Rolling Stones – Sway ….Sunday Album Cuts

This was one of the great songs on Sticky Fingers…which has been called their greatest album alongside Exile on Main Street.

Mick Taylor wrote this track with Jagger, believing he’d receive his due acknowledgment, but it was ultimately credited to the Jagger/Richards duo. It was the type of slight that the guitarist took in his stride in the early days but, would grow into a larger issue in the coming years.

The Black Crowes were influenced by this song heavily on their track Sister Luck… they captured the same feel. I thought of this song because of a blogger friend (Jeremy James). He doesn’t blog much any more but has a cool youtube channel. He shows how to play this slide solo. He analyzes guitar effects, and equipment, and shows how to play different songs on guitar….check him out.

Sticky Fingers was the first album The Stones recorded on their own label and the first in which Mick Taylor played guitar on nearly all the tracks. The album peaked at #1 in the Billboard Album Charts, and #1 in Canada, and #1 in the UK in 1971. They had a lot of competition that year with The Who’s Who’s Next and Led Zeppelin IV.

On December 2, 1969, the band had begun work on what would be their first album of the 1970s, and the one upon which so much of their myth and mystique would be built.

At the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Sheffield, Alabama, they cut three tracks Brown Sugar, Wild Horses, and You Gotta Move in three days, all of which would subsequently appear on the band’s ninth LP, Sticky Fingers. They did this before they played at the disaster that was known as Altamont…where Meredith Hunter lost his life…on December 6, 1969.

Sway

Did you ever wake up to findA day that broke up your mindDestroyed your notion of circular time

It’s just that demon life has got you in its swayIt’s just that demon life has got you in its sway

Ain’t flinging tears out on the dusty groundFor all my friends out on the burial groundCan’t stand the feeling getting so brought down

It’s just that demon life has got me in its swayIt’s just that demon life has got me in its sway

There must be ways to find outLove is the way they say is really strutting out

Hey, hey, hey nowOne day I woke up to findRight in the bed next to mineSomeone that broke me up with a corner of her smile, yeah

It’s just that demon life has got me in its swayIt’s just that demon life has got me in its sway

It’s just that demon life has got me in its swayIt’s just that demon life has got me

It’s just that demon life has got

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball fan, old movie and tv show fan... and a songwriter, bass and guitar player.

37 thoughts on “Rolling Stones – Sway ….Sunday Album Cuts”

  2. Never knew the connection between the Crowes and The Stones on this one Max. Sway is a great track man. So good and sucks that Taylor got the shaft in the credits which is shitty but thats why they call it the music biz. Amazing that KD Lang got credit a few years later for the Stones tune so they wouldn’t get sued or a PR disaster which wouldn’t have helped either…

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    1. They did it to Ron Wood and Bill Wyman also…and some say Brian Jones came up with The Last Time riff… I know why because of their publishing company.

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  4. Great pick! Man, what an album “Sticky Fingers” was. There really aren’t any fillers on this record. And with “Brown Sugar”, “Wild Horses”, “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” and “Dead Flowers” you have four of the best Stones songs of all time – at least, that’s how I feel about them! 🙂

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      1. I’ve increasingly become appreciative of “Exile” and it’s probably my no. 2 right behind “Sticky Fingers”. “Get Yer Ya-Yas Out” is up there as well, even though it’s a live album. I really feel the Stones never sounded as great, at least live!

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      2. For me….this was their peak. I know I’m like a broken record…but as much as I like Ronnie Wood….Taylor brought something never replaced.

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  5. Some good guitar in there. You can sure hear how the Crowes drew from them on songs like this. Makes me think, you often hear bands like Squeeze or XTC called ‘Beatlesque’, odd we don’t call Black Crowes and others like them ‘Stones-esque’!

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    1. I know…even Keith Richards remarked “that guy has me down pat” lol. One of those album songs that has stuck with me through the years….along with Moonlight Mile off of the album… Hope your computer straightens out.

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    2. I heard somewhere sometime an old compilation CD from a magazine giveaway- Mojo? Uncut?-some mag- and it was an ‘as inspired by Exile-‘ I liked ‘Pollyanna’ by Paterson Hood, which led me to back the Drive-By Truckers and Jason Isbell.
      As Max says, and I agree after recently having had our Wi-Fi issues- damned computers- they do try your patience…

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      1. I really like the guitar in Pollyanna obbverse!

        Hey obbverse…I’m going to make an announcement soon…would you be open to hear some of my demos if I post them? My voice sucks, to me, but they were outlines for our band…but life got in the way.

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    1. I do think Sticky Fingers was their best….personally though…Beggars Banquet is my personal favorite. I love that album. Never a bad thing!

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  8. I would place “Let it Bleed” and “Beggar’s Banquet” above “Exile”, but that’s just me. The big problem with “Sticky Fingers” was that the zipper on the album cover would damage the cover of the adjacent album on one’s shelf. The banana peel on “The Velvet Underground and Nico” caused no harm. I haven’t listened to a lot of Black Crowes, so thanks for the combo – I definitely hear the connection. (There was much speculation when this album came out as to who is in the photo and with what he stuffed his pants.)

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    1. I read about that zipper doing that to the records…I think it messed up Sister Morphine. That is something the designer should have seen coming bu the figured it out by zipping the zipper halfway down…then stacked it would press down in the middle.

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      1. As to listening in to your demo, sure, yeah, I’d be happy to. I appreciate anyone who has played and tried in a band, any band outside of the Salvation Army one, since I couldn’t ever play a thing or sing a note myself, to my chagrin. Practice only made me worse!

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      2. I appreciate it…unfortunatley I play pretty much every instrument on them except when I note it… I have a good time at it and I guess that is all that matters.
        I had a friend who said the same thing as you…I showed him how to play Gloria on bass…and he fulfilled a dream in front of our high school…I love that stuff.

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  12. In the Exile Vs Sticky Fingers debate – if there is one – I’d go Sticky Fingers because its shorter and leaner. Exile rambles on a bit towards the end. But both are brilliant albums. And ‘Sway’ is a great song to pick out ahead of the more famous hits.

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  13. This is a good one, that I haven’t listened to very many times. It’s no wonder Taylor didn’t stick around for the long term. He added a lot more than they gave credit for. I like the sound and feel he adds to their music. It’s great he’s been back with them onstage in recent years. I didn’t realize this album was from the Altamont time frame. Those were scary, dark times.

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  15. Cheers for the mention! By the way, I don’t think I knew about the MT songwriting credit, or lack of it — but now you mention it, the chords do sound unlike other stones songs in a way. More so, the more I think about it.

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      1. Well the chords weren’t advanced really, just different I’d say. Different feel to it I think….hey did you know that Jagger played the rhythm part? Shocking and so cool. I remember watching the steel wheels doco back in the day and jagger was playing electric on mixed emotions. struck me as surprising – little did I know!

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      2. That might be the first time I’ve seen him play electric during Mixed Emotions.
        Keith taught him back in the day…I can’t believe Mick wrote the music to Brown Sugar.

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