Rolling Stones – No Expectations…Sunday Album Cuts

This song will chill you out on this Sunday. No Expectations was on the 1968 album Beggars Banquet.  The song is a favorite of mine on the album. This one and Prodigal Son is a throwback to some of their older blues influences. The feeling and the emotion of this song is fantastic.

Brian Jones was on the album and made one of his last contributions with slide on this song. The following year Brian would die in a swimming pool at his home.

This is one of the great Stones album tracks.

Mick Jagger: “That’s Brian playing steel guitar. We were sitting around in a circle on the floor, singing and playing, recording with open mikes. That was the last time I remember Brian really being totally involved in something that was really worth doing. He was there with everyone else. It’s funny how you remember – but that was the last moment I remember him doing that, because he had just lost interest in everything.” 

From Songfacts

When Rolling Stones founder Brian Jones died in 1969, this song took on new meaning, as lyrics like “Our love is like our music, it’s here and then it’s gone” made it a fitting elegy. Jones’ slide guitar on the song was one of his last meaningful contributions to the group; after years of drug addiction and squabbles with the band, he was fired from the group in June 1969 and died less than a month later.

The Stones performed this on Rock and Roll Circus, a British TV special The Stones taped in 1968, but never aired. Brian Jones played this with a passion he was clearly losing as drugs took over his life. Rock and Roll Circus was released on video in 1995.

Nicky Hopkins, who also played with The Who and The Beatles, played piano on this.

Lenny Kravitz opened several shows for The Rolling Stones in 1994, and was invited onstage to jam with them at a Cleveland show. Kravitz helped out Mick Jagger in 2001, co-writing, performing on, and producing his song “God Gave Me Everything.” 

This song was featured in the 1978 ant-war film Coming Home, with Jane Fonda and John Voight

No Expectations

Take me to the station
And put me on a train
I’ve got no expectations
To pass through here again

Once I was a rich man and
Now I am so poor
But never in my sweet short life
Have I felt like this before

You heart is like a diamond
You throw your pearls at swine
And as I watch you leaving me
You pack my peace of mind

Our love was like the water
That splashes on a stone
Our love is like our music
It’s here, and then it’s gone

So take me to the airport
And put me on a plane
I’ve got no expectations
To pass through here again

…

Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player.

28 thoughts on “Rolling Stones – No Expectations…Sunday Album Cuts”

  3. “Take me to the airport, put me on a train …” Good cut, Max! In its own way is this song a classic: The Rolling Stones almost unplugged. With this serenity and the feeling of complete relaxation, came the Stones the drug community among their fans close again. Not only with this song did the Stones take up the zeitgeist of the late sixties sensitively and turned it into music.

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  4. not bad at all…another new Stones tune to me. Sometimes I wonder if they couldn’t have had better singles selection at times, because a number of album tracks you dig up seem to outshine some of their singles from similar eras.

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    1. Yes I agree with that. This one was featured in Gimme Shelter…I guess they were looking at a purely more pop release…plus albums were the thing at that time.

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    1. I know…he had a lot to give…I wonder what kind of music he would have done. From what I read he loved CCR at the time and wanted to emulate that.

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      1. Frankly, when I think of The Rolling Stones, it’s Mick Jagger and Keith Richards first. Then come Ronnie Wood, Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman. And Mick Taylor.

        Brian Jones kind of comes last, which is crazy, given he founded the band and came up with the name – not to mention his musical contributions.

        I don’t do this on purpose. I guess it’s a subconscious thing. I assume part of the reason is Brian has been out of the picture for such a long time!

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      2. Yes he was very important to that band and really shapped their sound. He added that color to their pop singles…he has be practically erased from their history and it sucks…he was a great slide player.

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  10. You’ll remember the titanic Rolling Stones gear I picked up…just up to 69….I remember there was some discussion about Brian’s last contributions. Don’t think this was it but it was close…

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      2. He was more popular or just as popular as Mick…that is hard to believe. He added a lot of color to those songs. It is sad…he started the whole thing.

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      5. I’m fine dude…I’ve been posting….I posted the Black Crowes today and the Georgia Satellites and Who Documentary yesterday… I may not be showing in your reader

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  11. Sad song but, apropos to the life of Brian. I was doing some reading about him, earlier. Fathered, what, five, six kids and had no relationship with any of them. Had trouble in school, Anita dumped him when he was in the hospital, lost managing control over the direction of the band, drugs, alcohol… He sound like he had a borderline personality disorder. He was clearly a brilliant musician but, must have been a tortured soul.

    I’ve never heard this song before but, it’s not bad at all.

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    1. I’ve read a couple of books about him. He is almost denied by Mick and Keith…the guy was THE guy…just as important as Mick in the beginning.
      He doesn’t get his due… no he wasn’t a great boy friend or husband that is for sure…Mick and Keith would turn his guitar off in the studio at times….just being jerks…he was a trying person at times but still…it was his band

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