge. It's bloody loud! Thankfully, it doesn't appear on the single version.
The Lantern
On The Lantern we had some genuinely impressive bits - very Beatles-ish psychedelic, with that Starr-inspired drum sound again. However, it was not all derivative, there is some excellent guitar and piano and Jagger's vocal is one of his best on what was not a great album for him.
