Rolling Stones – Emotional Rescue

Good morning everyone… hope you have a great Monday.

I bought the Emotional Rescue single when it was released.  I also bought the album and it was a let down to me after the great Some Girls album. The title track is heavily leaning toward disco and I do like it. What attracted me to the song is the superb bass line in the intro.

Ronnie Wood played bass on the song and Bill Wyman played synthesizer. Ronnie is a great bass player. He played bass on Rod Stewart’s Maggie May. The song peaked at #3 in the Billboard 100, #9 in the UK, and #1 in Canada.

The Stones played this for the very first time in concert on May 3, 2013, 33 years after they recorded the song. Keith Richards was not a fan of the  song and it never made a Stones setlist until the first show of their 50 and Counting tour at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

Mick Jagger: ‘We were just doing dance music, you know. It was just a dance music lick I was just playing on the keyboard. Charlie has a really nice groove for that.” 

From Songfacts

This alienated many Stones fans who thought it was a sell out to disco, but it was still a Top 10 hit in the US and UK.

Mick Jagger sang much of this in a falsetto, which was the thing to do with disco songs. The Bee Gees did the same thing, but unlike The Stones, were never able to get back the fans they lost to disco.

Bobby Keys’ sax solo and Mick Jagger’s vocals were added almost a year after the rhythm track was recorded.

Jagger wrote this on an electric piano.

The video for this used the same thermal imagery effect as the album cover. It was cutting-edge visual stuff in 1980.

Emotional Rescue

Is there nothing I can say, nothing I can do to change your mind?
I’m so in love with you, you’re too deep in, you can’t get out
You’re just a poor girl in a rich man’s house
Ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh
Ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh
Yeah, baby, I’m crying over you

Don’t you know promises were never meant to keep?
Just like the night, they dissolve off in sleep
I’ll be your savior, steadfast and true
I’ll come to your emotional rescue
I’ll come to your emotional rescue
Ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh
Ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh
Yeah, the other night, cryin’, cryin’ baby yeah I’m cryin
Yeah I’m cryin, I’m your child baby, child,
Yeah I’m a child, I’m a child, I’m a child

You think you’re one of a special breed
You think that you’re his pet Pekinese
I’ll be your savior, steadfast and true
I’ll come to your emotional rescue
I’ll come to your emotional rescue
Ooh ah ah ah ah ah ah ah
Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah
Yeah, I was dreamin’ last night baby
Last night I was dreamin’ that you’d be mine
But I was cryin’ like a child
Yeah I was cryin’, cryin’ like a child
Could be mine, mine, mine, mine, mine all mine
You could be mine, could be mine, could be mine all mine

I come to you, so silent in the night
So stealthy, so animal quiet
I’ll be your savior, steadfast and true
I’ll come to your emotional rescue
I’ll come to your emotional rescue
Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah
Yeah, you should be mine, mine, ooh!

Mmm yes, you could be mine, tonight and every night
I will be your knight in shining armor
Coming to your emotional rescue
You will be mine, you will be mine, all mine
You will be mine, you will be mine, all mine

I will be your knight in shining armor
Riding across the desert on a fine Arab charger

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.

21 thoughts on “Rolling Stones – Emotional Rescue”

  1. Same with me- Some Girls was my first ‘new’ Stones album and when Emotional Rescue came out- I was expecting more of the same- for it to be another great one– while it had its moments- and I did listen to it dozens of times… it fell short- but it had its moments.

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  4. I had that single too, I still like the song… I know I’m in the minority but I prefer Stones songs that are atypical for them, like this, over their straight-ahead rock numbers. Don’t think I heard very much of the rest of the album though.

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    1. It was a weaker album to me. I like their country things like Far Away Eyes and Dead Flowers a lot. The album did have She’s So Cold which this post started out being that…but I changed my mind.

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  6. I was a massive fan of disco, and this song is not disco in my opinion. Yes, it has a dance beat, but most disco songs had much faster tempos, with lusher orchestration. I think their 1978 hit “Miss You” is more disco than this song, though it too barely qualifies as disco to me.

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  7. This may be the first ever 45 I bought back upon its release as I was probably going through an Emotional Rescue as a young lad back then. lol
    A great tune.

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    1. I was 12 so yea it was the same for me. I got a few older singles before this like Jumping Jack Flash and Satisfaction but this may be the first new one I bought.

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  13. I like the different sound, and even though it is different it is still easy to recognize who the band is. You’re right, the bass is outta sight here. I like the bridge which elevates it imo. Didn’t Keith talk about the disco influence and not being happy with Mick?

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